Main Cast: Mike Lackey, Vic Noto, Bill Chepil, Mark Sferrazza, Jane Arakawa
Release Year: 1987
Country: US
Run Time: 91 minutes
Plot
This shocker will most likely appeal to fans of pitch-black beyond-bad-taste comedy. Others may find it highly offensive and gory as it chronicles the fate of homeless Brooklyn winos when they get into some tainted wine and begin melting into slimy puddles of human goo. The wine, called "Tenafly Viper," is being sold by the owner of a liquor store who found it lying around in his basement and sells it to the bums for a buck. It is later revealed that the wine was deliberately spiked by the government. ~ Sandra Brennan, All Movie Guide
Review
The horror-video boom of the 1980s unleashed many a gruesome spectacle on fans during that time, but few were as wild or relentless as Street Trash. It's definitely not a film for the sensitive; the plot and the characters are equally grimy, there's an accent on bizarre, gory spectacle, and the film has a seriously dark sense of humor (topics like rape, castration, and necrophilia are played for laughs). That said, anyone with a taste for cinema's wild side might enjoy Street Trash because it delivers the trashy goods and does so with a surprisingly artful touch. Roy Frumkes' script offers a surprisingly complex ensemble narrative that is packed with raunchy, endlessly quotable dialogue. Better yet, director Jim Muro frames the action with a dazzling eye for color and motion; he and cinematographer David Sperling make brilliant use of the steadycam to give the film a kinetic visual pulse. Street Trash is also unusually well-acted for a low-budget indie-horror effort. Everybody gives solid, charismatic performances, but the true scene-stealers are Troma film vet R.L. Ryan as a sleazy auto-junkyard owner and Tony Darrow and James Lorinz as a mobster/doorman duo whose bickering is laugh-out-loud funny. The final hook is the special effects; the "wino meltdown" scenes are some of the most colorful and inventive gore spectacles ever captured on film. In short, Street Trash is not for all tastes, but it will reward the brave viewer with an unforgettable walk on horror's wild side. ~ Donald Guarisco, All Movie Guide
Cast
Mike Lackey - Fred
Vic Noto - Bronson
Bill Chepil - Bill the Cop
Mark Sferrazza - Kevin, Fred's Brother
Jane Arakawa - Wendy
Nicole Potter - Winette; R.L. Ryan - Frank Schnizer; Clarenze Jarmon - Burt; Bernard Perlman - Wizzy; Miriam Zucker - Drunken Wench; M. D'Jango Krunch - Ed; James Lorinz - Doorman; Morty Storm - Black Suit; Tony Darrow - Nick Duran; Roy Frumkes; Frank Farel; Robert Ryan
Credit
Denise Labelle - Art Director, Tom Molinelli - Art Director, Frank Farel - Associate Producer, Michele Leifer - Costume Designer, James Muro - Director, Dennis Werner - Editor, James Muro - Executive Producer, Rick Ulfik - Composer (Music Score), Mike Lackey - Makeup, Jennifer Aspinall - Makeup Special Effects, Scott Coulter - Makeup Special Effects, Dean Kartalas - Makeup Special Effects, Mike Lackey - Makeup Special Effects, Gary Yee - Makeup Special Effects, Robert Marcucci - Production Designer, David Sperling - Cinematographer, Roy Frumkes - Producer, Jennifer Aspinall - Special Effects, Roy Frumkes - Screenwriter, Bryan Singer - Production Assistant
Roy Frumkes wrote the screenplay. In an NBR profile he 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."[1]
The movie was based on a ten minute student film directed J. Michael Muro and starring Mike Lackey.
The owner of a liquor store in lower Manhattan finds a case of cheap wine ("Tenafly Viper") in his basement. It's over sixty years old and has gone bad, but he decides to sell it to the local hobos anyway. Unfortunately, anyone who drinks this Viper melts away in a hideous fashion. At the same time, an overzealous cop is trying to get to the bottom of all the deaths. The movie 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 genital of one of their number, as he futilely attempts to recover it.
In 2005, Synapse Films marketed an all-new, digitally remastered version of the film. Humorously included with the DVD were sticker-type "labels" of the Viper wine featured in the movie.
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. That deluxe DVD was released on September 26, 2006.
