Another slice of 80’s trash horror that I was very keen to see. I mean what’s not to like about the premise: liquor store owner discovers box of cheap booze called Viper in the basement, sells it to tramps, tramps drink it, tramps melt. On top of all that, check out the fantastic t-shirt design (from Fright Rags), below. 
All signs point to awesome.
How had I not seen this before? Well as child there was many a coveted movie staring down at me from the shelves of Flickers video store that I was unable to rent due to overly responsible parenting. C.H.U.D. springs to mind immediately (and is next on my list of 80’s horror to watch!), and at the time of Street Trash’s release in 1987 I would have been 11 years old. I doubt I would have been allowed to watch it, bearing in mind I was not allowed to see Indiana Jones and the Temple of Doom when it came out at the cinema because of the bit where Mola Ram pulls a geezer's heart out of his chest. I had to go see popular-youth-fad-cash-in flick BMX Bandits instead (which incidentally was rather good, and my brother actually watched it every single day for an entire year when we had it on video). But I digress, I was refused rental of Die Hard 2: Die Harder when I was but mere months shy of my 15th birthday and it would therefore have been a complete no hoper attempting to rent this.
So here we are. The year is 2011. How will Street Trash hold up when viewed through my cynical new millennial eyeballs? The answer, unfortunately, as is often the case with these things, was that it was a bit of a disappointment.
For starters, the main problem is that not many people actually melt! Which is a bit of drag considering that’s the main draw of the film. Don’t get me wrong, when folk do actually come a cropper at the end of a bottle of Viper, it’s undoubtedly a lot of gloopy fun. The yuppie who walks under a fire escape and meets a sticky end via a faceful of liquidised tramp, is a particular highlight of the movie. But because the main meltings are left to bookend the story, we are left with a very limp middle. In fact it’s just plain boring. Focussing on unsympathetic main characters, an annoying cop and a bizarre villain in the shape of homeless Vietnam vet, Bronson.
It is without a doubt, exceptionally badly acted across the board, which in and of itself is not always so bad. Often with a movie like this it is the nature of the beast. However Street Trash suffers with it because the middle part of the film doesn’t have much of any interest going on, drifting on more than one occasion into general incoherence. In the same way that many movies today have every single minute plot detail SPELLED OUT for the thickos, it seems a fair few 80's flicks were the polar opposite in their need for a tad more exposition.
The thing that really spoils Street Trash though is that it sports a disturbing line in casual misogyny. Be it the supposedly ‘humorous’ sexual bullying from a fat man, or some necrophilia in the aftermath of a rape/murder, played for comedic effect (no lie!) and telegraphed by some jaunty bassoon music!!! It’s very dodgy indeed, and what I’m sure was probably intended as some sort of bad taste, boundary pushing outrage/humour manages to fail on just about every level, leaving a pretty sour taste and coming across as generally nasty which is tonally out of whack with the rest of the film.
As for the good points, well it started well, and excluding the points made above, it ended well also. There were some great, fun, melting effects and the final scenes with Bronson actually showcased some skill, imagination and ability on behalf of the film makers!
I think the other thing to bear in mind when revisiting or (re)discovering these movies is what I am going to call ‘Reanimator Syndrome’. There is likely to be nothing to top Stuart Gordon and Brian Yuzna masterpiece of black humour and sensational gore. Reanimator is pure glorious excess. The nadir of the genre, and the benchmark against which all splatter and gore must, in my opinion, be judged. You may say Braindead, and I would strongly argue that it is not a patch on Reanimator, and you might say The Evil Dead, and I would have to concede you have a point and that is also a worthy yardstick. But the point I am making is that if Reanimator is a majestic, throbbing boner of a movie, then Street Trash is pure erectile dysfunction.
File under: 'glad I've seen but would not watch again'.
IMDB: Street Trash
