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| Terry Potter, Pete O'Herne, Peter Jackson |
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Anamorphic
widescreen |
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Dolby Digital
5.1 |
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DTS |
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Trailer(s) |
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Featurette(s) |
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Documentary |
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Audio commentary
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Deleted scenes
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Concept art
/ storyboards |
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Multi-angle
feature |
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Derek
(Peter Jackson): Stick all the bits of brain in a plastic bag, Barry.
A
handful of heroic New Zealanders battle an alien attack on their village.
 Peter
Jackson, the New Zealand-born director, had varied and hugely interesting
film career before becoming pretty much a household name with his landmark
three-part adaptation of Tolkien's The Lord of the Rings. Bad
Taste was his feature début, shot over a period of two years
in his hometown with a few of his buddies on money mostly borrowed from
his parents. It went on to become a major cult success, winning awards
at several international film festivals and paving the way for other
splatter-movie comedies like Meet the Feebles and Braindead,
as well as the outstanding drama Heavenly Creatures.
Gore and splatter effects run rampant throughout this intentionally
idiotic film, but the accent is always on comedy, with frequent descents
into well-choreographed slapstick. Those unfamiliar with Jackson's early
work checking out Bad Taste out of curiosity after having seen
The Lord of the Rings might well be taken aback by this archetypal
midnight movie: its jokes are well-timed, but do require a strong stomach,
and its general off-kilter sensibility has fairly little in common with
the director's much more accessible later work. But those with an open
mind and a good sense of humor are bound to get a big kick out of it. |
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The
Region 1 version features a DTS audio mix (believe it or not) and a
handful of extras.
The Region 2 release available from A-Film in the Netherlands has a
fullscreen transfer and mono sound mix, and a half-hour 'making-of'
featurette. The Dutch Region 2 release served as a basis for this review.
The
fullscreen image is framed at an aspect ratio of approx. 1.33:1. There
is some very slight cropping from the original 1.66:1 aspect ratio in
which this low-budget film was shot, but it comes close enough to the
original framing to provide a passable transfer. The film's 16mm origins
are apparent throughout, especially in the form of heavy film grain,
and overall, this is only a minor step up from the VHS-release that
has been circulating for years.
The original stereo sound mix is presented in two-channel Dolby Digital.
The soundtrack also suffers from its modest origins, with frequent distortion
of the actors' voices and limited overall fidelity.
The
main extra on board this release is a 30-minute documentary on
the making of the film, produced around the time of the film's release.
Although it was clearly made for promotional purposes, this is much
more interesting than the usual 'featurette' found on these DVDs. It
features lots of unique footage from Peter Jackson's early, home-made
short films and generous interview footage with the young director,
his enthusiastic crew and his parents (who pretty much financed the
film). The theatrical trailer is a fun little item, and the only
other extra on board.The
blood-spattered main menu screen has animated scenes from the film running
in the background, access to the limited features is clear and uncluttered.
Dan
Hassler-Forest
Reviewed: April
14, 2002
Click
here for IMDB info on Bad
Taste.
Click here
to return to the front page.
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