Street Trash

(1987) Zero stars

A low-life liquor storeowner in lower Manhattan finds a 60-year old case of liquor in his basement called Tenafly Viper. Realizing that he is not going to be able to make much money off this find he prices it at $1/bottle, which is the perfect price for the local homeless people, who normally just steal from him anyway. Unfortunately (or fortunately depending on your Darwinian perspective), the liquor is lethal and anyone who drinks it quickly succumbs to a horrible death, which involves literally melting into a pool of Technicolor goo (it is pretty gross actually). Meanwhile, a I-don’t-play-by-the-rules cop tries to get to the bottom of the mounting deaths/pools of goo.

Natural selection?

I wish I could say that the above summary is the entire plot of the film, but it’s not, it was so much more complicated than that! There were all these pointless side-stories that had no relevance to the plot, beyond padding out what was literally originally a 10-minute student film according to my research. Street Trash manages to offend everyone including homeless people, blacks, women, gays, cops, and trash. I’ve made no secret of my hatred for Troma Films (e.g., The Toxic Avenger), and this was worse than a Troma Film. Within the first minute I was getting ready to bail but then some 80s techno music sucked me in. Adding insult to injury, this damn film was a full 90 minutes long, and believe me, you feel every minute. Even when there are boobs, they are dirty homeless woman boobs, so it doesn’t even have that going for it. There is one extended sequence where a guy has his penis yanked off and we’re treated to a long sequence of “keep away” as the other homeless denizens toss the poor cock back and forth while the guy missing his member tries in vain to get it back. Ugh. I acquired this film because it has been called a “cult classic”. I’m quickly learning that those words mean nothing. Avoid at all cost.