Michael Jackson Movie:

Editorial Review:
Could a title be any more direct? New Zealand maverick Peter Jackson made a splash (well, more of a splatter) with this film debut, a slapstick gross-out comedy about an alien fast-food franchise that turns a small town into a cheap source of meat. All that stands in the extraterrestrials' way is the Alien Investigation Defense Service (yes, it's a tasteless gag), a bunch of would-be Rambos who take on the aliens with axes, rocket launchers, and chainsaws. Jackson mines vomit jokes, dismembered corpses, and brain-spattering gore for over-the-top laughs and succeeds with inventive low-budget effects, crack timing, and sheer exuberance. Not bad for a film made on weekends with homemade props and a bunch of energetic mates. Jackson topped himself a few years later with the even more outrageous and hilarious bloody gut-buster Dead Alive.

The limited-edition two-disc set also includes the documentary featurette "Good Taste Made Bad Taste," a revealing "making of" shot at the time of production and featuring behind-the-scenes footage of Jackson's home-made special effects, and a 16-page booklet with cast interviews. --Sean Axmaker

Bad Taste [Region 2] Reviews:
Be warned--this isn't a 2-disc special edition...it's a cheap release
2009-06-12 - enough people have reviewed the merits of the movie, I just want to let people know, this particular listing (ASIN: B00004Z1GI ), as of the date of this review, is described by amazon as the 2-disc special edition. It's not. It's a cheapo single disc release by an obscure company, and it pretty much looks like it was transferred from a VHS tape in full screen. Definitely not worth the listed price of 17.99.

I simply didn't like it.
2009-02-17 - Five star ratings for this? I must have really missed something here. Before I even begin, it's worth mentioning that I am typically very much a fan of low budget, campy splatter movies. Movies such as Army of Darkness, Toxic Avenger, and Evil Dead are easily among some of my all time favorites. However I have a limit to how much idiocy I can take in one sitting, and Bad Taste exceeded it many times over before the end credits began rolling.

Normally this would be the part of the review where I tell a bit about the plot, but this was just so nonsensical that I literally had to go online after I viewed it to look up a plot synopsis. If I have to follow up a movie watching experience with research on what the hell I just watched...Well, it's generally not something I enjoy doing, let's put it that way.

Bad Taste is apparently about an alien organization that harvests human meat for their fast food chain and an earthly organization that bands together to put a stop to foil their plans. What did I get out of Bad Taste? What appeared to be twenty grown men running around their backyard playing army man spouting indecipherable British banter for 90 minutes.

If this didn't have Peter Jackson's name preceding the title, this would just be another largely forgotten B-movie that might not have even made it's way onto DVD yet. But low and behold, tack a famous director's name on it, and suddenly it's gold. It's practically like sprinkling glitter on a turd. I am usually among that group that goes for this kinda stuff, but how can you enjoy a movie when you have no clue what's going on and you can't understand a word anyone onscreen is saying? Perhaps you were interested in checking out Bad Taste because you're a big fan of Jackson's Dead Alive. Be warned, although Bad Taste is quite gory, it is NOT in the same league as Dead Alive. Not even close. Or worse yet, if you were interested in taking a look at this because you enjoy Jackson's more famous movies such as Lord of the Rings, I'd be willing to bet you would be less than satisfied with Bad Taste to put it lightly.

It's understood that the appeal of this type of movie lies within it's ineptitude. A "So bad it's good" kind of charm. However when a movie FAILS at being BAD, you know something has gone horribly awry. I can certainly appreciate that this is low budget, a first effort, etc. But even still, you've got to have at least *some* standards. If gore alone makes a passable movie in your book, then Bad Taste is for you. Otherwise this is a safe one to skip.



The grossest movie I've ever seen!
2008-12-13 - Of course, everyone knows that before the director of the LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy became a big shot Hollywood director, he made some pretty vile Horror movie gore-fests when he started as an aspiring filmmaker. There's DEAD ALIVE, which has been called the "goriest film of all time" and if you've ever seen it, you probably won't disagree with that claim. And then there's this movie.

BAD TASTE is Peter Jackson's first film, and while the body count is lower and the gore isn't as over the top as DEAD ALIVE is, this movie managed to do something that no other movie has ever done: make me nauseous. I've seen FACES OF DEATH, I've seen SALO, I've seen the sickest viral videos you can think of, and usually I get shocked more than anything. However, this film had a scene that made me absolutely sick to my stomach and it took every ounce of my will just to hold it in. I won't ruin it but let's just say it involves people drinking something they shouldn't be drinking. But what makes it so disgusting is not only the visual, but the sound effects. BAD TASTE has some of the most absolutely disgusting sound effects I've ever heard in ANY movie and it makes the gore in the film even more cringe-inducing. Even hours after watching the film, I was still haunted by it and gagged at the mere thought of it.

With that story out of the way, the film is basically about an Alien invasion. Alien beings are on Earth disguised as humans who all wear matching clothes and look like the belong in some sort of suicide cult or something. Their mission on Earth has something to do with killing humans for an intergalactic fast food chain. Then a bunch of goofs who are supposed to be some sort of elite group of mercenaries (or something like that) are given a mission to eliminate the Aliens before they whipe out every human within a certain radius.

This film is extremely low budget and I don't think anyone in the film has had any prior acting experience. It was more of a labor of love for Peter Jackson and his friends that eventually became a funded project and ultimately a Cult Classic. With that being said, I won't rag on the visuals or the acting because it's not professional per se, but let's just say that you shouldn't expect a cinematic masterpiece. Going based entirely on an entertainment level, I must say that I was sort of bored with this movie. It wasn't horrible, but I just couldn't get into it until the very end. It wasn't "laugh out loud" funny either. Not to me, anyway. I thought DEAD ALIVE was excellent and worthy of it's Cult Classic title, but not this one. BAD TASTE tested my patience and most of all my stomach. But on a plus side, for how amateur this film is, the effects in the movie were amazing and it seems like Jackson and his crew really put forth a lot of effort. A lot of camera tricks were used, and the homemade makeup effects were very well done. If you're into filmmaking at all (especially Horror filmmaking), you may find this movie to be very inspiring.

Overall, it's not a horrible movie considering the circumstances in which it was made (it was filmed over a period of four years and I did not notice any outstanding continuity or consistency problems), however it just didn't keep my attention. The almost vomit-inducing scene aside, the gore in this film is so over the top that you can't help but love it (for example, Peter Jackson's character has a huge hole in his skull for most of the movie and has to keep stuffing his brains back into the hole and securing it with his belt). The filmmaking is noteworthy. The characters are entertaining (even though some of the actors sound like they're constipated). Just as an overall film, it was a bit on the boring side. But the bottom line is, if you like gore (Comedic gore, at that) then I highly recommend BAD TASTE. You may not like it, but it's still a film that every Horror fan should and MUST see.

3 stars

Low budget blood and guts comedy horror movie
2008-08-07 - This movie is pretty much tongue in cheek sci fi.
Jack in the golden arches from outer space wants to Kentucky fry
humans. The aliens seem unstoppable after butchering a small
New Zealand town. To the rescue is an odd team of young commandos.
The rest is a shoot out between the heroes and the invaders.
As bad as the dialog and special effects are
the comedy touches kind of make up for it.
I just don't much like horror movies...

Low Budget my @$$
2008-06-30 - You might as well go ahead and forget the fact it's low budget, because it's mighty impressive that a movie like this was made on a shoe-string budget (the masks were baked in Peter Jackson's mother's oven!). Peter Jackson's first film is a gory comedy action movie (In my opinion, this isn't a horror movie or a horror comedy) about aliens that take over a town to harvest them for their fast food franchise.

Bad Taste really isn't TOO gory (nowhere as gory as Dead Alive) as it has more action and tense parts that lead to action, with some humor. Even though there isn't that much gore, there's no shortage of inspiration, or at least some memorable parts. The beginning of the movie where the alien gets his top part of his head shot off is great and looks gross (the way it's supposed to be! Yum.), and seeing the machine gun being fired off is awesome too. I won't really spoil it all for you, but the gore parts will most likely keep you entertained, though don't come just for that.

The story may be a bit bare bones and cheesy, but that's the way I like it! And the actions scenes on it are pretty funny and there are rocket launchers being fired and plenty of machine guns. It's a good watch, though it isn't really, for me, worth having on DVD (hence the three stars). Still worth a watch and entertaining.