Street Trash
Life on the streets of Brooklyn is tough and unforgiving, derelicts and homeless runaways trying to survive and exist in the cracks, begging for cash and shoplifting, deals and debts which lead to violence when unpaid, Fred pursued by those to whom he owes cash and making a lucky escape in the back of a garbage truck but losing all he has gathered in the process.
The debt escalating up to the scrapyard where psychotic Vietnam veteran Bronson operates his shady business of intimidation, a man who does not forgive, Fred’s brother Kevin lives inside the tyre pit, sympathetic secretary Wendy running interference so he is not targeted or thrown out, while elsewhere in the ‘hood liquor store owner Eddie finds a dusty crate containing bottles of Tenafly Viper, hawking them for only a dollar a pop.
Originally a ten minute short made by director James Michael Muro as his graduation project while attending New York’s School of Visual Arts, Street Trash was expanded with writer Roy Frumkes to a full, albeit micro-budgeted, feature, released in 1987 and conceived in order to “offend every group on the planet,” a dog-eat-dog splatter comedy of excess where the shady characters conspicuously are not saved or redeemed.
With Mike Lackey as Fred, Mark Sferrazza as Kevin, Vic Noto as Bronson, Jane Arakawa as Wendy and Bill Chepil as police officer Bill James, interested in the unexplained killings only when they tangentially impact the wider community who pass through the streets on their way to better places, the special effects are the star of Street Trash, bodies dissolving or exploding when exposed to the toxic Viper, it is guerilla filmmaking, scattershot but periodically brilliant.
Remade in 2024 under the same name, South African director Ryan Kruger’s Street Trash took the original premise and added a class war dimension during the transplantation, the deaths caused by Viper no longer accidental but a targeted weapon to clean the slums of the unwanted excess population, perhaps a film where the anger was more focused film but one which could not replicate the unpredictable and manic raw edges of the original.
Presented in a new 4K scan from the original negative, Lightbulb’s new edition of Street Trash is supported by over eight hours of bonus material, over half of which is newly recorded, with deleted scenes, the original short movie and Nightman Meltdown, a short inspired by the film, interviews, a feature length “making of” documentary and a video essay on the history of “melt movies,” all housed in a limited edition VHS box.
Street Trash will be available on 4K UHD and digital download from Monday 27th April and returns to select UK and Irish screens in May
