Peter Jackson names his favourite horror movies of all time
Having helmed perhaps the greatest movie trilogy of all time in the shape of Lord of the Rings, Peter Jackson is equally one of the most significant cinematic figures to come out of his native New Zealand. The widely beloved fantasy movies based on the works of J.R.R. Tolkien are utter masterpieces and mostly come down to Jackson’s artistic genius.
Elsewhere, Jackson is heralded for his other cinematic works, including the 1994 drama Heavenly Creatures, plus the documentaries They Shall Not Grow Old and The Beatles: Get Back, which focus on World War I and The Beatles, respectively, and have contributed to his status as the fourth-highest-grossing filmmaker of all time.
However, while Jackson might indeed be best known for his masterpiece works of big-budget cinema like Lord of the Rings, his early beginnings as a director actually began with a handful of horror movies, including Bad Taste, Meet the Feebles and Braindead, revealing a surprising origin for the legendary filmmaker.
When asked why Jackson made a series of “splatter” movies as his first foray into filmmaking in an interview with DGA, he explained that the genre seemed to be the most “practical”, knowing that he would likely have a low budget, limited access to the best actors, and “most likely not a great script.”
“My first movie, Bad Taste, was really made up as we went along over four years, and it didn’t even have a script,” Jackson admitted. Not having actors or a script tends to be somewhat limiting.” However, those very circumstances are what urged Jackson to make the most of his opportunity.
The result was that Jackson made Bad Taste – telling of the Earthly invasion of a group of aliens who want to harvest human beings for their interplanetary fast food chain – with the gore and humour ramped right the way up, and this led to more attention for the film than might have been otherwise.
Going on to explain his love for horror cinema, Jackson noted, “Obviously, I have a love for horror like Re-Animator, The Evil Dead, Dawn of the Dead – I was totally into those films, and I still am. Horror movies are a wonderful way for young filmmakers to break into the business, because they let you make an impact without the finesse you need if you’re trying to do, say, a drama or comedy.”
The first of Jackson’s favourite horror movies is Stuart Gordon’s 1985 comedy horror Re-Animator, which is loosely based on the H.P. Lovecraft novelette ‘Herbert West-Reanimator’. Starring Jefferey Combs in the lead role, the film tells of a medical student who discovers a reagent that can, as the film’s title suggests, reanimate human corpses, leading to a scientist and romantic battle.
Next for Jackson is Sam Raimi’s legendary supernatural horror film The Evil Dead, released in 1981. Bruce Campbell and Ellen Sandweiss star in the film, which tells of five college friends who take a vacation to an isolated cabin in rural Tennessee. After finding and playing a mysterious audiotape, a legion of demons are unleashed on the group, possessing four of them, leaving one to fend for himself.
Finally, Jackson’s favourite horror movie list is rounded off by George A. Romero’s 1978 zombie movie Dawn of the Dead, the second of the director’s zombie works, following 1968’s Night of the Living Dead. It focuses on a zombie apocalypse and sees a group of survivors barricade themselves in a shopping mall to hide from the bloody violence and mass hysteria.
Peter Jackson’s favourite horror movies:
- Bad Taste
- Re-Animator
- The Evil Dead
- Dawn of the Dead
Peter Jackson’s favourite horror movies:
- Re-Animator (Stuart Gordon, 1985)
- The Evil Dead (Sam Raimi, 1981)
- Dawn of the Dead (George A. Romero, 1978)
