Street Trash

  This... movie... broke me. Almost at least. I contemplated turning it off and walking away from it. I never do that. Yet... I feared for my sanity. (Thar be spoilers in these waters, ye've been warned. Arrr.) Did I turn it off at the mob of hobos who abduct a woman, and presumably rape and murder her? No. Did I turn it off when a man drinks a strange acidic drink, and melts himself down a toilet? No. It was when someone ripped off a guy's penis, and played catch with it in a junkyard. I paused the movie as the severed fake looking plastic dild- er I mean penis, flew through the air... and I sat in shock. Already quite audibly stunned at the ripping off of said dildo (ahem) penis. I was even more shocked to find the hobos in this junkyard, gleefully ready to play keep-away with it, as it's owner, holding his bloodied crotch, waddles after them screaming for them to put it on ice. I sat, with the movie paused, stunned. Wondering if this would be the first movie I felt compelled to write a review on that I never finished.

  Well, safe to say, I did finish it. I can't say I regret it either. It's a top contender for one of the craziest, nastiest, most colorful, vulgar, and most disgusting movies I've ever sat through. In a good way if that's possible. I don't know how to classify this movie. It's funny enough to be a comedy, it's horrific enough to be horror, and in a peripheral sense it can even classify as action and sci-fi.
Can any one genre contain it? I don't personally think so. It's so batshit crazy, that things like plot, story, and acting fall by the wayside here. The star of the movie is it's gore, and the best supporting role is it's unique brand of insanity. It's like if Sam Raimi, Peter Jackson, John Carpenter and someone from the Crayola company (yes the one that makes crayons) all got drunk off their asses and decided to make the most crazy random and gross-out movie they could think of. I can certainly see the appeal believe it or not. The appeal is in it's strangeness.

  I'll get back to it's appeal after I tell you what it's about. It's about this mysterious liquor called "Viper". A liquor store owner digs up a crate from the basement of his shop as something to sell all the hobos that come around for dirt cheap. What this guy doesn't know, is that Viper melts people. One sip, and it melts you on the way down. Some people melt into the colors of a rainbow, as chunks of their flesh fall off and their rib cage hangs out, and some people explode in a veritable geyser of nearly neon pink blood. Seeing as how the store owner sells it so cheap, apparently only the hobos buy it. A bunch of people get caught up in this ever-evolving web of lies, deceit, homeless people, police, murder, rape, and this fuckin' booze that melts people.
There's quite a few characters here, and frankly too many to list, but you got your protagonists, and your antagonists, and then you got the police. So yeah.

  Anyways, the appeal of Street Trash lies in it's strangeness. There's always someone who thinks they've seen it all, and then there's another person smug with the fact they know that person hasn't seen Street Trash. It's not going to win points for good acting, or a good story, or anything like that. But it's super fucking weird. "Have you seen the one about the booze that melts people?" No? Well, if that's the kind of question that would pique your interest, congratulations. You'll probably find a way to watch this movie before the end of the week. I track down movies like this. Movies so crazy and nuts, you just gotta show em around to see other people's reactions. Not being able to contain your laughter as all the meat comes to life in the butcher shop and tries to kill everyone inside (Dead Heat) or when the giant alien worm molests the lady to death (Galaxy of Terror) and you're watching everyone's facial expressions. That's the appeal of Street Trash.

  It goes above and beyond the call of duty to maintain it's weirdness, and honestly it does it alot better than a movie I just realized it reminds me of, Class of Nuke Em' High. Both movies deal with gross out factors like so, but Nuke Em' High drags, unable to keep my attention glued to the screen like this movie did. From it's impressively well executed opening chase, it's tongue and cheek nature is irrepressible. It is funny. Not in a so-bad-I-need-to-laugh way, but in that there was some decent humor written here. I warn you, I may just be in some form of shock, and this might not be funny at all, but I found myself actually laughing a few times. It was surprising, but welcome. It doesn't stop to crack a joke, like a Troma film would. It doesn't grind to a halt in it's attempts to be funny. It flows naturally. I think some of the actors do a decent enough job to sell it too.

  Beyond it's humor lays a neon colored, lurid mess of gore, junkyard violence, street fights, foot chases, vietnam flashbacks, and one of the coolest, most icky ways to finish off the villain in a climax ever. I liked Street Trash. It was shocking, but not traumatic. It's cheesy enough to take the edge off of it's disgusting gore, even though a few scenes are surprisingly unnerving and incredibly effective. The plot meanders from encounter to encounter. Story lines are picked up and then dropped like a hot potato. Narratively, the movie is a mess. However I can't bring myself to dislike it. It may be a mess, but it was more captivating and weird than any number of movies who promise the same disgusting attractions. It's about booze that melts people, and the hobos whose lives it changes. This isn't exactly high brow cinema. I hate it when reviewers use that excuse, but for this once, I give it a hall pass. The whole goal of this movie, is to be gross and stick in your head. If it has to puke up it's internal organs in a colorful variety of blue, pink, green and purple to achieve that, it'll do it. If you actually want to see it after this review, than I wholeheartedly suggest you do so. If not? Stay away. You may need therapy afterwards.