This is a great movie. Its everything a video nasty fan will love. Peter Jackson began his career with it.It has action, silliness, blood, aliens, guns, Kiwis and an assorted array of weirdos; in other words more Kiwis. It has anti government jokes and a big fat spaceship that looks like something that is usually shot into toilets. This is Peter "Lord of the Rings" Jackson's first film. If you loved the irreverent humor that he brought to those fantasy films, you'll warm to seeing where it came from. This movie started it all. It was shot on his parents farm making it an inspiration to many young filmmakers. This is a cult classic and for good reason.

Shot on a shoestring-budget, you can clearly see it is rather amateurishly shot (which is also excused by the fact that this is Jackson's directorial debut), but the gore effects are pretty impressive considering the low production values, even if it was made nearly three decades ago. The amateurish acting (except for the alien leader), along with the cinematography and special effects were done in true 80's style, back when movies didn't rely on CGI but instead on "real" special effects, which adds to it's charm. If this was made 10 years ago, it would've been much less charming. The movie is pretty simple, which means you can just turn your brain off and enjoy the movie for what it is; A comedy splatterfest with no gimmicks, or hidden messages. The gore is so over-the-top that you can't help but find it hilarious every time brains gets splattered all over the place. The film doesn't try to take itself serious in any way, which just further adds to it's comedic values. The character of Derek is the funniest one in the film, and he has some pretty hilarious one-liners; "I'm a Derek and Derek's don't run", "The headshot's the only true stopper", "I'm born again" (the last remark should be taken into context with the climax).Overall, not a bad movie, even though it may at first glance look like one. It's understandable that this movie has gained a cult-following. I would definitely recommend it to fans of gore and horror, if they haven't already seen it.

If the story is true... (And I am quite sure it probably is given the time the film was made and a lot of favors he called in) - This was a seriously low budget flick...Peter Jacksons first major film is reputed to have only cost $600 in his native New Zealand.And is it good??? Its DAMN BRILLIANT!It is just totally over the top... Totally insane... Overacted, overstated, and totally unforgettable!Its a film that has to be seen to be believed... REALLY!Some fun facts!The aliens heads are flat on top as Jackson's mothers oven was too small to fit the masks in properly and squashed the material.The film WON the first prize in the 1987 Gore Awards...As for memories... My sister is a massive horror fan - She was watching films I could not stomach back when we first saw this... A Nightmare on Elm Street scared me witless but she raved over it...So imagine how funny it must have been for me to not only sit there laughing but eating a Massive meal (4 Chicken pies, 2 fried eggs and a full tin of Sausages and Beans all washed own with a few beers) while my sister was HEAVING!!!I have so many good memories of this film... Yes its dumb! Yes its effects are OH GOD SO DATED even by the 1980's standards, yes the film has a completely nonsensical plot! BUT THAT IS WHAT MAKES IT SO GREAT!!!! YOU HAVE TO SEE THIS FILM! REALLY!!!

I sometimes jokingly remark how Peter Jackson's career was perfect until he directed the Lord of the Rings trilogy. It's hard to imagine that this director, who now specializes in big budget Hollywood movies, started off by creating twisted and gory low budget movies – his directorial debut, Bad Taste, being the prime example of this early, strange phase. Bad Taste was by no means an easy experience for Jackson, since the filming took 4 years. However, the hard work paid off and Bad Taste can be used as a valuable lesson in "do-it-yourself: low budget film making". It's amazing how, in spite of rather limited resources, Jackson managed to make it all work and look good – he created the masks and firearm replicas for the movie himself. He even constructed his own counterweighted steady-cam. Bad Taste is a definite must see for every aspiring movie maker, if only for Peter Jackson's creativity.The movie follows 4 agents (called 'The Boys') of some sort of secret service, who investigate alien activity in a small town. Apparently, the aliens have killed the whole population and replaced it. Things become more complicated when the aliens kidnap a charity collector passing through, and it's up to The Boys to save him, by using any means necessary. As you can see, Bad Taste's plot is fairly simple, there isn't much "story" to it – the movie is mainly action and dialogue driven. Due to this fact, the movie gets boring from time to time and I find it to be the worst from Peter Jackson's early phase. I also find it to be the least funny one. While there are quite a few amusing scenes, it doesn't even come close to other early classics like Braindead and Meet the Feebles. But at least there is enough violence and gore in it to make it interesting. The movie does get pretty graphic. Did you first notice the guy missing the top of his head or the Peter Jackson cameo?The effects in the movie (influenced by the cult special effects artist Tom Savini) are surely its best quality. You'll see heads exploding, limbs being torn off and even some chainsaw action. The scene which impressed me the most was the one where a character, played by Peter Jackson, fights with another character – also played by Peter Jackson. Actually, if you're not informed prior to the watching of movie, you may not notice he plays two different characters since they don't really look alike. Who knows – maybe Jackson has an acting talent waiting to be further developed? Speaking of acting, the actors did an OK job for this kind of movie, no one is laughably bad. On a side note, I think it's important to remark that all of the dialogue was dubbed in post production; that, however, isn't much of a bother since it isn't very apparent.While I wasn't really keen on Bad Taste (like I said – I found it to be somewhat boring and I prefer other early Jackson works) I would definitely recommend it to everyone. It's a gory, funny trash/cult flick about some guys fighting off a bunch of butt shaped aliens, set to an 80s heavy metal soundtrack. Why wouldn't you watch it?Rating: 6/10 Read more at http://passpopcorn.wordpress.com/