peter jackson chapter i: bad taste peter jackson chapter ii: meet the feebles (missing) peter jackson chapter iii: braindead **two years after bad taste peter jackson would make meet the feebles, another gross-out (?) comedy horror with puppets. sadly it has not been released in it's oar or even officially in north america as of yet. therefore i must skip ahead to braindead** three years after meet the feebles, and five years after bad taste jackson's third feature film was released. having found success and cult status with his two first films, and showing the world that he was an inventive and talented filmmaker, a studio got behind him to help make his next feature. for his third feature he decided to do another horror comedy, filled to the brim with gore and gross out's and of course loaded with comedy. this time he had a budget and a production schedule and a cast and everything a professional would need. and so he went and made braindead (or as it's known across the pond in my hood: dead-alive). braindead is a zombie film that never holds back. it is really an out and out comedy more so than a horror film and can only be called horror because it features zombies and a boatload of gore. there are no scares to be had, no jumps, no actually frightening images, everything is played for laughs. my first experience came late in life for this film. i had always wanted to see it but sadly i never had found it on video in my array of local video stores and i'm going to go as far as to say that it just wasn't available in my youth. so the first time i got to see it was in 2001, in university, in a horror class i was taking. suffice to say i loved it. in 2005, while living in scotland, i found it for cheap on dvd, instantly purchased it and went home to have another great experience watching it. come november 22nd, 2014 and briandead is on the menu. following bad taste, and skipping over meet the feebles (don't own it; never seen it; not available), i couldn't be more excited. i love gore, i love peter jackson, i love braindead. i popped it in to watch and revel in this early 90's classic. braindead is about a new zealand zoologist who travels to skull island (home of king kong) to get a rare sumatran rat-monkey which ends up biting and infecting a local new zealander at the zoo and causing her to become a zombie in which she begins to infect the town. it's also about lionel and his overbearing mother and his love interest and a hidden trauma in his past. but really it's all about the gore. while jackson pulled no punches in bad taste when it came to the gore, here he goes way over the top and it's all the better for it. the entire last half hour of this movie is one blood soaked, limb flying, bite taking, humour inducing, manic bloodbath. it has to be one of the goriest, yet funniest things, ever put on film. and as i mentioned, braindead is really an out and out comedy. when a priest says 'i kick ass for the lord' and proceeds to drop kick and pummel zombies you know you are watching a comedy ('it's time for some divine intervention'). when a set of intestines and kidneys and guts has a life of it's own you know you are watching a comedy. when you have a vet who is really an escaped nazi living in new zealand and is doing a terrible job of hiding it you know you are watching a comedy. and this comedy is laugh out loud funny. but it also has heart. it's got a very sweet (if slapstick) romance and the whole story with lionel's past and his mom is very tender and sad and adds to the movie. it makes braindead more than just a gore soaked comedy, something that was missing from bad taste. it shows that when jackson, for the first time, is given the opportunity he doesn't just repeat what he has done before but he brings something new to the table and in a fresh and exciting and meaningful way. with his first studio backed project jackson proved he was no one trick pony. his fantastically bizarre and well written script went well above and beyond what was expected of him. he pulled out fantastic performances from virtually everyone in the film (i can only fault diana peñalver as paquita for a wooden performance). the editing and pace of the film is breathtaking and yet it never leaves time for you to breathe. he uses inventive camera angles and has a camera that never stops moving and never slows down and the music used is perfect for setting the tone and vibe of what you are watching. in the 97 minutes that braindead plays out, jackson gives the audience one hell of a thrill ride. he also incorporates many sly references to films that inspired him, most obviously king kong (skull island) and romero's original dead trilogy. watching braindead again i found that it hadn't dated at all. it's just as good as i remember and just as good as everyone says. it's rightly a cult classic and it's rightly a horror fan's 'must have in their collection' type of film. it shows the blossoming talent of a new director who shows no signs that this is his first studio picture. here, jackson has taken what he did with his first film and extrapolated it ten fold. he's taken the gore and upped it to the umpteenth degree and he really holds back on nothing. he's taken the story and added more plot and more character development and more heart to give it a greater connection to the audience. he's taken the humour and using a budget, real actors and a better sense of editing and timing he has turned what was sometimes awkward humour in bad taste into something that is laugh out loud funny basically from minute one. it wouldn't be long before hollywood came calling for peter jackson, before that though he would make one more feature that would catapult him into the big leagues (sort of) and would show the world that he was not just a horror guy. nope, as not to be typecast in a certain genre, jackson would next go on to make heavenly creatures... 90/100