The Early Films of Peter Jackson

Before the Oscars, before the acclaim, before Middle Earth, Peter Jackson was making some of the sickest, goofiest and most audacious films to come out of New Zealand. Jackson, born in 1961, was bitten by the filmmaking bug at an early age, making Super-8 films and stop-motion monster shorts. Inspired by directors from Ray Harryhausen to Sam Rami, Jackson put his own spin on the horror genre with Bad Taste (1987). A violent piece of sci-fi shlock, Bad Taste set him on the path to becoming known for his "splatstick" comedies, blending ridiculous black comedy with grotesque body horror, a trend he continued with Meet the Feebles (1989) and perfected with Dead Alive (1991). Jackson's career took a sharp turn when he and his wife and collaborator Fran Walsh released Heavenly Creatures (1994), a psychological thriller based on the 1954 Parker-Hulme murder trial, one of New Zealand's most notorious crimes. Introducing Kate Winslet and Melanie Lynskey to the world, Jackson's blend of fantastical visions and real-life tragedy catapulted him to mainstream success and earned him and Walsh their first Academy Award nomination for Best Original Screenplay. A year later, Jackson co-wrote and co-directed Forgotten Silver (1995), a mockumentary about New Zealand film pioneer Colin MacKenzie, with period-accurate parodies of silent-era filmmaking. Despite their pitch-black comedy, outrageous violence and relative tastelessness, the work represented here does showcase some of the themes and work of Peter Jackson's bigger blockbuster work. Jackson's use of special effects, visual storytelling, playing with genre conventions and, in the case of Heavenly Creatures, mixing those conventions with character-driven narratives. These early features gave Jackson a chance to showcase what he's made of and they still represent the work of an invigorating, entertaining filmmaker even thirty years down the line. The films included are:Bad Taste (1987)Meet the Feebles (1989)Dead Alive [Braindead in some countries] (1991)Heavenly Creatures (1994)Forgotten Silver (1995; w/ Spanish Subtitles)

Director

Peter Jackson