Street Trash

Street Trash (1987)
Directed by: Jim Muro
Rating: 2.75 out of 4 Pentagrams
Reviewed by: Jeff Deth

Oh my God. Dear Lord. How do I describe this film? I can’t even begin to classify this. What I can tell you is that Street Trash has almost every form of depravity I can think of. Muro and crew obviously set out to make something within the horror/comedy genre that closely resembles a Tromaville production. The fact that Troma had nothing to do with the making of this amazes me.

Quite simply, if you enjoy schlocky bloodbaths like Class of Nuke’m High and The Toxic Avenger, you’ll certainly love this. If you don’t veer in that direction, I can’t possibly see what there is to enjoy otherwise. Horrible acting, totally nonsensical plot development,
repeated offenses against humanity, etc.

But if you’re like me, you will excuse it all given the pure entertainment value of it all. Actually, enjoying this film makes me realize what a sick fuck I must be. The average movie-watching citizen would watch this film and scream in agony. Me? I’m laughing my ass off 70 out of 90 minutes. I’m sick, that’s what I am. And so were the people involved with making this slab of filth.

As I said, the “plot” is pretty incoherent. The main premise is supposed to be about a 60-year-old case of liquor pints that make people melt and/or explode upon ingesting. That basic idea is fine and from a horror stand point it provides the only real horrific scenes to justifiably label it that way at all. Aside from that, the movie documents the pathetic comings and goings of drunken, derelict bums each covered by a literal sheet of dirt and scum. The local liquor shop begins selling off the discovered “Viper” booze at liquidation price, setting off a chain of bum deaths.

A painfully overacted role of tough guy cop is introduced to investigate. There’s all these bizarre human relationship subplots taking place amongst the bums centered around their dwellings of the scrap heap junkyard. There’s a crazy Nam-vet that is either having flashbacks about killing people or he is actually killing people in the present. Mostly other bums in the junkyard. Somewhere along the line a Gangster/Nightclub owner gets involved. Then there’s the owner of the yard and his Asian assistant who tries to aid the bums living on the premise. It’s all a little much when you just want to see people melt. How they shoehorn in romantic interests amazes me. You feel so f’n filthy watching this, the last thing you want people to do is get it on. But they do by God. The intent of this film is to offend and disgust and it does not fail.

Anyway, there’s a couple great melting deaths on the front end that catch your attention but unfortunately this is followed by a 45-minute dry spell where the ridiculous “character building” develops. I was close to giving up when the kills start rolling in again to give quite a strong finish. The drunks get thirsty and vengeful and the melting gets serious. I loved the way they introduced a rainbow of colors to ooze out of the Viper victims instead of blood and guts alone. The F/X crew is the hero that makes this all worthwhile. Created on a shoestring budget and not entirely perfect, the make-up is very cool to watch. Watch this one drunk or sober, preferably in a crowd for maximum laughs.

Hats off for pushing the gore to the limit in addition to the hilarity of exploiting crazed, drunken, Nam-vet Street Trash!