A Bloody Good Time 08.13.09: A Look At Peter Jackson

Posted by Joseph Lee on 08.13.2009

I really hope Peter Jackson returns to horror soon.

Logo courtesy of Benjamin J. Colón (Soul Exodus)

Welcome again to A Bloody Good Time.

Last week the man behind the logo, Benjamin J. Colón and myself discussed several different films, going back and forth on whether or not they were horror. By the way, a film that didn't make the cut was Invasion of the Body Snatchers. Sure, it's a sci-fi classic, but is it horror? What do you think? Reply below. For the record, I would say yes.

Let's look at the feedback for last week's edition before we get into this week's.

YepYep had a suggestion: You should have covered Gremlins too. What's that? Young kids love it...but I think its horror

Maybe not horror so much as a really dark comedy. I love Gremlins though, it's a classic Christmas film.

Joquando posted a very "film school" response about why Silence of the Lambs isn't horror. It's rather lengthy, so I won't re-post, but I will say that he made some good points. That's why it's fun to debate things like this, you never know who will give a thoughtful, intelligent response and make you think about your own opinion. Well done, sir.

Your Mom asks: What would you consider Scream? Its under Comedy in blockbuster...

Definitely horror. It's a film that helped redefine the slasher film and resurrected horror in the 90's when it really wasn't doing all that well. Plus it's extremely clever and well-written. Don't let the fact that it inspired numerous bad knock-offs fool you.

dennett316 gave his own opinion: I agree with much of what is said here - other than Eraserhead, Irreversible, Requiem for a Dream which I haven't seen - but Cube and Silence of the Lambs are a bit of a stretch too far in my eyes. Despite all the nasty deaths and the character turns, Cube is too sci-fi in it's tone for me to really consider it a horror movie.Same with Silence of the Lambs. There is some horrific imagery - 3/4 of the way through the film - and Lecter is clearly a movie "monster" of some calibre. But, the overriding aspect of the movie is the detective/mystery narrative. Buffalo Bill is no Hannibal Lector, he's a wierdo pervert with a strange fetish of wearing people's skin...that's scary, but not horror movie scary. Lector is clearly horror movie scary, but he's only allowed to be so in one hugely memorable scene - 15 minutes of an over 2 hour running time. Not enough of a horror in my opinion. In Seven (Se7en), Kevin Spacey's John Doe is loose throughout the whole movie, we see constant evidence of his gruesome handiwork, and the dark and oppressive nature of the cinematography ensures a more "horror movie" feel despite all the detective work. A feeling of dread throughout the entire film as we know that the murderer is building to something big. Silence of the Lambs doesn't have that feel, so not a horror in my opinion.

As I said, since I consider Saw to be horror, I say the same for it's predecessor, Cube. It's got a sci-fi premise but it's heart is horror.

M:-X says: A movie you should have covered would be The Frighteners... as it walks that line pretty well. As for Requiem-- I will never understand the love for this movie. Yes, it's a tragic story, but when you BLATANTLY LIE about the effects of drugs you can make anything scary. The speed freak grandma was the worst example of it in the movie...

I'll be getting to The Frighteners today, so maybe I'll point that out.

neverAcquiese wanted to know where The Terminator was. Well, in spite of it's slasher-like format, I don't consider it horror. Although, The Terminator is a lot like Michael Myers or Jason Voorhees...so much so that Jason Goes to Hell even aped the police station destruction scene.

411's own Len Arichibald commented: I think it is entirely possible for certain films to be genre-less; meaning that it picks and chooses elements of genres that serves the story well, but doesn't dwell on it enough to be considered any one particular genre. That's what makes some of these films great. Seven (or Se7en, whatever) is – what I consider, a genre-less film. It takes ELEMENTS of horror, police-procedural, thriller, mystery, character study and man vs. nature (or force of nature) and puts it all together to tell a story about, simply, two detectives who see the world on opposite sides of the fence. I could call it "Horror", but I also understand why people would not classify it as such. Same with "Silence of the Lambs", "Erasrhead", "Naked Lunch" (if there's ever a mindf*ck of a film), "The Virgin Spring", "A Clockwork Orange", "Stalker", "Night of the Hunter", "Pulp Fiction" (I can't believe some people consider this a CRIME movie!), "Requeim for a Dream", "3 Women" and "El Topo". Some films are just convenient to be labeled as something, because the labels conveniently exist.

Well said.

Let's move on to this week.



I realize that Peter Jackson is not actually directing District 9, but the fact he's attached is all the excuse I need to write a column about his early works. If there were ever a director whose films have walked the line between horror and not horror, it's been Peter Jackson. I can really only think of two films of his that I would call horror, and they were horror-comedies, at best. The rest have horrific themes in some cases, or imagery in others (even in his Lord of the Rings trilogy) but aren't really horror films. I'll discuss what films are the most relevant. So no, I won't be going into the Hobbit films because they aren't relevant.

Where to begin? I'm sure you don't care where Jackson was born, what films inspired him (King Kong and Lord of the Rings, apparently)...but let's get into the juicy stuff. His splatter period.



The first of these is Bad Taste (1987). This is loaded with gore and blood, but apparently is not a horror film. It's an action/sci-fi/comedy, according to IMDB. Unfortunately, I haven't seen it. I think it's the only one of his films I haven't seen. I know, I know. I'm a terrible person. Sue me. The film is about a group of aliens who come to Earth in order to turn humans into food for an Intergalactic fast-food chain. They face off against four paramilitary guys, one of whom has lost his mind. Actually, that sounds fun.

Bad Taste originally began as a short film, but eventually just kept growing until Peter Jackson and his friends decided to make it a full length feature. Yes, this movie was just Jackson and his buddies getting together on the weekends for four years to film an extremely low-budget splatter film. And now it's a cult hit and loved by many fans worldwide. Who knew? Of course the same thing happened for Sam Raimi and his buddies with The Evil Dead, but at least they had some backing as a result of Within the Woods. Bad Taste didn't get any financial backing until the end of it's production, when the New Zealand Film Commission decided to help it get finished. It's actually a remarkable story, considering it's later success among splatter fans.

Here's a fun fact about the movie that I came across on wikipedia: The weapons used in the movie were made using aluminium tubing and the actors had to shake them to simulate the recoil. A flash and sound effect was added later. No real point to mentioning that except I think it's funny. Bad Taste went on to make fans everywhere, and it currently sits on a 71% at Rotten Tomatoes where it's praised for it's gooey, gory fun. I will ay the video box is one of the things that always intrigued me as a kid, as this film was in the horror section and I wondered why the monster on the box was giving me the finger.

Jackson would then make Meet the Feebles, a dark comedy about a group of demented Muppet-like creatures. It's not really horror at all, although it does contain splatter elements. But since I'm trying to stay focused on his horror films, I'm going to move on to the other big splatter movie that Jackson made, five years after Bad Taste.



That film would be Braindead (or Dead Alive, if you prefer). It was made in 1992 and is probably my favorite Peter Jackson film that doesn't feature a Hobbit. How could you not love this film so lovingly dedicated to grossing out the viewer and making them laugh at the same time? Let's add in what I've already written about this, as the temptation to copy and paste is too good to turn down.

Dead Alive (also known as Braindead) is the darkest comedy out there, and it doesn't really care whether you get offended or not. The gore description basically would take up an entire review. That's how much there is. This movie is not for the squeamish at all. At the same time, the level it takes the gore is so out there and over-the-top, that it becomes gross and hilarious at the same time. You don't know whether or not you want to laugh or throw up. Peter Jackson turns the blood and guts into a comedic aid, making the violence very campy and slapstick, where in any other horror movie the intent would be to shock you. This movie shocks, but doesn't scare. It's horror because of the fact there are zombies and more gore than any I've ever seen before. Aside from the gore, I dug the acting by Timothy Balme as Lionel. Acting is by no means important in this film, but I honestly thought he was trying to bring something to the character, and he did. He goes from "pansy momma's boy" to "badass zombie killer" within the span of ninety minutes. A lot of the comedy is situational, morbid, dark humor, but it really works. I really enjoyed the zombie-fighting priest, who "kicks arse for the Lord!" Priceless!

Yes, that's my thoughts on the film in a nutshell. It had a much higher budget than Bad Taste (a whole $3 million!) and I think it spent every last dime on fake blood. I remember viewing this film on IFC and learning that 300 liters of fake blood was used in the final scene of the film. I can't even wrap my mind around that. It makes sense, given the amount of blood in that finale (and what a finale), but can you imagine Jackson and crew just pouring liter after liter of that stuff onto the set? No doubt that the man must have had a messy, if fun time making this one.

The film is loved by horror fans everywhere, of course, and is still considered one of the best of it's genre today.

Jackson would shock many fans and critics with his next film, which was a huge departure from the style and tone of his previous films. Heavenly Creatures is not a splatter film. It's not even a horror film. But it is a haunting film that stars a very young Kate Winslet and his it's own respectable fanbase. It also has a 95% on Rotten Tomatoes with many people calling it a masterpiece. As it's not horror, I'm not going to get into the details of it. I will say that you should see it if you haven't.



This one is another film that walks the line between what is horror and what isn't, and allows Jackson to return to making his own brand of horrific comedy. Outside of Back to the Future, it may also be my favorite Michael J. Fox film. The Frighteners doesn't exactly go back to Jackson's splatter roots, but it does like to blend horror and comedy seamlessly to the point you don't know whether to jump, laugh or both. I think it's very good in that respect. It also features a great performance from Fox in one of his last live-action film roles, a mainstream film for Jeffery "Re-Animator" Combs (who is hilarious) and even Dee Wallace-Stone! I could do a whole column about her prescence in the genre. Of course it also features Jake Busey, but we won't fault it for that.

Thanks to the success of Heavenly Creatures, Robert Zemeckis hired Peter Jackson and his wife Fran Walsh to make this big budget horror comedy. At least it was the biggest budget a Jackson film ever had, with $30 million (although that would quickly change). The visual effects, of which there are many, were supplied by Jackson's company Weta Digital. The rough cut was such a hit with Universal that they moved the release date up by four months. In retrospect, it probably wasn't a smart move because the film had a perfect release date of Halloween 1996 but instead was placed smack-dab in the middle of the summer, against films like Independence Day. As such, it was a commercial failure, being unable to make back it's budget.

Critically, it has the same rating as Bad Taste. Some felt the script was a little weak, but most agreed that the special effects were great and that it was a fun movie. I would have to say the same thing. It's a fun ghost movie that's really unlike a lot of it's kind out there.

After The Frighteners, Jackson made a movie series about some midgets and some jewelry or something. But after that...



Even though the remake really isn't horror at all, I feel the need to mention King Kong (2005) because it is a remake of a horror film. One of the best monster movies of all time, actually. As the movies were remade through the years, Kong became more and more of a sympathetic creature than a monster on the rampage, and Jackson's version is the most removed from the original style. Nevertheless, it's still a well-done remake, in my opinion. I know there are some that hate this remake but I cannot understand why. It's a great adventure film with fine performances and creature effects that are literally some of the best I've ever seen. Kong is a character, not a plot device, with emotions and motivations and everything. Sure, the same can be said for the original Kong, but here the creature feels more like a living thing than a special effect.

You can feel the love Jackson has for the original film in this remake, as he tries to make this tale as epic and thrilling as he possibly can. It has excitement, some scares and thrills and comedy. It even has a touching relationship between a woman and a giant CGI ape. The good part about the film is that you (or at least I did) feel bad for Kong after he falls. It also has callbacks to prior Kong films, and managed to faithfully recreate a scene from the original that was lost forever. I don't care about it being over three hours...not every film has to wrap up in two hours or less, in my opinion. King Kong was an epic film and I loved every second of it.

King Kong was thought to be a financial failure for a while, but as it turns out it was extremely profitable. Sure it had a giant budget of $207 million, plus I'd assume an additional 50 or so for marketing, but when you combine ticket and DVD sales it's managed to gross $700 million, which is triple it's budget and the fourth highest-grossing film in Universal Pictures history. Critically, it was very successful as it has an 83% on RT, with a consensus that says Peter Jackson's dream project is as good as event movies get; King Kong is visually spectacular and emotionally resonant. I agree with that, and I'd hope there are readers who would feel the same way. I only see hate for this movie on the Internet, which I've always found odd. If you care to explain why, post your comments.

That's it for this week. Go see District 9, I know I will be. I hope the rumors of Jackson's return to horror are true, although it's likely that film will blur the line like he's done in the past. I'd rather he try straight horror, as he's shown he can put macabre images in his films.

Next week, I begin a two week period of Michael Myers-related columns, in preparation for Halloween II, which I am very excited for. Next week I'm going to cover the entire franchise in another breakdown. See you then.