

Title: Bad Taste
Date: 1987

Vitals: Before he was Mr. Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson was a scrappy New Zealand geek with a penchant for silly B-movies full of gore and weirdness. Bad Taste is his alien invasion movie from that era. A bunch of aliens land in a backwater New Zealand town and turn its inhabitants into the main tasty treat sold at their intergalactic fast food chain. To prevent humans from becoming outer-space crispy nuggets, a group of bumbling Space Defense Agents fight the aliens in a goofy grossout showdown.

Famous names: Peter Jackson

Crunchy goodness: 3

Sight you'll never unsee: Working undercover among the invaders, the agents must participate in an alien-bonding ritual that involves drinking extraterrestrial vomit. You will laugh, you will barf.

Copycat: Jackson returned to the theme of freakish eating habits in his classic zombie flick Dead Alive, where the main character's undead mother calmly eats her own ear after it falls into a dish of custard.

Bang for your buck: There's no doubt that Jackson knows what to do with a special effects budget - though the money he raised for Bad Taste was a tiny fraction of what he had for Lord of the Rings, the blood-spattering fights and alien creatures in this flick are as over-the-top creative as it gets.

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