''Street Trash'' is a 1987 American

black comedy Black comedy, also known as black humor, bleak comedy, dark comedy, dark humor, gallows humor or morbid humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally ...

body horror Body horror, or biological horror, is a subgenre of horror fiction that intentionally showcases grotesque or psychologically disturbing violations of the human body or of another creature. These violations may manifest through aberrant sex, mutat ...

film directed by J. Michael Muro (credited as Jim Muro). It won the Silver Raven at the

Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film The Brussels International Fantastic Film Festival (BIFFF), previously named Brussels International Festival of Fantastic Film (, ) was created in 1983 as a venue for horror, thriller and science fiction films. It takes place in Brussels, eve ...

. The film has acquired a status as a

cult classic A cult following is a group of Fan (person), fans who are highly dedicated to a person, idea, object, movement, or work, often an artist, in particular a performing artist, or an artwork in some List of art media, medium. The latter is often cal ...

independent horror-comedy and is one of a number of films known as "melt movies". In the film, a

liquor store A liquor store is a retail business that predominantly sells prepackaged alcoholic beverages, including liquors (typically in bottles), wine or beer, usually intended to be consumed off the store's premises. Depending on region and local idiom ...

Brooklyn Brooklyn is a Boroughs of New York City, borough of New York City located at the westernmost end of Long Island in the New York (state), State of New York. Formerly an independent city, the borough is coextensive with Kings County, one of twelv ...

starts selling cheap

alcoholic beverage Drinks containing alcohol (drug), alcohol are typically divided into three classes—beers, wines, and Distilled beverage, spirits—with alcohol content typically between 3% and 50%. Drinks with less than 0.5% are sometimes considered Non-al ...

s to local hobos. The beverages date to the 1920s, and are actually

poisonous A poison is any chemical substance that is harmful or lethal to living organisms. The term is used in a wide range of scientific fields and industries, where it is often specifically defined. It may also be applied colloquially or figurati ...

. While a local cop investigates the series of unexplained deaths, homeless veterans of the

Vietnam War The Vietnam War (1 November 1955 – 30 April 1975) was an armed conflict in Vietnam, Laos, and Cambodia fought between North Vietnam (Democratic Republic of Vietnam) and South Vietnam (Republic of Vietnam) and their allies. North Vietnam w ...

group together as a dangerous gang.

Plot

The owner of a liquor store in

Greenpoint, Brooklyn Greenpoint is the northernmost neighborhood in the New York City borough of Brooklyn. It is bordered on the southwest by Williamsburg at Bushwick Inlet Park and McCarren Park; on the southeast by the Brooklyn–Queens Expressway and East ...

New York City New York, often called New York City (NYC), is the most populous city in the United States, located at the southern tip of New York State on one of the world's largest natural harbors. The city comprises five boroughs, each coextensive w ...

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

hobo A hobo is a migrant worker in the United States. Hoboes, tramps, and bums are generally regarded as related, but distinct: a hobo travels and is willing to work; a tramp travels, but avoids work if possible; a bum neither travels nor works. Et ...

s 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

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 Anthony Borgese (born October 1, 1938), better known by his stage name Tony Darrow, is an American actor. He is known for his roles in '' Goodfellas'', '' Bullets Over Broadway'', ''The Sopranos'', and others. Early life Darrow was born and rais ...

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. Muro stated he was inspired by the

Akira Kurosawa was a Japanese filmmaker who List of works by Akira Kurosawa, directed 30 feature films in a career spanning six decades. He is widely regarded as one of the greatest and most influential filmmakers in the History of film, history of cinema ...

film ''

Dodes'ka-den is a 1970 Japanese drama film directed by Akira Kurosawa. The film stars Yoshitaka Zushi, Kin Sugai, Toshiyuki Tonomura, and Shinsuke Minami. It is based on Shūgorō Yamamoto's 1962 novel ''A City Without Seasons'' and is about a group of homeles ...

'' which depicted life in Japanese slums. After Muro managed to secure $30,000 to expand the short to feature length, he approached

Roy Frumkes Roy Frumkes is an American independent filmmaker. Frumkes directed the 1985 documentary '' Document of the Dead'', a film detailing the production of '' Dawn of the Dead''. Biography The cooperation of George A. Romero allowed Frumkes extensive a ...

, 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

based

wrecking yard A wrecking yard (Australian, New Zealand, and Canadian English), scrapyard ( Irish, British and New Zealand English) or junkyard (American English) is the location of a business in dismantling where wrecked or decommissioned vehicles are brou ...

and adjacent

warehouse A warehouse is a building for storing goods. Warehouses are used by manufacturers, importers, exporters, wholesalers, transport businesses, customs, etc. They are usually large plain buildings in industrial parks on the rural–urban fringe, out ...

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 Drake's is a brand of American baked goods. The company was founded by Newman E. Drake in 1896 in Harlem, New York, as The N.E. Drake Baking Company, but it is now owned by McKee Foods. The company makes snack cake products, such as Devil Dogs ...

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."

Bryan Singer Bryan Jay Singer (born September 17, 1965) is an American filmmaker. He is the founder of Bad Hat Harry Productions and has produced almost all of the films he has directed, as well as multiple television series. After graduating from the Univ ...

worked on the film as a grip. Deleted scenes include a junkyard dance sequence 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 __FORCETOC__ Limited theatrical release is a film distribution strategy of releasing a new film in a few cinemas across a country, typically art house theaters in major metropolitan markets. Since 1994, a limited theatrical release in the Unite ...

theatrically in the United States by Lightning Pictures in June 1987. They also released the film on

VHS VHS (Video Home System) is a discontinued standard for consumer-level analog video recording on tape cassettes, introduced in 1976 by JVC. It was the dominant home video format throughout the tape media period of the 1980s and 1990s. Ma ...

the same year. In 2005,

Synapse Films Synapse Films is an American DVD and Blu-ray label, founded in 1997 and specializes in cult horror, science fiction and exploitation films. It is considered a boutique DVD label. History Synapse Films was owned and operated by Don May, Jr. an ...

marketed an all-new, digitally remastered version of the film. Included with the

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

were sticker-type "labels" of the Viper wine featured in the film. 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. In 2010,

Arrow Video An arrow is a fin-stabilized projectile launched by a Bow and arrow, bow. A typical arrow usually consists of a long, stiff, straight shaft with a weighty (and usually sharp and pointed) arrowhead attached to the front end, multiple fin-like St ...

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. Since then, the movie has been released also on

Blu-ray Blu-ray (Blu-ray Disc or BD) is a digital optical disc data storage format designed to supersede the DVD format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released worldwide on June 20, 2006, capable of storing several hours of high-defin ...

in numerous countries.

Reception

''Street Trash'' received little critical attention upon its initial release. The film holds a 67% rating on review site

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review aggregator, review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee ...

, where critic Walter Goodman of ''

The New York Times ''The New York Times'' (''NYT'') is an American daily newspaper based in New York City. ''The New York Times'' covers domestic, national, and international news, and publishes opinion pieces, investigative reports, and reviews. As one of ...

'' 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 Black comedy, also known as black humor, bleak comedy, dark comedy, dark humor, gallows humor or morbid humor, is a style of comedy that makes light of subject matter that is generally considered taboo, particularly subjects that are normally ...

pioneer in the

splatter film A splatter film is a subgenre of horror films that deliberately focuses on graphic portrayals of gore and graphic violence. These films, usually through the use of special effects, display a fascination with the vulnerability of the human body a ...

genre. The film has since gained a cult following among horror fans on the internet. Chuck Bowen of ''

Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New Yor ...

'' said (of the ''Street Trash''

), "''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 Hot potato is a party game that involves players gathering in a circle and tossing a small object such as a beanbag or even a real potato to each other while music plays. The player who is holding the object when the music stops is eliminated. Or ...

with a man’s severed

penis A penis (; : penises or penes) is a sex organ through which male and hermaphrodite animals expel semen during copulation (zoology), copulation, and through which male placental mammals and marsupials also Urination, urinate. The term ''pen ...

. 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 Satire is a genre of the visual, literary, and performing arts, usually in the form of fiction and less frequently non-fiction, in which vices, follies, abuses, and shortcomings are held up to ridicule, often with the intent of exposin ...

of the 1980's American political hierarchy, and rated it 4/5 stars. 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. Brian Eggert of ''Deep Focus Review'' criticized the film's attempts at

shock value Shock value (or shock factor) is the potential of an image, text, action, or other form of communication, such as a public execution, to provoke a reaction of sharp disgust, shock, anger, fear, or similar negative emotions. In advertising Sho ...

, 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."

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 Sean Cameron Michael (born 24 December 1969) is a South African actor, writer and singer. A native South African English, English speaker, he is also fluent in Afrikaans. Early life Michael was born in Cape Town, South Africa. He became inter ...

, 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 executive producers of the sequel. It was released theatrically on November 19, 2024 in the United States before going to streaming platform Screambox.

References

External links

*
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 1987 black comedy films 1987 comedy horror films 1987 directorial debut films 1987 films 1987 independent films 1980s American films 1980s English-language films American black comedy films American body horror films American comedy horror films American splatter films Features based on short films Films about alcoholic drinks Films about homelessness Films about veterans Films set in Brooklyn Films shot in New York City Films about poisonings Vietnam War films English-language comedy horror films English-language independent films