This article was originally written around 1999 for the Sun Newspaper. Every now in then, I like to give it a punch up, update it and remind people, there is nothing wrong with Bad Taste!
A Revolution in Bad Taste
Maybe it’s just me but there is something about bad movies that I really like.
Bad horror movies to be specific. The lower the budgets, the worse the effects, the more I seem to enjoy them. Nothing beats a microphone in the frame or an actor accidentally looking directly at the camera.
It’s a hobby that began when I was a child.
My sister, who is four years older than me, used to rent horror movies religiously back in the 80s heyday of the blood and guts slasher flicks. And I used to diligently watch them with her.
I think I saw so many of these movies that they eventually numbed the piece of my mind that would become frightened by them.
So, oddly, I became endeared to them. I learned to appreciate these movies for what they are — cheap, low brow entertainment.
They are a chance for my brain to relax and succumb to one of life’s guilty pleasures.
These movies are so popular and make so much money that they must fulfill some morbid fascination in each of us — a fascination that can guiltlessly be enjoyed, since we know that these are only movies and nobody gets hurt.
I guess that may be why I like the really bad ones even more. Knowing that the verisimilitude of the movies is so far-fetched, so unbelievable, and such a far cry from any reality I will ever know, only adds to the enjoyment.
What’s even stranger is that I don’t like the sight of blood, real blood. When I was seven, I wanted to be a doctor, that was until I saw a kid go over his bicycle handlebars and break his nose.
When I saw real blood, I knew immediately I couldn’t stomach being a doctor.
But real blood aside, I get a kick out of horror flicks. I like the ones that are so fake, so bad and so bloody that I have no choice but to continue watching.
Years ago, circa 1999, (Before Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings movies), when I worked at a small community newspaper, an editor friend of mine once wrote about a movie called Bad Taste. It is Peter Jackson’s first movie and it is the epitome of low-budget, comedy-horror.
This is a movie that is so low budget, so bad, so bloody and, at the time, so hard to find that I thought nobody else had seen it. Ah, a kindred spirit.
Newly inspired, I went to a video store (when they still existed) and asked the cashier if he had Bad Taste.
He seemed offended. Then I went to the Internet. Keep in mind, this was around 1999, so there was much less out there and I wasn’t expecting to find much.
Bad Taste was everywhere, even in the last millennium. There are others who enjoy the lack of quality that makes these films unique.
Since then, the audience and appreciation for this movie has grown. I am continually surprised how many people have Bad Taste.
It’s not just me.
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