For a while, Bad Taste had a very different climax, featuring a chase scene on alien hover vehicles (this was 1985, so I was no doubt inspired by Return of the Jedi). I built this model of Craig and hover car at about half scale. Eventually the idea was scrapped and a new ending devised when the NZ Film Commission came onboard.
Following Tony Hiles’ recommendation, Jim Booth began dripfeeding the continuing production of Bad Taste with a payment of $5,000 made from the director’s discretionary fund and therefore not requiring the approval of the full board of the Film Commission. Jim acquainted David Gascoigne with what he had done and, a little while later, mentioned that he was intending to advance another $5,000. This, as Jim was well aware, was bending the rules, which allowed the director to spend only a maximum of $5,000 per picture, as opposed to making repeated payments on the same project, which would normally have required approval by the board.
‘I was knowingly complicit,’ admits David, ‘because it was a case of Jim having a good idea – he was a great believer in (with capital letters) Having Good Ideas! – and I not only didn’t intervene, I gave him tacit encouragement. Today it would be different, but then we were inventing a system of film support as we went along.’
As for Peter, he now reached an important decision about his future career:
I decided that if Jim was going to be able to give me these payments, then the moment had finally come to start working on the film full-time. So, I went into the Film Commission and picked up the cheque – made out to WingNut Films – for $5,000. It was the most money I had seen in my life; the following day I handed in my notice at the Evening Post.
I kept filming for the next six or seven months: I could only shoot at weekends because all my actors still had full-time jobs, but at least I was now able to build props, masks and two different scale-models of the Gear Homestead, which we had now decided was in fact the aliens’ spaceship and would have to take off at the end of the movie. Being able to devote all my time to the project meant that I was not only able to accelerate the schedule but also to step up the production values.
Peter had been introduced to Cameron Chittock, a Christchurch model-maker and puppet-builder who was attempting to break into the film industry. Cameron flew up to Wellington, visited Peter at his home in Pukerua Bay and showed him examples of his work.
Cameron was given a tour of the Peter Jackson workshop – a basement room that Peter and his father had dug out under the house and built by hand, and which Richard Taylor would later describe as ‘a Batman’s lair’! Cameron was staggered at the professionalism, and the sheer quantity, of the creations packed into the room, from Peter’s stop-motion puppets for The Valley through to the weapons, props and masks, which he had been building for Bad Taste. He also got his first glimpse of the film itself:
‘I loved it! It made me laugh: I’m not especially interested in horror movies or films with a lot of blood-and-guts, but I found Peter’s angle on the genre irresistible. The thing that really attracted me to him was his sense of humour and what you might call his outrageous behaviour on film – he had a rebellious streak in him and he attracted other rebels and provided the focus for a bunch of people in the film industry who were wanting to stir things up a bit!’
Recognising Cameron as someone who was not only skilled but who shared his own passion for special effects, Peter offered him the job of being his special make-up effects assistant. ‘I moved to Wellington, ’ remembers Cameron, ‘and, within a few days, was working twenty-four hours a day, seven days a week trying to keep up with Peter!’
Cameron’s early recollections of Peter accord with those of many who knew him at this early stage of his career: ‘If you didn’t know him, you might have thought him quite shy with people, even withdrawn, but as soon as you put a camera in his hands or gave him a paintbrush or bottle of latex to work with, he became incredibly confident and self-assured.’
Until he found accommodation of his own, Cameron lived with the Jackson family and has strong memories of Peter’s parents at this time when their son was embarking on his career as a professional film-maker: ‘The Jacksons were really delightful people. The moment you met them you realised that Peter had grown up with a very loving and hugely supportive home life. Mr Jackson was calm, warm and generous, a good-natured, jovial man whose company I really enjoyed. Mrs Jackson was very motherly, doing everything possible to make me feel at home and part of the family and clearly dedicated to supporting Peter, even though she couldn’t really relate to the weird movie he was busily making! Both parents were obviously happy that Peter had found what he wanted to do in life and were going to do everything they possibly could to help him achieve it.’
As the story began to circulate about the little amateur film that had been three years in the making and was still being filmed, various people began lending their help: Costa Botes met an unpleasant death as an alien; Tony Hiles appeared as the shadowy controller of the antialien unit ‘Coldfinger’ (a reuse of the punning name from Peter’s early, uncompleted James Bond spoof); while Stephen Sinclair and Fran Walsh wielded hammers and paintbrushes on the construction of a scale replica of Gear Homestead.
Two more friends of Stephen and Fran’s joined the increasingly expanding group that was now pushing Bad Taste towards completion. Bryce and Grant Campbell were brothers who worked with special effects gear. They were dragged off to watch the footage already shot which, says Bryce, ‘felt about two and half hours long’ but which had
Around this time, Cameron Chittock had joined me and was very helpful in painting and building the alien bodies. I sculpted a new head, and baked the foam latex in Mum’s oven. I had to grind an inch off the mould so that it would fit.
the most extraordinary moments: ‘There was an interminable gun battle that must have run for almost forty-five minutes, but then an amazing shot of somebody having the top of his head blown off that was so unbelievably convincing that it made you wonder whether the guy who’d filmed it was some sort of homicidal maniac!’
In fact, Bryce and his brother took an immediate liking to Peter: ‘He was totally driven and somewhat reserved but, when you got to know him, you realised that he was this big, enthusiastic, superobsessed kid!’
The Campbell brothers were soon involved giving practical assistance to the project: Grant blew up a car (and a sheep) while Bryce helped with rain and wind effects and had a near-death experience with the model of the Gear Homestead/alien spaceship. At the point when the house ‘blasted off,’ the model was lifted up on a crane and smoke had to pour out from beneath like a rocket taking off: ‘I had a smoke machine and Peter built a contraption using a rubbish bin that was intended to collect the smoke and feed it to various outlets within the model. Unfortunately, the pressure built up and the container exploded and a big piece of wood came swishing down on Peter and me like a helicopter blade. Fortunately it missed!’
Reflecting on the support which people in the industry had shown towards Bad Taste, Tony Hiles wrote, ‘The response was extraordinarily gratifying and at either minimal or (usually) no charge we mustered labour, equipment and building sites…I think my colleagues supported the project because they saw it as…adventurous, risky, crazy, oddball, inventive, humorous and above all – fresh.
‘Certainly part of its freshness comes from its raw quality – the often amateurish camera-work is just the start – but I have always felt it is a film with great heart and great integrity. Whether you actually get off on spoof splatter and non sequitur ironic humour is irrelevant because there are a hell of a lot of people who do. It’s a risky film but that is one of its great strengths – it will, when complete, be appalling to some and brilliant to others but it will never be average or ordinary…’
While new footage was being filmed to strengthen the story and deliver a dénouement, Peter was working with Jamie Selkirk on editing Bad