Over a decade before Peter Jackson would be known across the world of the director that brought Tolkien’s famous books to the big screen, he was very well known to us horror fans for his early films. I can still remember reading about this wacky and gory new film from some chap down in New Zealand who made an alien invasion film called Bad Taste (1987), which not only had Jackson directing, but starring in the film in two main roles, no less! His next feature was Meet the Feebles (1989), which was a twisted take-off of the Muppet Show, but if their world was filled with sex, violence, drugs, and everything else that made the world go round! Then of course, his next feature, Braindead (1992), also known as Dead Alive, became probably the goriest and bloodiest zombie film ever made. And all blood and guts aside, it was also a damn good movie! His fourth feature, Heavenly Creatures (1994) was a huge departure from those first three, but still a film to grab your attention, not by comedy and gore, but by an entrancing tale of murder. I can still remember when Jackson won the Oscar for the last Lord of the Rings feature, and during his acceptance speech, mentions Bad Taste and Feebles. I can only imagine some critic who didn’t know Jackson’s earlier work before the Rings trilogy and would seek them out, only to probably be shocked and appalled at them!

But now, showing that Jackson has never lost his love for the horror genre, he will be releasing these first four films in a box set, where each of the titles will not only be re-mastered, and the soundtrack getting a new 5.1 mix, but there will also be TONS of extras!

Jackson stated, “I’ve decided to go back and do this to my old films – the first four I made, which I own but never re-released. I’ve done some tests on Braindead where we took the 16mm negative and put it through our World War I restoration pipeline – and shit, it looks fantastic! I’m pretty keen to actually get them back out there again. That’s sort of my plan for now. To do a nice little box set – the early years! The naughty years! The mixes on those films were pretty much all stereo in those days, so we’re going to get the old soundtracks out and do a 5.1 mix.”

Now back in the old days of laserdiscs, I remember the ton of extras that Jackson put on the special edition release of his 1996 film The Frighteners. It looks like we are going to get a lot of great stuff in this box set. According to Jackson, “I’ve always had video diaries being shot. So I’ve got an hour or two of us shooting Bad Taste, 7 or 8 hours of us shooting Meet the Feebles, 50 to 60 hours of us filming Braindead, and at least 70 hours of us doing Heavenly Creatures. And it’s not just people talking into camera. It’s actually a guy on set filming us making the film. So there’s some pretty interesting stuff there and none of it has ever been out.”

Who knows exactly what is going to be on here, but I can only imagine the kind of stuff he’s going to put in this set and I for one, am extremely excited for it. Just to see on the set footage of the lawnmower scene in Braindead…or any footage from Feebles….that is an afternoon of sheer bliss sitting in front of the TV! Can’t wait.