Review of Street Trash (1987) by Dougal S — 22 Jun 2010

What can you say about this film? It really redefines bad taste and packs more unsavoury taboos into it's 90 minutes than seems humanly possible. Homeless bums living in a car wrecking yard, casual violence and murder, small time hoodlums, vigilante police, attempted rape, actual rape, more murder, necrophilia, addiction, castration, casual racism, misogyny, a killer urinating on his victim, another vomiting on his... oh and some bizarre bottles of booze that cause anyone to drink them to melt and explode from the inside out in a rainbow of goo.

Sounds pretty grim yes? Except that the whole thing is wrapped up in an almost cartoon like quality that makes all the sickening stuff that goes on into more of a slapstick outing. The whole thing is shot in bright sunshine with primary colours turned up to ten, the characters are all kthe ookily eccentric rather than disturbingly frightening and the gore is a bizarre multicoloured mess that only adds t the surrealism.

Born of the grindhouse cinemas of the 80s this bizarre slice of low budget insanity was made for the direct to video boom but is unfortunately exactly the sort of film that doesn't get made these days.

Nowhere near as gruelling as it's content suggests this really is a bit of a romp but depending on your point of view that could be a good or a bad thing. Put it this way - if you're easily offended then steer well clear, if you enjoy insane cult flicks with no morals then head on in.

BTW - I saw this on the recent Arrow Video DVD release which has an absolutely pristine print and looks as good as the day it was shot. Probably better.