[Movie 276 / Day 293]
I have a thing for bad B-movies. I don’t know why, but I love watching them, even if they’re terrible. In fact, some of the best ones are also the worst ones. So, surfing the net looking for inspiration, I came across a list of the worst 80s B-movies and there, nestled in the midst of those obvious schlockers like THE TOXIC AVENGER, was one I’d never heard of before, STREET TRASH. I’m paraphrasing, but the plot summary essentially said: “When a liquor store owner finds a case of ‘Viper’ wine in his cellar, he decides to sell it to the local tramps for $1 a bottle. The drink causes the tramps to melt.”
What’s not to love about that? A movie about melting tramps? I needed to see this ASAP. Oddly enough, it wasn’t to be found in my local Blockbuster, but Amazon carry it (a 2-disk special edition, no less!).
Once it finally arrived, I slapped it on and sat back to enjoy the terrifying mix of cheap wine and melting tramps.
The basic story isn’t much more detailed than the two lines above, but there are lots of sub-plots going on. Our hero is a tramp called Fred, who, along with his little brother Kevin, live in a junkyard. A junkyard that’s ruled by the Tramp King, Bronson. He’s a Vietnam vet who is slightly mental. He suffers from several flashbacks to the war and he carries a knife carved from a human thigh bone. he also has a penchant for giving rambling speeches, like a shit Marlon Brando/APOCALYPSE NOW.
One day, Fred steals a bottle of Viper from the local off-licence, but before he can neck it, he meets one of his friends who is complaining of constipation. Fred, kind old soul that he is, hands over the Viper and tells the guy to put some raisins in and drink it and it’ll clear him right out. So, the guy goes and sits on a toilet in the middle of a derelict building and has a gulp of Viper. And, as promised, melts. The melting effects mostly consist of brightly coloured paint running out of his trouser legs and down his face while the actor performs the worst death scene ever. It’s ridiculously over the top. And absolutely hilarious.
Shortly after this, a second tramp melts, but then the melting stops for ages while we explore the tramps lives a little deeper. We discover that Fred still has it with the ladies, as long as they’re drunk enough. We find out that the other tramps like to watch Fred having it with the ladies, before dragging her away to have a go themselves. We also see that the junkyard owner isn’t beyond a little necrophilia. During this melting downtime, we follow the cop, Bill, who is investigating the odd meltings – he decides to clean up the junkyard tramps once and for all.
Cut to the junkyard and one of the most bizarre sequences I’ve ever seen on film. Bronson gets pee’d on by a fellow tramp so he lops of his old chap. Fair enough, I guess, he is a mentalist after all. However, he then throws the amputated appendage to the other tramps who play a little game of piggy in the middle. Only with a severed penis instead of a ball and a tramp (complete with bloody stump still hanging out) instead of a piggy. To top this off, over the top of this montage of smiling tramps and slow motion penis, is playing some really jaunty piano music. It’s really odd.
As we’re now nearing the end of the film, we get a couple more meltings and an exploding tramp (variety is the spice of life, after all), just to remind us of the main story. Back to Bill, who gets to the junkyard just in time to rescue Fred from a Mafia hitman (oh, didn’t I mention? The Mafia are in this movie too). After a lengthy fist fight, which culminates in Bill dragging the hitman into a toilet, sticking his fingers down his throat and puking on the hitman’s unconscious face, Bill starts hunting Bronson. Sadly, Bill seems to have forgotten that Bronson is a stone-cold killer from Vietnam, man, and very quickly discovers that a femur knife hurts as it plunges into your back. Still, he manages to fight on for a bit longer before Bronson finishes him off.
We cut to Kevin, who is being seduced by the junkyard owner’s secretary, a woman that Bronson has admired from afar. Unfortunately, Bronson bursts in and decides to kill Kevin for getting it on with her. A cat-and-mouse chase ensues, with Bronson murdering a junkyard employee who just happens to be in the way, before capturing Kevin – only to have Fred jump on his back and drag him off. Leaving Kevin for a minute, Bronson tackles Fred and lifts him above his head ready to kill him… And Kevin fires a tank of compressed gas at Bronson, decapitating him in awesomely gory style.
Cue lingering shot on blood spurting from headless torso, a quick shot of Bronson’s head with mouth and eyes still moving, a quick shot from Bronson’s POV, straight up the secretary’s skirt as she steps over his head and, like many a B-movie before it, it just finishes. No warning or anything, it just cuts to the title card. There is a bonus Mafia-based melting during the credits though.
Overall, despite the slow bit in the middle and the downright bizarre penis-catch sequence, the melty bits are brilliant. It’s a half-decent exploitation movie – I won’t be in a hurry to watch it again, but it was fun.
I still love 80s gore-fests. If you do too, check out www.badmovies.org – full of reviews of B-movies like STREET TRASH (be careful though, quite a few are full of spoilers).
Rating: 
[ IMDB rating: 5.9 / 10 | IMDB link | Running time: 91 mins ]