View From The Cheap Seats 12.19.02: The Terrorist Of Taste
Posted by Rich Wilson on 12.19.2002
Before Peter Jackson went to Middle Earth, he made a trio of awesome trash classics...
Bad To The Bone
Torquay, 1991. After a booze-fueled evening around the bars of England’s Riviera, my buddy Paul and I set off in search of post-pub thrills. Shunning the curry/kebab routine, I persuade a reluctant Paul into the town’s one and only cinema, which unbelievably is hosting a midnight screening of Meet The Feebles. The Peter Jackson movie has been described as ‘The Muppets on acid’ and I know that a big screen viewing is too good to miss. We slump into our seats, and I’m not entirely surprised that we’re the only ones in attendance as the lights fade.
Less than an hour later and against my protests, Paul stands, shoots me a look that could freeze hell and walks out. He’s had all he can stomach. The film, a catalogue of depravity featuring an all puppet cast of lowlifes, has been making him feel uncomfortable since the opening, but one memorable scene has pushed him too far. A fly, posing as a reporter vying for a scoop on the ‘Feebles’ troop, lands on a steaming turd that has just been deposited by Harry, a rabbit who’s suffering with a crippling array of sexual diseases. The Fly takes a nibble of the crap, licks his lips and looks up at the shocked bunny. “Mmm, carrots,” he chuckles. “Must be one of yours, Harry!”
Fast forward ten years, and I’m talking with Paul about The Lord Of The Rings, Jackson’s ongoing and incredible realisation of the Tolkien trilogy. I remind him of his disgust at Feebles, a film he’s never forgiven me for introducing him to, and he scoffs when I say that both pictures were the brainchild of the same man. From that day to this he refuses to accept that the majesty of middle-earth and a collection of perverted puppets who make Ozzy Osbourne look well-behaved could have Peter Jackson as the link.
Jackson’s ascension to the pinnacle of the Hollywood tree is true inspiration to anyone who’s ever dreamed of getting involved in movies. The struggle behind the four year, self-financed production of his first feature Bad Taste is the kind of story that only serves to make the film that much more enjoyable. Using borrowed equipment and friends Jackson spent the weekends slowly bringing together his vision of alien invasion in small-town New Zealand. Most of the actors doubled as the crew, with Jackson himself wearing many hats from director to editor to makeup effects, plus tackling two leading roles. With only $11,000 dollars from his job as a newspaper engraver and a heavily bouncing credit card Jackson was forced to be inventive, constructing his own steadycam and camera crane and building weapons from aluminium tubing.
Jackson had always featured effects extensively, even in early home movies, and he was influenced by the stop-motion work of the legendary Ray Harryhausen. “I always wanted to be an animator or some sort of special effects guy” he recalls. He created the alien army in his Mother’s kitchen, whipping up batches of latex in her food-processor and baking the masks in the oven. The work of Gerry Anderson also made an impression and the film is laced with quality modelmaking that belies the micro-budget. He also loved the black humour of Monty Python and incorporated it heavily throughout. The squad of goons who tackle the human flesh-loving aliens, for instance, are the Astro Investigation and Defense Service (look at it again).
Finally he had the rough cut in the bag, and with a little professional help and a 35 mm blow-up from the New Zealand Film Commission the movie was complete. It was pretty raw around the edges and could have benefited from some trimming during the long gun-battle ending, but Jackson’s inventiveness and sheer laugh-out-loud comic book gore combine to make Bad Taste a great film. Rarely has a title been more accurate. “Movies are a medium in which you can get away with murder,” says Jackson. “You can show anything you like...You can shock or thrill a few people, which is also a lot of fun.” And he showed it all, from vomiting aliens and splitting brainpans to a climax in which Jackson himself, as the deranged Derek, burrows through the alien leader with a chainsaw, emerging between the mutilated E.T’s legs with a cry of “I’ve been born again!”
The film was a monster hit at the 1988 Cannes Film Festival, selling to ten countries in six days and winning more than a dozen international awards. The Kiwi terrorist had left his bloodied mark and paved the way for bigger budgets and more ambitious ideas. Enter the feebles.
Jackson loved puppetry and wanted to make an all mannequin movie, but one where “they’re all dirty little creatures, doing drugs and stuff.” Meet The Feebles was co-written with his wife Fran Walsh, who would work with Peter throughout his career, and once again given financial help by the NZFC. The film features puppets exclusively, with Jackson once again assuming the
jack-of-all-trades role behind the camera.
A truly jaw-dropping and original experience, Feebles regrettably remains Jackson’s most obscure and little seen movie. You know where you going with a film that features a rat singing a show tune called ‘Sodomy’. A cigar chewing walrus known only as Bletch has a problem. His ‘feebles’ revue show is falling apart and his egocentric showbiz stars are the greatest set of violent misfits outside of a Combat Zone Wrestling show. The director is a fox prone to panic attacks, the knife-thrower is a junkie frog, and his long time psychotic lover Heidi the hippo suspects that Bletch may be having an affair with a Siamese cat.
Feebles is nasty, funny and quite possibly the filthiest movie ever made. The poster featured Heidi wearing bondage gear and wielding a spitting machine-gun (yep, Bletch was playing away), and must surely be the only film to depict puppets making hard-core pornography. Fact: this is the only time you will ever see a muppet ejaculation shot. The original tag-line for the poster was “The puppet spunk hits the fan!” No, honestly.
The fun and games continued with Brain Dead, Jackson’s splatter magnum opus and his first film to really do decent business. Given the hideous title of Dead Alive for it’s Stateside release, Brain Dead overpowers anything seen previously by Jackson and easily stakes it’s claim as the goriest movie ever made. Young Lionel’s Mother is bitten by a disease infested monkey that causes death and resurrection into a drooling, flesh hungry zombie. Lionel battles hard (and fails) to keep his Mother’s condition away from his girlfriend and relatives, and when the pus-leaking pensioner bites and kills everyone she meets he’s no choice but to assume the Bruce Campbell-style role of executioner. The plot serves purely as a framework for Jackson to build one outrageous set-piece after another, once more laced with his now trademark humour. Nothing is sacred in Jacksonville; the undead screw on the dinner table, a mutant baby is beaten against a climbing frame in a playground and zombie parts are liquidised in a blender. The finale shows Lionel wading through hordes of undead with a lawnmower, stumbling in a sea of gore as bodies are literally vaporised. The prop mower was rigged by Jackson's crew to pump out five gallons of blood per second, which gives a vague idea of the claret on display.
Predictably the movie received harsh censorship cuts, especially in America where the print had nearly ten minutes removed. (Incredibly the British censor left all the nastiness intact). But more importantly Jackson was carving out a name for himself. The success of Brain Dead, which opened in theatres around the world, also saw the re-release of Taste and Feebles, putting Kiwi filmmaking on the map and proving that the little country famed for sheep and landscape had a rapidly expanding talent.
His trio of trash classics endeared him to world-wide gorehounds and earned him plenty of column inches, but he was looking towards bigger studio financing and wider acclaim. It would have been impossible to top the gran guignol of Brain Dead, and sensibly Jackson didn’t push the envelope any further, preferring instead to execute a sharp about-face. “I could have done splatter films for years, until I was making them in my sleep,” he said. “That’s lazy and absolutely not the way I want to spend the rest of my life.” Instead he took on a difficult story and came away with the best reviews of his career and an Oscar nomination for his adaptation.
The case of Pauline Parker and Juliet Hulme, explored in Heavenly Creatures, was a notorious real-life crime that shocked New Zealand during the 1950’s. The girls met at school and started spending every spare moment together, prompting fears of possible lesbianism from parents and teachers which eventually led to them being separated. Both wrote long and elaborate letters to each other, constructing a fantasy world which culminated in the killing of Pauline’s Mother to prevent the separation. Jackson had been fascinated by the story for years, as he told the Village Voice: “I wouldn’t have been as interested had this been a straightforward murder case. Juliet had a love of slightly grotesque things, and I certainly have an interest in the grotesque.”
Deliberately slower paced than he previous work, it showcased his eye for production design and location that would later grace The Lord Of The Rings, as well as introducing a very young-looking Kate Winslet to audiences. His handling of the actors, particularly the two female leads was impressive, and the script, taken primarily from the letters written by the girls earned he and Fran a nod for adapted screenplay come Oscar time. Hollywood had started to notice. And although Jackson hadn’t left his roots completely (the final murder was truly unpleasant), his career had definitely taken on a new direction.
The only dropped stitch on Jackson’s CV came with The Frighteners, a by-the-numbers horror comedy that didn’t have his trademark style stamped across it. Heavily laced with CGI and a typically grating performance from Michael J. Fox, it did however prove that Jackson could perform with a big budget and play the studio numbers game; he bought the movie in on time and secured decent box-office returns. Mostly though, it was typical of many horror comedies; neither scary or funny.
The Frighteners premiered in 1996, followed by...nothing. Everything fell silent at camp Jackson, with speculation that work was starting on his long cherished King Kong project. That seemed to make sense, especially since Jackson had set up his own visual effects company, Weta Ltd. Maybe Kong would rise again, finally laying to rest John Guillermin’s disgraceful 1976 remake and showing the great ape graphically sucking blood from spurting neck stumps. Well, we can dream.
And then the Tolkien rumours started. Jackson was preparing The Lord of The Rings trilogy back in New Zealand, using his own crew and company, shooting all three back-to-back.. New Line Cinema was pumping 200 million dollars into it, and an A-list cast was signing on the dotted line. Surely not? This was the guy who had actually showed puppets shagging. How could he safely bring one of the world’s most loved literary works to the screen? Months passed and brows furrowed, before the first production shots from Middle-Earth appeared. And things looked very fine indeed...
Last March when Peter Jackson ambled on stage at the Oscars to collect one of the numerous awards presented to The Fellowship of the Ring the suits at New Line must have breathed a collective sigh of relief. They took a huge risk letting Jackson do the picture his own way, and their faith has been justifiably rewarded. This summer may have been all about the clones, and George Lucas and ILM are back at the top of the fantasy tree, but bring on December the 18th and let battle commence. The Two Towers is truly sensational, and with many calling it the best film ever made the former splattermaster looks set to retain his crown, maybe even beating off the mighty force. Truly, the boy done good.
