02 November 2012 / James Wilson

Issue: 7536 / Categories: Blogs

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An open & shut case?

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James Wilson recalls the day when zombies invaded the courtroom

Peter Jackson is New Zealand’s best known and most successful film director. His Lord of the Rings trilogy won 17 of the 30 Academy Awards for which it was nominated. His first “mainstream” film, Heavenly Creatures, dealt sensitively and imaginatively with one of New Zealand’s most notorious crimes, the Parker-Hulme murder of 1954. He produced the intelligent science fiction film District 9 and also directed a well-received remake of King Kong.

Braindead

With all that in mind, it usually comes as a surprise for people to learn that his first two films, Bad Taste and Braindead, were “splatter horrors”, and indeed extreme examples of what is already a far-fetched and farcical genre. I imagine that the target audience for both films was in the nature of drunken students rather than, for example, senior judges. Yet Braindead (AKA Dead Alive) became the subject of a lawsuit, necessitating its viewing in full in the solemn surrounds of

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An open & shut case?

© Copyright LexisNexis 2026. All Rights Reserved.

istock_000017551619small_4

James Wilson recalls the day when zombies invaded the courtroom

Peter Jackson is New Zealand’s best known and most successful film director. His Lord of the Rings trilogy won 17 of the 30 Academy Awards for which it was nominated. His first “mainstream” film, Heavenly Creatures, dealt sensitively and imaginatively with one of New Zealand’s most notorious crimes, the Parker-Hulme murder of 1954. He produced the intelligent science fiction film District 9 and also directed a well-received remake of King Kong.

Braindead

With all that in mind, it usually comes as a surprise for people to learn that his first two films, Bad Taste and Braindead, were “splatter horrors”, and indeed extreme examples of what is already a far-fetched and farcical genre. I imagine that the target audience for both films was in the nature of drunken students rather than, for example, senior judges. Yet Braindead (AKA Dead Alive) became the subject of a lawsuit, necessitating its viewing in full in the solemn surrounds of

If you are not a subscriber, subscribe now to read this content

If you are already a subscriber sign in

...or Register for two weeks' free access to subscriber content

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