Bad Taste (1987) *Weird And Wacky *

"Nope, Nope I'm totally one of you, look yummmm!"

Genre: Action Comedy Horror Sci-Fi (New Zealand)

Starring: Peter Jackson, Doug Wren

Directed By: Peter Jackson (The Frighteners; Heavenly Creatures)

Overview: When a group of aliens invade Earth to harvest the hip new delicacy (human meat) they find their invasion force interrupted by a band of rag-tag ruffians.

Acting: Peter Jackson's first feature film, I believe, before Meet the Feebles (garbage) and Dead Alive (awesome), and certainly before the fame of Lord of The Rings. He even stars in this one it's so low budget (his skinny self that is). The acting is total toilet. Stupid, amateurish, overzealous and what did you expect from a gore flick. However there's enough of the appeal in the bad guys and their ringleader to make this fall into the passable category.
Rating: 6

Cinematography: The early Peter Jackson fare is not known for it's smooth editing style, panoramic shots, use of fantastical filters and lens effects, or really, frankly, even for being able to have a camera man hold the frikken thing steady for more than 2 seconds. All that to say that the camerawork is atrocious, but the gore more than makes up for that, and I don't remember any scenes that were too dark or too bright.
Rating: 5

Script: The writing? Come on. Well there a few cheesy lines here and there, and the aliens don't really speak, they grunt like morons (which is part of their appeal I guess), but I did sort of like the delivery of the alien ringleader. He explained his harvesting motivations pretty well, I guess...
Rating: 6

Plot: The plot is plotless. Guy finds alien infiltrators. Guy goes after them for an hour. Aliens reveal their plan, aliens go after guys, who get even. Aliens transform and keep trying to get even. And that's about it. There's a subplot about our hero who's brainpan is split open, and he wigs out when his brain is exposed... It's not about the plot, ok, but at least it's not completely annoying.
Rating: 4

Mood: The whole denim-clad alien disguise thing makes the whole thing seem low-budge, which it is, frankly, but then they transform, tearing out of their pants, with their bum-cheeks hanging out. That, is genius. This film is a mixed bag of utterly atrocious stupid gunfight scenes with endless clips and crappy overdubbing gunshot sounds, and terrific blood effects and exploding heads and things. I guess I'd file it under 'good', but you really gotta be into the gore kitsch.
Rating: 7

A.) Shocked and disturbed by the fact that you've accomplished nothing in life in the face of death.
B.) Hiiiilarious

Overall Rating: 56% (Leaves a Bad Taste, But With a Nice Finish)

Aftertaste: This is a cult classic, and it's not bad if you like gore. If you like gore and splatter cult, then this is repertoire, just like Dead Alive. I got a little kick out of it, but honestly, it's obscure like Liquid Sky for a reason. No one will call this 'Good' at a golf club...