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Street Trash is a 1987 American black comedy body horror film directed by J. Michael Muro (credited as Jim Muro). It won the Silver Raven at the Brussels International Festival of Fantasy Film. The film has acquired a status as a cult classic independent horror-comedy and is one of a number of films known as "melt movies".
In the film, a liquor store in Brooklyn starts selling cheap alcoholic beverages to local hobos. The beverages date to the 1920s, and are actually poisonous. While a local cop investigates the series of unexplained deaths, homeless veterans of the Vietnam War group together as a dangerous gang.
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 Mental disorder Vietnam War 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.
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 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.
In 2005, Synapse Films marketed an all-new, digitally remastered version of the film. Included with the DVD 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 Films 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 in numerous countries. Street Trash (Blu-ray). DVDCompare.net.
The film has since gained a cult following among horror fans on the internet. Chuck Bowen of Slant Magazine said (of the Street Trash Blu-ray), " 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 Hobo play hot potato with a man’s severed penis. 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 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, 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."
The film featured an all-South African cast including Sean Cameron Michael, 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.
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