July, 1989. GoreZone No. 8. Cover story: “Balun insults everyone — Is splatter dead?”

Hardly a triumphant celebration of the sticky stuff for a magazine touting the tag-line “All the splatter that matters” — who could have ever guessed that the kings of gore were about to take over Hollywood? That was one year after Sam Raimi’s Evil Dead II burst up from the fruit cellar to scare us all silly, and two years after then-obscure New Zealand director Peter Jackson’s deliciously vile Bad Taste was speculated to become the next Rocky Horror by GoreZone’ sister publication Fangoria Magazine.

Flash forward to 2009, when Raimi is responsible for what is arguably the most successful comic book film franchise ever and Jackson is sitting pretty with an Oscar for Best director.
 

Unlike the multi-million-dollar-budgeted first-time films released by most freshman filmmakers today, Raimi and Jackson’s early shoestring efforts succeeded thanks to buzz rather than hype. Films like Evil Dead and Bad Taste were innovative, inventive, and genuinely exciting; they were made by folks who held a deep-rooted love of cinema and had a creative vision to share with the world. These days, thanks to internet advertising and hyperbolic pull quotes, it’s nearly impossible to discern the next Star Wars from the next Chronicles of Riddick without losing at east twenty of your hard-earned dollars.

Which brings us to District 9.

The theater was simmering with hushed anticipation at the screening of District 9 when WRIF personality Anne Carlini’s voice came over the microphone. She was announcing a special contest, and called for three people with August birthdays to come to the front of the theater. Whoever could name all three Lord of the Rings films would win a frame of autographed production art for District 9, signed by producer Jackson himself. Not one of those three contestants (one of whom the jovial dj joked as likely owning “the Director’s Cut of each one”) could answer the question correctly. When another Augustite raced to the front of theater and got his grey matter tickled with the cerebral softball “What are your three favorite sci-fi films featuring aliens” he befuddledly responded with, “‘Alien,”Aliens,’ and…. (interminable pause) ‘Alien Resurrection.’”

Alien Resurrection?!?!! Seriously?!? If you’re gonna start dumpster diving why don’t you just pick AVP? Having been so hastily pulled out of his posterior, the title practically had fresh feces dripping off of it.

Inside I was screaming “Bad Taste!!! Say Bad Taste!” though if no one could name the three Lord of the Rings flicks, how would anyone possibly dig as far back as Bad Taste to give Jackson the props he deserves? (Yes savvy cinemaphiles, regardless of its status as a splatter flick, Bad Taste is technically sci-fi due to he fact that the big-headed people-eaters happen to hail from another planet, but anyone who has seen the grue-soaked flick will testify that it’s splatterific through and through.) Like the very best of films, Bad Taste earned its success thanks to genuine buzz instead of manufactured hype.

That night, in the crowded theater, the same thing was happening with District 9. Rarely has a screening audience been so rapt with attention as it was when the theater went dark and we were presented with the compelling alternate history of our first contact with an alien civilization. Sure there were the playful shusses early on, but once the story got underway, there wasn’t a running commentary to be heard, nor a glowing cell phone to be seen.

Thank you for not texting.

These days Jackson is about as Hollywood as you can get; his name has been used to sell District 9 the same way Robert Zemeckis‘ was to sell The Frighteners back in 1996 (spook-a-blasting viewers a good thirteen years before Raimi did so with Drag Me to Hell - an equally fun film that faced an equally abysmal fate at the box office). Now, just as then, the producer has been given the lion’s share of credit for the work of a completely deserving director — in this case Neill Blomkamp. Make no mistake, despite some obvious Jackson influence (mainly in the humor and splatter departments, it would seem) District 9 is most certainly the work of a talented writer and filmmaker in his own right. Blomkamp fuses the introspective story elements that make sci-fi great (offering pointed insight into man’s inhumanity to man through a fantastical story involving extraterrestrials and technology) with the kind of modern filmmaking techniques that allows his thought-provoking story to be entirely believable.

But there’s also exploding people - lots of exploding people - which makes District 9 not only an engaging sci-fi classic in the vein of The Day the Earth Stood Still, but also an thrill-soaked adrenaline blast that feels equally indebted to Aliens or Starship Troopers. It’s a film that works on a number of levels, and for that reason it’s bound to resonate with a large cross section of viewers. The more you think about it, the more you want to talk about it.

When that starts to happen, you’ve got the seed of good buzz. Once that seed has been planted, the only thing left to do is water it with good conversation and watch it grow. District 9 is about to start growing, and as a movie lover it’s a real thrill to watch that first tell-tale sprout blossom its way into our collective conscience.