Meet The Feebles
Director: Peter Jackson
Screenwriter: Peter Jackson, Danny Mulheron, Stephen Sinclair, Frances Walsh
Rating: R — puppets having sex, puppets eating excrement and/or vomiting, puppets killing each other, puppets doing drugs


The trailer for the “Two Towers” had left me desperate. I had just recovered from the “Fellowship of the Rings” when those heartless advertisers decided to toss a crumb to us faithful (nerds) followers of “The Lord of the Rings” movie trilogy. Goose bumps prickled on my arm like a second helping of chicken pox as I watched the next installment tease of Tolkien’s masterpiece. However, once the screen went blank, I felt a gnawing need for more. I bought the “Fellowship” and watched it over and over until my wife called in an intervention team. Still ravenous, I then thought about dressing up as Gollum and harassing director Peter Jackson. I reasoned that I could stalk the poor sap until he was so creeped out by my desperation that he would hand over the director’s cut of the “Two Towers.” But, I scrapped the idea when I found out there was a chance I might miss “Return of the King.” Jails are notorious for not showing new release movies.

Where to turn? Bribery ($10 and a promissory note wouldn’t cut it) ... blackmail (surely, I thought, the actor who played Frodo had something hiding under his jerkin) ... or, maybe, I could hold off this hunger by watching some of Peter Jackson’s first movies. It was cheap, I wouldn’t have to cause international incidents, and I could use my excuse for being a couch slug (“if I don’t move from this spot, I won’t be able to injure myself”).

I tracked down Jackson’s first two movies — “Bad Taste” (courtesy of my friend at the Fine Arts Theatre) and “Meet the Feebles.” I came away from both feeling ... stunned. No, my craving for the “Two Towers” had not gone away, but I became aware that there was a Peter Jackson before “Lord of the Rings.”

Fair warning: Before you run off and get these movies, be very aware that they are nothing like the pageantry of “Lord of the Rings.” They are disgusting and tasteless, they were made on limited resources that make shoestring budgets look like loops of steel, and they are not made for animals, children, and most adults. That being said, I have to admit that I loved both of them. The hobbits took a back seat as I entered Peter’s first world of exploding sheep, fornicating puppets, and brain matter special effects that looked suspiciously like uncooked chicken.

Still feeling intrigued, valiant reader? Well then, let me introduce Jackson’s first movie, “Bad Taste” a quirky little film that was made on weekends between 1983 and 1987 ... when the paychecks allowed. The entire cast was Jackson himself and his unpaid friends. He also wrote (it was more of an outline, the rest was improv), directed, and did the special effects (he had worked as a special effect person before manning the camera). The New Zealand Film Commission saw promise in Jackson’s work, and they supplied enough funding for him to finish his picture.

The end result is a “B” horror film with “A” humor. It’s kind of like Monty Python in a meat grinder. The movie begins with the Astro-Investigation and Defense Service (ironically initialed AIDS) bumbling onto Kaihoro, a tiny hamlet that seems to be missing its citizens. Apparently, they have been slaughtered by a hungry alien legion. But these aren’t just your average cannibalistic aliens; these are corporate aliens bent on commercializing six billion people parts. Human flesh and brain matter are the new wave of alien delicacy. Our species will be shipped as fast food, under the banner of Crumm’s Crunchy Delights.

Fortunately for the human race, AIDS has sent out a couple of specialized dimwits to stop the white-collar extraterrestrials. The leader is Derek (Peter Jackson) a nerdy fellow with bad teeth who knows how to stop the aliens. Unfortunately, Derek is thrown off a cliff by Robert the Alien (also Peter Jackson) and left as fodder for the sea gulls. However, Derek doesn’t perish. He’s left with a crack in the back of his head with his brains oozing out like geyser of tapioca pudding. Still alive (with zombie characteristics), Derek finds a tight hat that keeps his brain in.

Meanwhile, Derek’s cohorts, Ozzy (Terry Potter), Barry (Peter O’Herne) and Frank (Mike Minett) have discovered the aliens’ hideout. Their goal is to rescue Giles (Craig Smith), a nerdy door-to-door salesman who ends up in a batch of alien stew. Once they rescue Giles, the trio plans to blow up the alien house.

Now with the plot “squirmly” in place, the viewer is treated to all kinds of gratuitous gore. Alien vomit is gulped, chainsaws reconstruct faces, seagulls are head butted, and brain parts replace the token banana peel for comedic slippage episodes.

Should you laugh at such gore? Yes. Everything is so purposely fake and stupid that the only reaction is to chuckle. Plus, remember that this movie was done on limited resources. The stunt scenes look like “T.J. Hooker” on a bad day and the actors (I’m sure) have never come within a thousand mile radius of Shakespeare’s Globe Theatre. However, the great thing about this movie is that Jackson never once takes the movie seriously. He knows it’s a farce and he plays on it so well that the movie has become a cult phenomenon alongside “Monty Python and the Holy Grail.”

“Meet the Feebles” was done on the leftover grant money (by the New Zealand Film Commision) from “Bad Taste.” This time Jackson transformed foam and rubber into foul-mouthed, drug ingesting, porn-filming, knife wielding puppets. One reviewer coined that “Meet the Feebles” looked like the “Muppets” on crack. He’s not far off.

The hero of this deranged tale is Robert the Hedgehog (he pronounces his name with an Elmer Fudd dialect—“Wobewt”). He has just joined the Feebles Variety Hour —a tenth rate vaudevillian troupe located in the bad part of town. Wo ... I mean Robert (and the viewers) is in for a shock when he learns the nasty underbelly of the Feebles. The manager of the show, Bletch, is a seedy walrus that finances porn, sells drugs (what puppets take, I’m not sure), and cheats on his star lover, Heidi the Hippo.

Heidi, at 300 pounds of slobbering joy, has gone on an eating binge, stopping at cake shops around the city to gorge. The show’s host, Harry the Hare, has a nasty venereal disease that’s put brown splotches all over his furry face. Not to mention that the show’s knife thrower has not had a fix in a week and he’s getting shakier by the minute. Despite these “minor” deviances, the Feebles will get a syndicated TV show if their next performance wins the crowd over.

The build-up to the climax is something comparable to watching your bathroom flood. My stomach became a battleground as I chortled with laughter one minute, and the next I was fighting fight nausea (be warned: the fly reporter that lurks in the toilet is queasy material). The ending is classic and demonstrates Jackson’s knack for being able to manipulate numerous actions until they collide for the grotesque finale (He has mastered this ability in “Lord of the Rings”). I won’t give the ending away, but I will say there’s a dance number about sodomy, the knife thrower gets his fix, and a machine gun gets the final nod.

I’m not sure if Jackson wanted to show the rigors of show business, or if he just wanted to disturb and sicken a mass amount of people. Perhaps both. Whatever his intention, the movie shows trickles of Jackson’s (dare I say it) genius. The camera work shows a veteran at 29 years of age, and his Vietnam montage in the “Feebles” is unforgettable. No matter how sickened you might get from those grimy puppets, you can’t help but admire the work Jackson did with a little help from foam and rubber.

Disgusted yet? Good. Once you get over your initial fear of the grotesque, pop in (not at once) these two tapes and enter the universe of cheap laughs and green stamp gore.