Bad Taste

A group of alien fast food workers has come to Earth. Their mission: harvest as many humans as they can find to supply in their interstellar restaurant chain. As they imitate, eliminate, and consume...rvate the population of a small town, it's up to the Astro Investigation and Defense Service (they're hoping for a name change soon) to save the day. And if that means a little property damage is done or sheep blown up, so be it. It's all in the name of saving the human race, after all.

I've recommended one of Peter Jackson's early works before, and here I am again with his first ever feature film. Again, it's a nasty, rude, gory, offensive, disgusting filled to the brim with NZ accents and bodily fluids. And once again, I absolutely adored it.

It has all the looks of an early, low-budget film (especially in the camera that was used), and it is. The lighting can be really annoying sometimes, and it isn't helped by the DVD transfer. Much like Meet the Feebles, it looks like a worn VHS tape sometimes, and that cam make it difficult to see just what's going on. Hopefully one of these days they'll figure out a way to get a better transfer out of it (doubtful, again considering the camera used), but it still works for now. The sound, on the other hand, is quite good, and all the insults, squishes, scroops, slops, and explosions come in nice and loud (lips don't always match up with what's being said, though. No biggie, just one of those little things). Not to mention that fun, slightly riveting score.

And even with the shoestring budget, the money was stretched well. The eventual creature effects and all the gore are the same super-bloody, squishy, and generally mushy stuff that you would find in Jackson's later films (Braindead especially), and while it's used a bit more in moderation here, this is still a very disgusting film. The faint of heart and weak stomached need not apply (one character spends part of the film with a belt around his head to keep his brains from falling out, after all). There's lots of well done gunfighting and explosions (it's half action movie, essentially), and a solid script to back it all up.

Assuming you can understand them. As in films like Lock, Stock, and Two Smoking Barrels (oh hey, my first recommendation), the accents here are quite thick, and can be a bit unsettling at times. But after a while you'll get the hang of it, and by the end you won't miss a beat as these very enthusiastic actors do their thing. And for a bunch of amateurs (basically Jackson, who plays two rather main roles, and his mates filmed this thing on weekends), they do good work. Very lovable bunch of leads fighting a dastardly bunch of aliens.

It's a little cult movie that's definitely not for everyone (the title says it all), but for lovers of splatstick and b-movie horror goodness, this is one they'll love. And while Jackson has moved on to 'legitimate' movies, we'll always have things like this to show where his heart really lies.

Trailer: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XtPYTfS8Kuw