October 31, 2003

New Zealand is beautiful. I’d want to live there some day, if it weren’t for Russell Crowe and all the zombies, deranged muppets, murderers, ghosts, hobbits…and ALIENS!

Peter Jackson’s first film seems at first to be a traditional tale of alien invasion. Turns out that the aliens are harvesting humans to sell in their outer space fast food franchise (Crumb’s Crunchy Delights) – kinda like V! The Alien Investigation Defense Service (AIDS for short) send in ‘the boys’ to eradicate the aliens. Eradicating aliens is a messy, messy job. A messy job that can only be accomplished with uzis, chain saws and a rocket launcher.

I didn’t think it was possible for Peter Jackson to make a film gorier than Dead Alive – Bad Taste definitely proved me wrong. In addition to the copious amounts of fake blood and latex appendages, it seems that a great deal of roadkill was also procured for this film. Roadkill and that stuff that they throw away at the Butcher stuff…you know, the parts they won’t even put in hot dogs.

Not only do aliens hate Slim Whitman, they also hate Heavy Metal!

Jackson shot this movie on weekends over the course of four years. It’s pretty obvious, because the continuity is shit. So what? It is a bit disorienting at first, but in the long run, it doesn’t really take away from the film. An interpreter would have been nice, there are some thick New Zealand accents present. It’s a bit draggy at parts, but bear it out and wait for the gore – it’s worth it.

Year – 1987
Rating – Unrated
Runtime – 91 minutes
Genre – Indie Horror
Director(s) – Peter Jackson
Writer(s) – Ken Hammon, Tony Hiles
Actor(s) – Terry Potter, Pete O'Herne, Mike Minett, Craig Smith, Peter Jackson
BOB Rating – Three BOBs
Favorite Quote – "There's no glowing fingers on these bastards." - Derek (Peter Jackson)