Extraterrestrial fast-food franchisers come to earth to pick up food supplies-in this case, human flesh. After wiping out a few small towns, the aliens must contend with a team of government assassins, headed by Pete O'Herne. As the plot rolls on, O'Herne's crew is decimated in as gory a manner as possible, and innocent bystander Craig Smith ends up being marinated (and a darned good job it is). Turns out that the space folks are running on a timetable; they've got to return to their home planet with their human-hash cargo before a rival franchise puts them out of business. ~ Hal Erickson, All Movie Guide
Review by All Movie Guide
All Movie Guide
lost interest.
As exhausting and demanding a test of the gag reflex as any film ever committed to celluloid,
Peter Jackson's low-budget, amazingly resourceful portrayal of mankind a la carte is a series of kinetically realized chunk-blowing vignettes that endlessly assault the viewer at such a hyperactive pace that it's nearly impossible to draw a breath, much less take a moment to laugh at the revoltingly hilarious exploits. Sheep are blown to oblivion with rocket launchers, steaming alien vomit is consumed as a delicacy, legions of sledgehammer-toting, human-hungry aliens taunt and torture the heroes, and an entire Victorian home launches into space -- all for a fraction of the budget of the most minimalist independent film of recent years and with ten times the energy. Though Jackson would repeatedly revisit similar nauseating territory to similar effect and success, he would captivate viewers six years later with
Heavenly Creatures, his moving and hauntingly sensitive retelling of New Zealand's infamous Parker-Hulme murders. ~ Jason Buchanan, All Movie Guide