Bad Taste
Frank: "Just remember, we're only authorized to use violence when there's a threat to the planet Earth."
Barry: "And the Moon."
Frank: "Yeah, and the Moon."
Bad Taste is first film made by the oscar winner Peter Jackson. It's a splatter movie about a bunch of aliens working for intergalactic fastfood company, who massacrie the town of Kaihoro for the meat of its inhabitants.
However, one of the townsfolk manages to send a distress call and Astro Investigation and Defence Service sends out The Boys to investigate. The team consists of four members: Barry (the Straight Man of the group), Frank, Ozzy (a trigger-happy duo), and Derek (a sociopath with a slight drooling problem). Hilarity Ensues as The Boys clash with the aliens; Derek goes berserk, a charity collector Giles is abducted and The Boys have to clean up the whole mess.
Notable for being shot with a shoestring budget during weekends in period of four years.
- Absurdly Sharp Blade: Derek's chainsaw.
- Acting for Two: both Derek and Robert are played by Peter Jackson, which makes the scene where Derek tries to torture Robert to reveal why the aliens are here all the funnier.
- Alien Lunch: The vomit gruel.
- Aliens in Cardiff
- An Arm and a Leg
- An Axe to Grind: One of the alien mooks attack Barry with an axe.
- Baa Bomb: Ozzy tries to destroy the aliens headquarters with a RPG. He misses and hits a sheep instead.
- Badass:
Derek: "I'm a Derek. Dereks don't run."
- Bald of Evil: The alien leader.
- Bloody Hilarious: For the record, some VHS versions came with barfing bags.
- Bond One-Liner: Given by Ozzy when he shoots one of the mooks on the head.
"That cleared the sinuses!"
- Bound and Gagged: Giles when he is captured by the aliens.
- Brain Food: Robert is shown happily eating the brains of one of his own.
- Bring My Brown Pants: They're not brown enough...
- Chainsaw Good: Derek's weapon of choice.
- Cigar Chomper: Frank.
- Cold-Blooded Torture: It involves a hammer, a bayonet and a foot.
- Comedic Sociopathy: Ozzy!
Frank: "Yeah but you know what the rules are. When we work undercover we have to remain faceless."
Ozzy: "Oh I get it, just in case we kill a lot of innocent people!" (Cocks gun)
- Also, Derek shows a little too much joy torturing Robert (the alien he captured) and at the end when he'a cutting aliens up with a chainsaw
- Cool Car: Derek's Beatles-mobile.
- Conveyor Belt of Doom: Happens when the alien leader rolls back the house-ship's grass and is stuck on it.
- Creepy Basement
- Cruel and Unusual Death: Derek going through boss alien's head and coming out his rear with his chainsaw.
- Distress Call: Doomed Kaihoro sents one in the opening.
- Dude in Distress: Giles.
- Does Not Like Shoes: One of the alien mooks moves barefooted.
- Dressing as the Enemy: Frank dresses as one of the mooks during the infiltration.
- Drop the Hammer: After hearing one of their own being tortured by Derek, bunch of aliens grab sledgehammers and rush to the rescue.
- Efficient Displacement: At one point Derek saws a hole shaped like himself on the aliens headquarters' wall.
- Evil Chef: One of the aliens who looks suspiciously like Peter Jackson during his Lord of the Rings years.
- Eyepatch of Power Worn by one of the alien mooks.
- Flipping the Bird: As seen on the cover (at least, the original cover. later versions added a second finger). Giles, also flips Robert off at one point.
- A little harder to notice is one of the aliens flipping off the protagonists as they make their escape in a car.
- Fun with Acronyms: Astro Investigation and Defence Service. Lampshaded in the movie:
Ozzy: "Wish we'd change that name!"
- Ghost Town: Kaihoro.
- Groin Attack: Ozzy knees one of the post-transformation aliens on the groin.
- Half the Man He Used To Be: One of the aliens after Derek runs him over with his car.
- Hat Damage: Derek's hat (that keeps his skull together) is shot off by a stray bullet, and he's immediately sent into spasms.
- Heroic Sociopath: Derek before his cranial trauma and Ozzy to some degree.
- Human Aliens: for all but the last 20 minutes of the movie, the aliens look like regular humans
- I Am a Humanitarian: One of the boys is forced to in order to maintain his mole status. He finds it quite tasty.
- Imperial Stormtrooper Marksmanship Academy
- Impromptu Tracheotomy: Barry kills Roberts by throwing a machete on his throat, pinning him into a pillar.
- The Infiltration: The Boys start one when they set out to save Giles.
- Let's Fight Like Gentlemen: At one point Ozzy encounters one of the aliens, who puts its dukes up. Ozzy attempts to follow the suite, but is interrupted by Frank.
- Machete Mayhem: The alien chef attacks Ozzy and Giles with a machete during the big shootout.
- Made of Plasticine: The aliens; lampshaded with the line "They sure go to bits easy!"
- Meaningful Name: Kaihoro means "Foodtown" in Māori.
- Mugged for Disguise: Happens to one of the aliens when The Boys inflitrate their headquarters.
- My Car Hates Me
- Off with His Head: One of the aliens gets his head ripped off (and his spine along with it) when Frank steals his costume.
- Pre-Ass-Kicking One-Liner: Two of them, both provided by Derek.
"Eat lead, sucker!"
"Suck my spinning steel, shithead!"
- Prop Recycling: One of the alien masks can be seen in Meet the Feebles.
- Psycho Party Member: Derek after falling off a cliff.
- Railing Kill: Ozzy kills the alien chef by throwing him over a railing.
- Refuge in Audacity
- Psychopathic Manchild: Some of the alien mooks, including Robert.
- Shout-Out:
- "There's no glowing fingers on these bastards."
- When The Boys wonder the aliens have hid their spaceship, Ozzy proposes that perhaps they came in a telephone booth.
- Slashed Throat: When the Evil Chef threatens Giles with a throat slice motion, Robert tries to mimic him and accidentally cuts his own throat.
- Sliding Scale of Comedy and Horror
- Staggered Zoom: Done after Ozzy kills the alien chef and he turns to see that Giles was abducted while he was occupied.
- Take That: Which no one outside New Zealand will get. Derek doesn't think the aliens destroying Auckland would be so bad.
- To Serve Man: Aliens work for intergalactic fastfood company Crumb's Crunchy Delights, who wants to add humans to their menu.
- Transformation Sequence: Happens when the aliens decide to bail out and ditch their human disguises.
- Use Your Head
- Van Helsing Hate Crimes: Derek's attitude toward aliens.
- Vomit Indiscretion Shot
- Weaksauce Weakness: After falling off from a cliff, Derek's head becomes very vulnerable and if it's hit Derek is sent to spasms. Even a hit from a pinecone.
- Who You Gonna Call?: The Boys, that's who.