Episode 24 - SPLAT! The Savage Humour of Peter Jackson

THIS EPISODE CONTAINS ONLY LIGHT SPOILERS  

Kia ora koutou, Willing Participants!  

Come to New Zealand with us, for this very Kiwi episode of The Retro Podcast Massacre!  

Val takes a look at the splatstick years of Peter Jackson, from building models and effects in his dad's shed and cooking up aliens in his mum's oven for "Bad Taste" through to bringing us debauched, filthy puppets in "Meet The Feebles" and then on to THEEEE GORIEST FILM IN THE WORLD EVAH - "Braindead" aka "Dead Alive".  

We'll be talking about drinking chunder! Cooking charity workers! Murdering puppets! Sumatran rat monkeys!  And mowing the lawn.  

So grab yourself a can of L&P, a packet of Rashuns and sit back as we take you to the Land of the Long White Cloud... and HEAPS of blood... 

Ngā Mihi, Val

Transcript

 I’m sorry to interrupt the show so early. I don’t normally do this. 

It’s just that this entire episode of The Retro Podcast Massacre, requires a Pets in Peril Alert.

[PETS IN PERIL ALERT]

Pets in Peril Alerts – for those of us who openly laugh when Jason whacks a fellow in the goolies with a machete, but who scream in to a pillow when some fucking survivalist kills a squirrel on the tv show “Alone”.

I must break it to you, Willing Participants, that in the course of this one single episode of the podcast, we’re going to cover films that feature mangled monkeys, squashed rats, eaten dogs, roofied poodles, exploding sheep, injured elephants, murdered fish and a rabbit with gonorrhoea. 

There’s no easy way to say this. It’s going to be carnage. Steel yourself. Gird your loins and prepare yourself for this week’s episode. 

[PETS IN PERIL OUTRO]

 [NZ National Anthem]

New Zealand! Aotearoa! The land of the long white cloud! 

A jewel in the Pacific! A beautiful land of contrasting climates and populated by a diverse, energetic, forward-thinking people!

I emigrated here in 2017, and am immensely grateful for being given a home in New Zealand, and being made very welcome by the Kiwis.

But like many people, even before I got here I was aware of the Kiwi contribution to the world. For a country of only six million people, New Zealand’s contribution to sports:

[All Blacks sporting clip]

Politics:

[New Zealand goes no nuclear]

arts,  music, science, the environment, exploration and adventure are all immense. 

But all we hear about are fucking HOBBITS. 

[RECORD SCRATCH]

As soon as you arrive in Wellington airport, you’ll see a pair of giant model eagles flying above your head, with a wizard on their back. My wife’s home town is about an hour away from Hobbiton, where you can tour the hobbit-holes and Isengard is about an hour’s drive away. 

And where did all this start?

[ROCK MUSIC]

[CLIPS FROM BAD TASTE/FEEBLES/BRAINDEAD]

That’s right. It all started with the imagination of a sick little bastard, making special effects in his mum’s oven. Join us tonight as we look at the early career of Oscar winner and sick little bastard – Sir Peter Jackson. 

[THEME]

[METLINK ANNOUNCEMENT]

Hello Willing Participants! Fancy seeing you here. You find me on my daily commute home from my terribly dull job located in the city of Wellington, back home to Paraparaumu. A small town located on the Kapiti Coast. 

The Kapiti Coast is a beautiful area, a little warmer than the windy capital, it’s made up of a string of small communities, built up for people like me. Who do not wish to live in the city, or who cannot afford it. The towns have names like Waikenae, Paekakariki and for me, they have that small-town Kiwi community feel, which I love.

Ah. We’re approaching Pukerua Bay. Which reminds me of the story of Pukerua Bay’s most famous son. A young fellow who grew up here with grandiose dreams of monsters, aliens and zombies. His name was Peter Jackson.

[UKELELE MUSIC]

[SOUND OF CICADAS AND TUIS]

Stunning though it may be, growing up in small-town New Zealand in the 1960’s was not enough for a young fellow with imagination. An only child, his imagination was fired – both by the rugged beauty of the Kapiti Coast, but also by that BEAST in the corner of the room – TELEVISION.

Young Peter especially loved tales of fantasy. From Gerry Anderson’s “Thunderbirds” to Hammer’s tales of Gothic horror. But it was the creatures he loved the best. From Ray Harryhausen’s stop-motion miracles to Willis O’Brien’s groundbreaking monsters in King Kong. 

Peter Jackson says that the first time he saw King Kong, he knew what he wanted to do with his life.

His parents bought an 8mm film camera for home movies of the family at the beach. You can imagine the sort of thing. Aunties waving at cameras. Dad doing a silly dance while mum waves her hand to stop filming because her hair’s a mess. But eight year old Peter was fascinated. He’d just seen King Kong on the telly he says that was the moment he knew what he wanted to do with his life. 

A flurry of childhood projects followed – and seemed to run on two parallel tracks. One was his desire to figure out how to make movies. He’d get together with his friends, dig up the back garden to make trenches and bomb craters and film World War Two movies. The other track saw Peter in the garden shed making models of New York skyline, replete with an Empire State Building and a home-made puppet of King Kong. 

What I’m seeing in these early tales is that Peter Jackson never wanted to make REALITY. He always wanted to make MAGIC. But he can put it so much better than I do:

[HITCHCOCK QUOTE]

His teenage years would see him turning himself into a self-taught film-maker and special effects guy. This was through a variety of projects – most of which went unfinished when he viewed the results of his work and became disappointed with them. He made a James Bond spoof, a Hammer style vampire movie, and a Ray Harryhausen tribute, complete with a stop-motion cyclops made from papier-mache. 

And it looked pretty accurate too. 

[QUOTE]

His ambitions led him to drop out of college at the age of 17 to get a job as a photographic engraver for a local newspaper. 

Fast forward five years and Peter Jackson had bought himself a wind-up 16mm Bolex camera. That might sound a bit budget, but the effect he could get with it was so much better than with his previous 8mm childhood camera. Essentially, you cranked the camera up with a wheel on the side, and that powered the camera for 30 seconds of footage. The effect was so impressive to the 22 year old, that he was keen to make a short film over a few weekends with his mates from school, and from the newspaper.

The short film was called, “Roast of the Day” and follows the adventures of a charity collector named Giles who wanders into the wrong town. He knocks on the door of a house, only to find it inhabited by carnivorous aliens who chase him into the woods, catch him and eat him.

Incidentally, the name of the town was “Kaihoro”. From the Maori words “kai” meaning “food” and “horo” meaning “fast”. Or in other words, the town is called “Fast Food”.

But I digress. The point is that it was a short story. A simple tale. Peter Jackson managed to secure a location for the shoot – a lovely old house which belonged to friends of the family. They agreed to let him film there at the weekends, so long as he didn’t make a mess.

After all. How many weekends would it take to complete a ten minute film?

Well, the setbacks began early. The star of the film Craig Smith, who played the part of Giles got married. To a devout Christian. Who did not approve.

“Sorry buddy,” said Craig. And dropped out of shooting.

I don’t think it has ever been more true of a film-maker than of Peter Jackson that “necessity is the mother of invention”. He did a bit of hasty re-writing, introducing new characters who would go into the same town to save Giles and edit them in around the footage he already had. 

One of those friends, Pete O’Herne, turned up on the first day of shooting his scenes a little bit hungover and with a fair amount of stubble. Peter Jackson considered this. 

“For continuity reasons, you’ll have to keep that for every weekend we’re shooting,” he told O’Herne.

“No worries,” said O’Herne. 

After all. How many weekends would it take to complete a ten minute film?

Well. Quite a few weekends, as it turned out. Actors came and went, depending on commitments. Sometimes, even if they did turn up they couldn’t be used. Mike Minett, who plays Frank the alien hunter turned up on one occasion, heavily hung over and with his face bruised and cut from a bar fight. They had to slap a wig on him and re-cast him as an alien that day. 

Finally, Peter Jackson cast the only actor he knew he could rely upon to be there every single weekend. That actor’s name was “Peter Jackson”. He cast himself in the role of Derek the alien hunter. 

Unfortunately, he’d also cast himself as Robert the Alien. Who is attacked and tortured by Derek, right at the start of the film.

But Peter Jackson is not a man to be put off by issues like this. If there’s one defining trait of his film-making style, it is his gift for tactical solutions and meticulous planning. He worked out a way to shoot and edit the footage of him attacking himself, and with the help of some body doubles, some crafty editing and a pair of fake legs, he was able to convincingly beat the crap out of himself. 

But the torture required him to direct himself while hanging upside down from a cliff. 

“It was a steep bloody cliff too,” he said. “And that rope that I’m hanging by in the film – that’s all that was really keeping my up there.”

But the main problem was how to get a good shot of the film’s director – from a hand-held camera – while he was dangling upside down from a cliff.

Film equipment is expensive. For example, hiring a camera crane would have set Peter Jackson back thousands. And given that his total budget – at this point – was just $7 Kiwi dollars, he decided to bog one up himself using aluminium tubing and bits of wood. He couldn’t look through the viewfinder, of course, but he just eyeballed it.

Necessity is the mother of invention. 

Now I’ve been married to a Kiwi for 14 years now. So I can tell you that the “bog-up” is a bit of a Kiwi specialty. Maybe it is because they are an island nation, where importing expensive gear from overseas can be expensive. Maybe they’re just a self-reliant people. All I know is that I have more than once come home to find that Caro has fashioned a makeshift wardrobe from a cardboard box, or repaired the plumbing with a bit of duct tape wrapped around a tea-towel. It’s not necessarily perfect, and we’ve always ended up spending money when we had it. But when we didn’t I didn’t worry. Because I knew I could rely on the “bog up”.

The same was certainly true of Peter Jackson’s ten minute short movie. He was bogging stuff up all over the place. He bogged up all the weapons, again using aluminium tubing, cardboard and bits of wood. The gunfire effects he knew he could bog up later, by superimposing bogged-up scratched-in screen flashes. The blood shooting out of bullet holes are usually achieved with something called squibs – small explosive charges, under an actor’s clothing that can be triggering remotely.

Too expensive. Peter Jackson bogged up a solution that saw any actors not in the scene blowing fake blood through plastic tubes which poked through the actors clothes. The actor would jiggle when pretending to be shot – everyone would BLOW – and hey presto, bogged up squibs.

Oh, and the fake blood? Bogged up. Maple syrup and red food colouring. 

“The whole set smelled of maple syrup,” said Peter Jackson. “It should have been a Canadian co-production.”

And there was a LOT of blood. All of which had to be cleaned up every single weekend that the shoot went on.

But really. How long COULD it possibly go on? It was just a short film, right? Peter O’Herne kept maintaining his weekend stubble. And Peter Jackson went back to his dad’s shed or his mum’s kitchen to create the equipment. 

Which reminds me. He also bogged up a Steadicam. Now these things will set you back about 40 thousand dollars. Peter Jackson’s cost him about 40. It looks a bit like a life jacket with a spring-loaded set of – you guess it – aluminium tubes holding the faithful Bolex camera. And it’s steadied with what looks like a brick. 

This allowed Peter Jackson to chase his mates through the woods and around the house as they sprayed each other with pretend gunfire and then died in a hail of bullets. Don’t forget to blow that fake blood, everybody!

The aliens in the film are readily identifiable. They adopt human appearance, but all of them wear jeans and blue shirts which is really bloody handy budget-wise. But Peter Jackson knew that the film would be nothing without actual alien-looking aliens. He began mixing up a batch in his mum’s kitchen. 

He modelled the alien features in plasticine, then made a plaster cast of them, mixing up the plaster in his mum’s kitchen blender. He then got some latex and fashioned that over the cast to create the masks and cooked them up in mum’s oven. The dimensions of the alien heads were therefore determined by the size of the oven. “That’s why the heads are a bit flat on top,” he apologises. 

The aliens are sparingly used in the film, but extremely memorable when they do appear. Especially in the “chunder” scene, when Robert the Alien (played by Peter Jackson) does a big spew in a bowl and then the aliens all drink it. It is a quite revolting, yet memorable and funny scene. But it did require Peter Jackson to throw up for longer than is humanly possible.

No problem. All he needed to do was to bog up a mask. Which he achieved by taking a deep breath then submerging his own head in plaster, before cooking a Robert the Alien mask in the oven. 

“We often had to fry up sausages for dinner, if Peter was using the oven,” explained his mum.

Hair and a beard was added to the Robert the Alien mask, and a tube inserted at the back of his head and he could spew for as long as a college student after tequila shots. The spew itself was “very nice” says Jackson. It was just bits of fruit and granola, all mixed up in yoghurt with green food colouring mixed in. The crew enthusiastically helped themselves to it on the first take of the spew-drinking scene.

Finally Jackson had to shoot himself – Robert the Alien drinking his own spew. He took a deep drink. It was bloody revolting.

“Aw yeah. We thought it didn’t look thick enough, so we stirred some soil from the back yard into it,” explained one of his mates. 

But there was good news! Craig Smith – remember him – the actor who played Giles before his religious wife vetoed the project? He’s got divorced!

Wait a minute. He’s got married AND divorced, while they were making the short ten-minute film? How long have they been making this film now?

Well. It’s getting on for three years. And Peter O’Herne STILL has that bloody stubble.

Oh well. This means that Craig is back on board to shoot some new scenes tying together the alien hunters with his original story. Peter Jackson began cutting it all together in the hope he could create a coherent story. The problem was that they’d never really had a script as such. Just a series of funny, cool or gross ideas… Peter worked hard to put it all together in a way that made sense.

And found that he’d made a 75 minute movie. 

Oops.

He took the incomplete film to the New Zealand Film Commission. Now the thing you need to know about them is that they are a government funded agency, who are therefore a bit squirrelly about funding a movie that could potentially end up as a headline on the front page of New Zealands newspapers.

TAXPAYER MONEY USED TO FINANCE SICK VIDEO NASTY

That sort of thing.

So Jackson was refused additional funding to finance the expensive post-production costs he’d need to turn his short ten minute – whoops 75 minute film – into something that could go into the international festival circuit.  

But it wasn’t a complete loss. Jim Booth, the head of the commission, was impressed with Peter Jackson’s movie and told him that he could quietly slip him a series of $5000 “script development grants”. 

This wouldn’t attract so much public scrutiny and it would allow Jackson to finish his movie. It was the start of a friendship between the two men that would continue until Jim’s death, in 1994.

The injection of cash allowed Peter Jackson to complete his film – and to shoot the impressive climax to the story. Which required three models of the house. One model – showing two sides of the house – was built to half-scale. It is this model that you see blowing up when the house is hit by a rocket. 

The rocket – by the way – is a firework, attached to fishing line.

A second, smaller model was attached to a crane, and it is this model you see flying away, as Lord Crumb, the leader of the aliens attempts to escape. 

Finally, the smallest model of the house was placed on a record turntable, in front of a black cloth with pictures of planets cut out of books stuck onto it. Thus, the third model house appears to rotate in “space”. 

“I was so sick of that bloody house by the end of the film,” says Peter Jackson.

But it was – finally – the end of the film. After four long years, “Bad Taste” was completed. Oh, that reminds me – Peter O’Herne?

“Yeah?”

You can shave that stubble off now.

“Awww! Thank fuck for that!”

Peter Jackson decided to – 

[SHAVING NOISES]

“Aw that’s better!” “Bloody hell that feels good!” 

- Peter Jackson decided to take his film to Cannes in order to try and get international distribution, but in the hiatus before Cannes, he started work on two different projects. 

He’d made important contacts in the New Zealand film industry during that last phase of production on Bad Taste – one of them was writer, punk singer and aspiring producer Fran Walsh. Peter and Fran connected instantly – and have been a couple ever since. Another connection was writer Stephen Sinclair. The trio found they shared that same subversive sense of humour and together they wrote a black, BLACK comedy about zombies running amok in 1950’s New Zealand, called “Braindead”. 

Peter Jackson worked hard to interest investors in the project. With “Bad Taste” under his belt, and with the support of Jim Booth, he managed to raise the $3 million they’d need for the film – mainly from Spanish backers, who loved “Bad Taste”.

It was at this time that he also met up with Cameron Chittock – an artist, animator and puppeteer. And his skills inspired Peter Jackson, along with Walsh and Sinclair to write a short tv film called, “Sex, Drugs and Soft Toys”. 

The idea was that it would be one episode of a new TV show, called “Uncle Herman’s Bedtime Whoppers”. It would be a comedy anthology series, where every week Uncle Herman – a grumpy old bastard – would present a different story. “Sex, Drugs and Soft Toys” would be a behind the scenes expose of a TV puppet show that looked a bit like – but for legal reasons is definitely NOT – “The Muppet Show”.

Jackson, Walsh, Sinclair and Chittock began work on the episode in a disused railway building in Wellington. But working with Chittock’s puppets turned out to be more complicated than expected. And all they had to show for their efforts was a 20 minute unfinished show on VHS when Peter Jackson left for Cannes.

“Bad Taste” was a huge success at Cannes and got picked up for distribution in the UK, US, Italy and Japan. Peter Jackson was particularly pleased that in the UK – where censorship was particularly harsh in the 80s – was released completely uncut. It turned out that British censors got the joke. That they film was SO gory, SO disgusting, you couldn’t possibly take it seriously.

[SAVAGE HUMOUR QUOTE]

But the good news ended there. Changes in the New Zealand government spooked away the Braindead investors – the Spanish were out and the production collapsed overnight. It was terrible timing too. Peter Jackson and Fran Walsh had already hired most of the crew and some of the actors for their movie. Peter Jackson would have to fire them all and fold the project. 

However, the Japanese distributor for Bad Taste had got hold of a copy of “Sex, Drugs and Soft Toys”. He loved it. Just one thing. He wanted a film, not a tv show. 

A film?

Really?

You’re making a puppet film now?

Oh well, at least the cast and crew can stay on.

Production on “Meet The Feebles” had to be swift. Unfortunately, Peter Jackson came up against a whole new set of technical problems that he’d never encountered before. He described how working with puppets means you basically have to direct the film twice over. 

Because it’s easier to film when you already have the vocal track recorded, the first thing he had to do was direct the voice actors through the completed story.

This isn’t as simple as it sounds. It has to include stage directions to show when a character is lifting something or moving something or – well – in the case of “Meet the Feebles”, shagging, eating or murdering something.

It has to be said that “Meet The Feebles” is a little raunchy. And so far ahead of its time. Way before the animated antics of “South Park” or the obscene puppetry of “Team America: World Police”, “Meet The Feebles” includes sex, drugs, violence, murder, blackmail, torture, death, exploitation and a hedgehog in love with a poodle. And it also includes a cheeky cameo from Peter Jackson – dressed as Lord Crumb – if you watch closely, you’ll see him sitting in the audience.

As well as Cameron Chittock, “Meet The Feebles” effects and model work was created by the duo of Tania Rodger and Richard Taylor. Tania and Richard were already a couple when they worked on “Meet The Feebles”, modelling creatures out of latex foam rubber. They had met in their teens in the town of Whakatane, when Richard tried to impress Tania by presenting her with a pair of rats named Humphrey and Horace. Fortunately for him, Tania fell in love with all three of them, and would walk around her house with the rats sitting on her shoulders, hiding in amongst her long hair.

Although Richard and Tania didn’t realise it when they were working on “Meet The Feebles”, the film would lead to a long, fruitful collaboration between themselves and Peter Jackson – and would eventually lead to the creation of their internationally-renowned Weta Workshop. Wetas – I should explain – are large flightless crickets, native to New Zealand. Their name comes from a Maori word meaning, “God of All Ugly Things”. Richard and Tania clearly have a love of all things ugly, and their facility – located in the Wellington suburb of Miramar – now provides props, models and CGI effects for blockbusters from all of the world – including James Cameron and his “Avatar” movies. 

However, back to “Meet The Feebles” which is turning out to be a nightmare to make. Things that are simple with human actors required multiple cameras and moveable flooring in order to hide all the strings and puppeteers from the cameras. What was needed here was someone with a gift for tactical thinking and meticulous planning. 

And here’s where Peter Jackson’s superpower saved the day. He’s a little like Hitchcock in this. Hitchcock would write incredibly detailed scripts with his screenwriters. So detailed he knew exactly what he wanted the sets to look like, how the camera would move and all of the angles he required before day one of shooting. 

Hitchcock would sigh when it came to filming. He regarded that as the boring bit of getting the shots on film, before he could really have fun in the editing suite, cutting it all together to match his original vision.

Peter Jackson is exactly the same. He always describes being on set as his least favourite part of the process. It’s only when he gets to add in music and effects and starts cutting the film together that he falls back in love with his picture. Despite his gift for planning, the Feebles shoot went over-schedule and over budget, and Peter Jackson was forced to sneakily and secretly finish off the film using his own money without the knowledge of his backers. He filmed these secret scenes under the title “The Frogs of War” as they were mostly made up of the the Vietnam/Deer Hunter scenes. 

Did I… not mention the Vietnam war? Oh yes, that’s in there too. 

“Bad Taste” meanwhile was becoming a runaway success. Although it was censored in North America – and very hard to get hold of – it was quickly gaining a cult reputation. But the film’s wacky energy and infectious humour made it the most successful Kiwi film ever made, at that time. In fact, back in 89 it was the first New Zealand film to ever turn a profit. 

“Meet the Feebles” was picked up for international distribution – and gained largely positive reviews, except in the UK where critics found the film’s relentless misanthropy and gleeful nastiness too much to take. It’s possible they missed the joke that – when you’re dealing with fuzzy puppets – suddenly the most revolting acts become ridiculous. 

Despite the Feeble’s positive reception, it failed to make its money back. Still, over the years, the film’s cult reputation has grown and grown and investors were impressed enough, that this time he was able to raise the $3 million he needed to bring “Braindead” back from the dead. Once again, Stephen Sinclair co-wrote with Fran Walsh and Peter Jackson, and Richard Taylor and Tania Rodger were back working on models and puppets. 

And this film was going to require a LOT of practical effects. “Braindead” was conceived by splatter fans for splatter fans, in the tradition of “Reanimator” and “Evil Dead II”. But Peter Jackson was planning to outdo them all and make the goriest movie ever made. A film SO gory, so gruesome, so abso-fucking-lutely disgusting it would go beyond horror, beyond parody – and invent a whole new Kiwi genre, named “Splatstick”. 

The movie opens on Skull Island where a Kiwi adventurer has just captured the very rare Sumatran Rat Monkey. The locals do not approve of this and chase him with spears – even when he explains he has a permit. A “PER-mit!” he says. 

But no. The locals do not seem to appreciate his efforts at speaking English slowly and loudly. Bloody foreigners.

It transpires that the reason they are so disturbed by his removal of the rat monkey from the island is that it is a CURSED creature, black and eeee-ville unto its very soul. The monkey – by the way – is done in fabulous stop-motion animation by Peter Jackson himself. It’s clear that this is the sort of work he does just for fun. That he LOVES this part of the job. 

[quote]

The monkey makes its way to Wellington Zoo in the 1950’s. It’s a quite fabulous setting, and again it’s clear that Peter Jackson is enjoying himself recreating the style and atmosphere of 1950’s New Zealand. Peter Jackson also did the model work for the trams which were, in actuality, decommissioned in 1964. Into this world come the characters of Lionel (played by Timothy Balme) – a hard-working son, dominated by his hideous mother – and Paquita, a spirited Spanish woman who believes she is fated to be with Lionel. 

Paquita is played by Diana Penalva (Penyalva) – a Spanish actress cast back in the day when the film was part-financed by Spanish backers. Nevertheless, the film’s writers liked the actress and loved the Spanish fortune-teller character, so the Spanish connection was retained even when the pesetas were pulled from the production.

In the film, Lionel’s mother disapproves of Paquita, and does her best to quash the budding romance. This was in fact Peter Jackson’s main reason for setting the movie in the 90’s. He reckoned that it would be hard to identify with a character in the modern world who was so completely under the thumb of his mother – but in the 1950’s, values were different.

Well, that’s what he says. To be honest, I think he just wanted to build those model trams.

The star-crossed lovers make a secret rendezvous at Wellington Zoo, not realising that Lionel’s mum has followed them. And it is while spying on the pair that Lionel’s mum crosses paths with the Sumatran Rat Monkey in an extremely vile and disgusting scene that just goes on and on. Peter Jackson wants to have fun grossing you out, and just when you think he’s finished he keeps cutting back to it. 

It's like he’s saying, “Are you grossed-out yet? How about NOW?”

As an aside, I would have loved to have watched this film in a crowded cinema, with an audience full of like-minded sick little bastards like myself.

Lionel’s mum comes down sick after her encounter with the rat monkey, and Lionel does his best to take care of her, even bringing in Nurse McTavish to minister to her wounds. Unfortunately, Lionel’s mum isn’t just sick… she’s dead… 

I should add that doesn’t stop her getting out and about and doing stuff. Mostly eating things. People. Dogs. She also takes the time to put her face on – quite literally – and hosts a dinner for the Wellington Women’s institute. 

And that is just the start of one of – no, that’s not right – not one of – the most insanely disgusting, gross, vile and immature films you’ll ever see. But it’s all done so beautifully. The dinner sequence, in which Lionel’s pus-dripping mother manages to squirt herself into the dessert of one of her guests, before eating her own ear and spitting out the earring, is undoubtedly one of the most fucking revolting things I have ever seen on telly.

And you can almost HEAR Peter Jackson sniggering to himself as he puts this on screen. 

I think he was also having great fun by inserting kung foo into the story. There’s absolutely no reason for it, other than it is bloody hilarious. The actor Stuart Devenie plays Father McGruder – a kung foo priest who gets possibly the best line in the entire film:

[quote]

The fight scene is hysterically over the top, and beautifully shot by someone who clearly loves Shaw brothers fu movies. And for those of you who love easter egg hunting, Stuart Devenie also played the part of Sebastian the Fox in “Meet the Feebles” – which is why you can hear his theme song playing in the church.

As well as a kung foo priest, the plot involves several undead greaser zombies, zombie sex, zombie babies, blackmail, a re-birthing scene, and a man getting attacked by a pile of intestines.

The intestines in question belong to a disembowelled zombie, and they refuse to just give it up and give in. The intestines, complete with a farty sphincter, chase Lionel around the house, wrapping themselves around his legs and threatening to go up his trousers.

“I have to make the guts-monster,” said Peter Jackson. “Please let me make it.”

Sadly, he was unable to make the monster himself. He was just too busy doing boring stuff like directing actors and shooting the movie. 

In the end he ran out of time and had to hand the job of making the guts-monster back to Richard Taylor and his team at the last minute. Richard was so annoyed – but he went back to his bible for this film – a book on forensic pathology – and got the job done.

The Guts Monster they came up with, is surprisingly adorable. I mean. Don’t get me wrong. I’m not overly fond of intestines as a rule. But I’d definitely keep this little fellow as a pet, if that were an option.

The zombie baby. Not so cute. In fact, just fucking hideous. It was created with a mixture of puppetry, models and an actual two year old in a mask. I’m not sure how legal that is. Moving on. 

“Braindead” climaxes with the most blood-soaked party you have ever seen, in which zombies run amok throughout Lionel’s house. It was shot at Avalon studios, in the Wellington suburb of Lower Hutt. It’s a long, complex sequence that required fake blood to be pumped onto the set at the rate of five gallons a second. The whole set was drenched in syrup coloured with red dye. The sweet stench of rotting syrup was intense, and Avalon studios remained “sticky” for years to come.

The party sequence is very long – and “proper” critics complained that it could have been halved in length and still been as effective. But I highlight my use of the word “proper” critics. The horror fans loved it – and it’s not hard to see why. Peter Jackson grew up on Tom Savini’s book “Grand Illusions” and back issues of “Fangoria”. He loves this stuff and he understands the audience for it. 

Simply put, his party sequence is inventive, cheeky, hilarious and gross. Limbs are everywhere. The top half a man’s head slides around the floor from one side to the other like a hockey puck. A woman’s face is pulled apart from a zombie emerging through her skull. A zombie is impaled on a light fitting and her eyeballs light up. Lionel slips and skids on the massive pools of blood before realising that his only means of escape is to hopscotch his way across disembodied limbs. 

It’s a gory Tex Avery cartoon. A Buster Keaton bloodbath. Freakishly imaginative and still shocking to this day. It’s like Monty Python’s Mr. Creosote scene, multiplied by one thousand. But it’s not scary. It’s funny. It’s “splatstick”.

And it was another dismal failure. The film bombed at the box office despite the rapturous response from fans. And even the critics liked it. Even Roger Ebert got the joke. But maybe that was the problem. Maybe the combination of far-out, gross horror and comedy put people off. Or maybe once again, it was a case of Peter Jackson and his cohorts being well ahead of the times. Now the film could sit quite comfortably alongside popular horror comedies like “Ready or Not”, “Tucker & Dale vs Evil” or “Shaun of the Dead”. But this was 1992, and audiences weren’t sophisticated or grown-up enough to be immature. 

Stephen Sinclair put it best when he said this of the film: “I think we were all driven by an adolescent desire to shock and appal. I very acutely felt the liberal censorship that was prevalent at the times so it was a great ... purge, shall we say?”

Perhaps the trio of writers did their job too well. The censorship of the time did butcher their movie, with vast swathes of the bloody mayhem being removed. In the US, where the film was released under the title “Dead Alive”, 12 bloody minutes were cut. 

As for my opinion on all three films – I do enjoy “Bad Taste” a lot. But it really needs to be seen in company, with beer and pizza. If you watch it without those things, you will notice that the film has flaws. 

For example. The acting is not good. The acting is at the “bunch of mates farting about in mum’s backyard” level. Which – funnily enough – is exactly what this film is. But that really doesn’t matter. The special effects are incredibly inventive but obviously limited – however Peter Jackson gets away with it, by taking the piss out of them. I especially love the pocket calculator that becomes a security keypad.

And despite the hamminess of the acting and the silliness of the story – there is clearly talent at work here.

Maybe it was that 30 second limit on the camera. Or maybe it’s because Jackson shows a real genius for editing the action and the effects together so quickly that you don’t always notice the limitations. There’s even some scenes in the film where I found myself becoming concerned as to their fate of then alien hunters.

I kept catching myself. “Why are you getting worried?” I asked myself. “This is fucking STUPID.”

This happened to more than once. 

And that’s the thing. You shouldn’t take Bad Taste seriously. Because this is really a film about over-the-top gore – to the point where the main characters complain about slipping in it and break out a mop halfway through a fight. It’s this sort of absurd charm that makes me love Bad Taste. And I’m not alone – Willing Participant and excellent fellow Connal Bain recently called it a “no-holds-barred, hyperkinetic horror comedy.” And he’s absolutely right. When you watch “Bad Taste” for the first time you’ll wonder exactly how far Peter Jackson is willing to go – because it looks like he has no limits – not on taste, not on humour – whatsoever. Connal added that he was “heavily into punk rock at the time and it touched on my anti-establishment sensibilities”. 

Absolutely spot-on. For all of us who feel outside the mainstream, for all Dereks, you have to give a film like Bad Taste at least a four out of five. Peter Jackson picked up a camera, just like Sid Vicious picked up a bass guitar, figuring it out as he went. And just in making a movie, Peter Jackson was making a statement that none of us should allow ourselves to be held back. None of us should allow our imagination to be reined in by convention.

I’m not as fond of “Meet The Feebles”. It does contain some really funny jokes and was clearly ahead of its time. I think what puts me off a little bit is the look of the thing. Shot in a disused railway building, it is sort of dark and murky. Maybe that was to help hide the puppeteers. All the same, the songs are great and it’s a great subversive bit of cinema. I would give it a three and a half out of five. 

It is shocking to me that “Braindead” wasn’t successful at the time. It’s a real crowd-pleaser of a movie and I think even casual horror fans should enjoy it. The acting is pretty great, and Timothy Balme is a brilliant physical actor. The supporting characters including Diana Penalver, Elizabeth Moody as Lionel’s harridan mother and Ian Watkin as his revolting Uncle Les are terrific. The effects are breathtaking for such a low budget movie – but the key thing is the sheer level of imagination behind them. You’ll see things in Braindead you’ve never seen in a movie before. It’s 30 years old and it’s still shocking.

I also asked Connal for his views on Braindead/Dead Alive, which is another of his favourite movies. He called it, “a perfect blend of humor and gore so over-the-top that I put it up with the Evil Dead films as the cream of the splatter comedy crop. And the Freudian horror of the monstrous mother adds a great depth to the film.”

You know, I didn’t comment on that at all, but there’s most definitely a Freudian undertone to Braindead. And if you stop and think about it, there’s also a re-birthing scene in “Bad Taste”. There’s definitely a scholarly paper to be written on this, I think. 

But Connal goes on to say that what’s great about “Dead Alive” is Peter Jackson’s, “obvious love for the zombie genre and his ability to ramp up the humor while avoiding falling into cynicism.”

That’s really true. It might seem strange to say, but there’s a real sweetness, a romanticism to Braindead – and to Meet the Feebles. His outsiders may end up covered in blood, and with a high body count but that’s always in defence of love. 

Now for the past 2 years, we’ve been hearing exciting news of a reissue of all three films, which has not yet come to pass. Peter Jackson explained that he ran his old film stock on “Bad Taste” through the same piece of software he used to restore World War One footage for his stunning documentary, “They Shall Not Grow Old”. He was amazed with the results, and promises that new 4K versions of Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles and Braindead will be forthcoming – but still no dates on this as yet.

Of course, all three films would shortly be completely overshadowed by what Peter Jackson and his mates had in store for us next. From these incredibly modest beginnings, the splatter director, the model-maker, the special effects guy would show himself adept at getting great performances out of actors like Saorise Ronan and Kate Winslet, discovering and nurturing talent like Neill Bloomkamp and producing elegant, thoughtful documentaries. 

And then… there’s those other films he made… you may have heard of them. 

But back in 1992, this was still in his future. He was only just starting to kick down doors. Hollywood didn’t know he was coming – but Derek was on his way….

[QUOTE: “I’m comin’ for ya, ya bastards!!”]

[TRAIN NOISES]

[paraparaumu station]

Thank you again for your time tonight, dear Willing Participants. 

My train has nearly reached its destination, and it is time for me to go home to my wife and two cats. But I’ve appreciated your company on this long commute. Do join me again next time when I’ll be discussing that J-horror sensation “Ring”. So until then, please avoid any cursed video tapes, and be sure to put a fire-guard around the telly. 

And don’t say, I didn’t warn you.

This episode of The Retro Podcast Massacre was recorded in Paraparaumu, New Zealand.

Your host tonight was Val Thomas, and I’d also like to gratefully acknowledge contributions from the Twitter hashtag horror family, especially our American correspondent, Mr. Connal Bain.

And if you are willing to contribute your views to the Retro Podcast Massacre, get in touch! Follow us on Twitter to find out what’s coming up, and send me your thoughts!

You can tweet us at Podcast Massacre, or email us at retropodcastmassacre@gmail.com. 

As usual, I would encourage you all to rate and review this podcast, and to tell the world about it. It simply isn’t fair to keep us all to yourselves. Pester your friends! They will love you for it.

And once again, thank you for your company tonight. And pleasant dreams.