Street Trash

{{Infobox film

| name = Street Trash

| image = Streettrash.jpg

| caption = Theatrical poster

| producer = Roy Frumkes{{cite web|url=http://thequietus.com/articles/10252-street-trash-jim-muro-roy-frumkes-25-years-on|title=25 Years On: Street Trash Revisited|last=Stimpson|first=Andrew|work=The Quietus|date=2012-10-07|accessdate=2016-08-21}}

| starring = {{plainlist|

Mike Lackey
R. L. Ryan
Vic Noto

}}

| cinematography = David Sperling

| editing = Dennis Werner

| music = Rick Ulfik

| studio = {{plainlist|

Street Trash Joint Venture
Lightning Pictures

}}

| distributor = Lightning Pictures

| released = {{Film date|1987|09|16}}

| runtime = 101 minutes

| country = United States

| language = English

| budget = $100,000{{cite magazine |last=Scapperotti|first=Dan|date=September 1987|title= Street Trash|url=https://archive.org/details/cinefantastique_1970-2002/Cinefantastique%20Vol%2017%20No%205%20%28Sept%201987%29/page/n21/mode/1up?view=theater|magazine=Cinefantastique |location= |publisher= Fourth Castle Micromedia|access-date=April 27, 2025}}

}}

Street Trash is a 1987 American black comedy body horror film directed by J. Michael Muro (credited as Jim Muro). It won the Silver Raven at the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film. The film has acquired a status as a cult classic independent horror-comedy and is one of a number of films known as "melt movies".{{cite web|url=https://dreadcentral.com/reviews/15073/street-trash-uk-dvd/|title=Street Trash (UK DVD)|last=Jones|first=Gareth|work=Dread Central|date=2010-01-06|accessdate=2016-07-08}}

In the film, a liquor store in Brooklyn starts selling cheap alcoholic beverages to local hobos. The beverages date to the 1920s, and are actually poisonous. While a local cop investigates the series of unexplained deaths, homeless veterans of the Vietnam War group together as a dangerous gang.

Plot

The owner of a liquor store in Greenpoint, Brooklyn, New York City finds a case of cheap booze ("Tenafly Viper") in his basement. It is more than 60 years old and has gone bad, but he decides to sell it to the local hobos anyway. Unfortunately, anyone who drinks it melts away hideously. At the same time, two homeless brothers find different ways to cope with homelessness while they make their residence in a local junkyard while one employee, a female cashier and clerk (Jane Arakawa), frequently tends to both of them.

Meanwhile, an overzealous cop (Bill Chepil) is trying to get to the bottom of all the deaths, all the while trying to end the tyranny of a deranged Vietnam War veteran named Bronson (Vic Noto), who has made his self-proclaimed "kingdom" at the junkyard with a group of homeless vets under his command as his personal henchmen.

The film is littered with darkly comedic deaths and injuries. It also contains the notorious "severed privates" scene where a group of homeless people play catch with the severed genitals of one of their number, as he futilely attempts to recover it.

Cast

Mike Lackey as Fred
Bill Chepil as Bill the cop
Vic Noto as Bronson
Mark Sferrazza as Kevin
Jane Arakawa as Wendy
Nicole Potter as Winette, Bronson's girlfriend
R. L. Ryan as Frank Schnizer
Clarence Jarmon as Burt
Bernard Perlman as Wizzy
Bruce Torbet as Paulie
Miriam Zucker as Drunken Wench
M. D'Jango Krunch as Ed, the liquor store owner
Tony Darrow as Nick Duran, the Italian mobster
Ian Benardo as Obnoxious kid
James Lorinz as Italian restaurant doorman
Julian Davis as The Weekend Warrior

Production

Street Trash began as a 10 minute short film for then 21-year-old J. Michael Muro as his graduate thesis for the New York School of Visual Arts.{{cite web|url=https://dreadcentral.com/news/37961/motion-picture-purgatory-street-trash|title=Motion Picture Purgatory: Street Trash|date=October 2012 }} Muro stated he was inspired by the Akira Kurosawa film Dodes'ka-den which depicted life in Japanese slums. After Muro managed to secure $30,000 to expand the short to feature length, he approached Roy Frumkes, a teacher at the New York School of Visual Arts, to write the script with Frumkes agreeing to do so as well as taking on a producer role as he believed he could obtain greater financing to help the commercial viability of the film. Muro tailored the script to film and make use of a Brooklyn based wrecking yard and adjacent warehouse belonging to Muro's father over the course of a 14 week shoot. The scene in which an overweight victim explodes, engineered by Dean Kartalas, was achieved by stuffing an explosive dummy with Drake's Cakes donated by the company as a product promotion.

In an NBR profile, Frumkes later said: "I wrote it to democratically offend every group on the planet, and as a result the youth market embraced it as a renegade work, and it played midnight shows."{{Cite web |url=http://www.nbrmp.org/features/RoyFrumkes.cfm |title=Roy Frumkes' interview with the National Board of Review of Motion Pictures |access-date=2005-11-29 |archive-date=2006-05-11 |archive-url=https://web.archive.org/web/20060511031901/http://www.nbrmp.org/features/RoyFrumkes.cfm |url-status=dead }} Bryan Singer worked on the film as a grip.{{cite web|url=http://www.filmreference.com/film/75/Bryan-Singer.html|title=Bryan Singer Biography}}

Deleted scenes include a junkyard dance sequence{{cite web|url=https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ls4_qtmlOic |archive-url=https://ghostarchive.org/varchive/youtube/20211221/ls4_qtmlOic |archive-date=2021-12-21 |url-status=live|title=Deleted Scene - Junk Yard Dance|website=YouTube |date=22 December 2007 }}{{cbignore}}{{cite web|url=http://www.chud.com/7953/EXCLUSIVE-INTERVIEW-ROY-FRUMKES-STREET-TRASH/|title=Interview with Roy Frumkes - CHUD.com}} and a sub-plot involving the relationship between Fred (Mike Lackey) and Bronson; these sequences are included in the documentary Meltdown Memoirs.

Release

The film was given a limited release theatrically in the United States by Lightning Pictures in June 1987.{{cite book|title=Shoot Me: Independent Filmmaking from Creative Concept to Rousing Release|last1=Frumkes|first1=Roy|last2=Simonelli|first2=Rocco|publisher=Skyhorse Publishing|year=2002|isbn=1-6215-3121-X|chapter=The Sweet Life|chapter-url=https://books.google.com/books?id=vkhfBgAAQBAJ&pg=PT67}} They also released the film on VHS the same year.

In 2005, Synapse Films marketed an all-new, digitally remastered version of the film. Included with the DVD were sticker-type "labels" of the Viper wine featured in the film.{{cite web|url=https://dvdverdict.com/reviews/streettrash.php|title=Street Trash | publisher=DVD Verdict|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20060901121404/http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/streettrash.php|archivedate=2006-09-01|first=Paul|last=Corupe}} In 2006, a second release by Synapse Films was announced, featuring the documentary Meltdown Memoirs by writer Roy Frumkes. The feature includes interviews with most of the surviving cast and crew with the exception of Jane Arakawa. It also contains the original 16mm short version of Street Trash.{{cite web|url=https://dvdverdict.com/reviews/streettrashse.php|title=Street Trash - Meltdown Edition | website=DVD Verdict|archiveurl=https://web.archive.org/web/20070528065151/http://www.dvdverdict.com/reviews/streettrashse.php|archivedate=2007-05-28|first=Paul|last=Corupe}}

In 2010, Arrow Video released a two-DVD set in the UK featuring the documentary Meltdown Memoirs along with a previously unavailable featurette with Jane Arakawa and the booklet 42nd Street Trash: The Making of the Melt written by Calum Waddell.{{cite web|url=http://www.arrowfilms.co.uk/index.php?tle_id=416&art_id=5&s=e4b66020ed50df0b3f34c20ac8910711|title=Street Trash | publisher=Arrow Video}} Since then, the movie has been released also on Blu-ray in numerous countries.[http://www.dvdcompare.net/comparisons/film.php?fid=24145 Street Trash (Blu-ray).] DVDCompare.net.

Reception

Street Trash received little critical attention upon its initial release. The film holds a 67% rating on review site Rotten Tomatoes, where critic Walter Goodman of The New York Times said of it, "It claims no redeeming social value, and you don't have to be a Supreme Court nominee to question whether the Founders could have foreseen anything like it when they wrote the First Amendment." Other reviewers on the platform consider Street Trash a crude but overlooked dark humor pioneer in the splatter film genre.{{cite web |title=Street Trash 1987, Horror |url=https://www.rottentomatoes.com/m/street_trash |website=Rotten Tomatoes |access-date=29 August 2021}}

The film has since gained a cult following among horror fans on the internet, owing in part to the minor character role of an obnoxious kid being played by infamous contestant Ian Benardo from reality TV shows So You Think You Can Dance? and American Idol, both of which he lost due to rude and bizarre behaviour, making him an iconic meme on YouTube. Chuck Bowen of Slant Magazine said (of the Street Trash Blu-ray), "Street Trash is a cult item that’s almost earnestly eager to offend, which is admittedly an odd thing to say about a film that features a prolonged scene in which a group of bums play hot potato with a man’s severed penis. It’s a 1980s American film, like Repo Man, that celebrates the proletariat’s resigned disenfranchisement as a badge of aesthetic honour." He went on to describe the film as a satire of the 1980's American political hierarchy, and rated it 4/5 stars.{{cite web |last1=Bowen |first1=Chuck |title=Review: James Muro's Street Trash on Synapse Films Blu-ray |url=https://www.slantmagazine.com/dvd/street-trash/ |website=www.slantmagazine.com |date=16 July 2013 |publisher=Slant Magazine |access-date=29 August 2021}} Review platform AllHorror said of Street Trash that they "personally loved it... the title might lead you to think its purpose is to shine a light on how trashy the homeless are, but it actually succeeds in showing how trashy everyone is.{{cite web |title=Street Trash Review (1987) |url=https://www.allhorror.com/reviews/street-trash-review-1987 |website=www.allhorror.com |publisher=AllHorror |access-date=29 August 2021}} Brian Eggert of Deep Focus Review criticized the film's attempts at shock value, saying, "around the time an unsuspecting bum inadvertently urinates on another, causing the pee-victim to chop off the offending man’s penis, while at the same moment, not far away, a would-be rapist engages in necrophilia with the corpse of a gang-rape victim, I decided Street Trash wasn't my cup of tea... all I saw was a desperate attempt to get a reaction. My response to the film is the same with a bully or noisy child; I just roll my eyes and ignore it."{{cite web |last1=Eggert |first1=Brian |title=Street Trash |url=https://deepfocusreview.com/reviews/street-trash/ |website=deepfocusreview.com |date=10 March 2021 |publisher=Deep Focus Review |access-date=29 August 2021}}

Sequel

In 2023, it was announced that South African director Ryan Kruger was tapped to write and direct a remake of the 1987 film. However, Kruger decided not to make a full-on reboot, but rather a "spiritual sequel" that would be set in the same universe as the original but give it a futuristic edge. Kruger's "sequel" is set in 2050 Cape Town, where the government decide to wipe out the homeless community by unleashing a new brand of gas called "Tenafly Viper", named after the "Tenafly Viper" alcohol of the original.

The film featured an all-South African cast including Sean Cameron Michael, Gary Green, Joe Vaz, and Donna Cormack-Thomson.

Paying homage to the original film, Kruger was asked by producers Matt Manjourides and Justin A. Martell if he wanted to shoot the film in 35mm and use practical effects for the gore scenes rather than resort to computer generated imagery. The original film's writer, Roy Frumkes, served as one of the excutive producers of the sequel. It was released theaterically on November 19, 2024 in the United States before going to streaming platform Screambox.{{cite web |title=Street Trash (2024) |url=https://www.screambox.com/details/1000000047195/Street-Trash |website=Screambox |access-date=25 April 2025}}

References

External links

{{IMDb title|id=0094057}}
[http://www.synapse-films.com/shopping_cart/street_trash.htm Synapse films page] {{Webarchive|url=https://web.archive.org/web/20061210154449/http://www.synapse-films.com/shopping_cart/street_trash.htm |date=2006-12-10 }}

Category:1987 black comedy films

Category:1987 comedy horror films

Category:1987 directorial debut films

Category:1987 films

Category:1987 independent films

Category:1980s American films

Category:1980s English-language films

Category:American black comedy films

Category:American body horror films

Category:American comedy horror films

Category:American splatter films

Category:Features based on short films