Street Trash
Cape Town, South Africa, a desperate time when the middle class has vanished as businesses fold and unemployment sits at 90%, inequality driving hopelessness, homelessness and violent protests which have led to a police state where the rich are protected and their actions cannot be challenged or questioned, Mayor Mostert having instigated extreme measures to clean up the streets of the unwanted elements by eliminating the problem entirely.
The factions in the ghettos fighting amongst themselves for food and batteries, the only source of power with no reliable mains electricity supply, Ronald and Chef have further invited trouble by rescuing Alex from a beating by two of the Rat King’s enforcers, offering shelter with their crew, but a greater danger now threatens them all, Mostert’s law enforcement pacification drones armed with the toxic aerosol Viper, liquifying any who defy or resist.
Inspired by the 1987 film of the same name directed by Jim Muro, Ryan Kruger does his own thing with Street Trash, taking the idea of a deadly chemical killing the homeless and adding a dash of subversive politics, the deaths caused by Viper no longer accidental but now the latest weapon in a long-running class war where the powerful first create poverty then destroy the poor, the only hope the strength of sheer numbers to resist.
With no budget or damns given, Street Trash makes a virtue of the lack of resources, seemingly shot on derelict industrial sites, the decaying brutalist architecture a backdrop for a parable of the disposal of unwanted people which would not have seemed out of place had it been sneaked out overnight on Channel 4 during the Thatcher years, and there are aspects which recall the techno-anarchy of Max Headroom as well as direct nods to RoboCop and Escape from New York.
Starring Sean Cameron Mitchell, Donna Cormack-Thomson and Joe Vaz as Ronald, Alex and Chef with Kruger’s Fried Barry ally Gary Green as 2-Bit, Kruger himself providing the voice for 2-Bit’s vulgar invisible associate Sockle, Suraya Rose Santos as the Rat King and Jonathan Pienaar as sagely drug dealer Society, the fragile alliance of broken people stands against Warrick Grier and Andrew Roux as Mostert and Officer Maggot, grinning face of police brutality.
An accretion of oddball characters fighting against the last gasp of societal collapse, Street Trash is a quirky and misshapen patchwork of elements held together by rage, never subtle, never sophisticated, and leaking technicolour goo from every ruptured orifice, unlikely to appeal to those who only allow themselves to appreciate the “elevated horror” of recent years but intended for a very different audience who will recognise the righteous indignation of the disenfranchised.
Street Trash will be in UK cinemas from Friday 10th January then streaming and on Blu-ray from Monday 17th February
