Street Trash DVD review

The film STREET TRASH has always been one of my favorite movies to tell people about. You see, over the years it became a title that was very hard to find. If you did happen across the VHS video that Vestron released back in 1987, the tape usually had so much VCR head damage to it that it looked like someone had printed Braille on the tape surface. You can imagine the quality of the picture on these abused cassettes. When I would encounter a new co-worker who wanted to talk movies I would eventually wind down with STREET TRASH. I had told people about the movie so much I practically had a stage routine worked out. I would always start with the STREET TRASH poster, which is one of my favorites of all time. The plot rundown by myself would always end the same. The listener always had a question I knew I would hear. I could bet my life on it.

“Wow! Where can I get this movie?”, the co-worker would ask.

“Oh, you can’t!” I would inform bluntly and turn around back to my computer screen, enjoying the awkward silence.

Then, in August of 2005, a wonderful thing happened. Writer/Producer of STREET TRASH, Roy Frumkes, got together with the guys at Synapse Films and released an edition on DVD. It was slim on extras, but high with picture quality. I had a new way to end my routine. In September of this year Synapse released STREET TRASH-THE MELTDOWN EDITION and I must say, this is THE pristine edition. High quality sound and picture taken straight from the film’s original negative. It includes an all-new two hour documentary directed by Roy Frumkes. It includes past and new footage with almost the entire cast, called THE MELTDOWN MEMOIRS. The two disc DVD also comes with commentaries from Frumkes and surprisingly, the talented director Jim Muro. It contains the original twelve minute short film STREET TRASH was based on and a three minute demo reel that was filmed to show investors what to expect.

The plot of STREET TRASH comes across like the most twisted Robert Altman film ever written. There’s so many characters that some never cross paths. A liquor store owner finds a crate of forty year old booze hidden in his basement. He puts it out on the shelves and offers it to his derelict customers for a buck a bottle. Anyone who drinks the stuff will melt, turn to goo, bleed out of every orifice, bloat up, or just explode entirely. There’s a group of bums trying to survive the crazed wrath of a Vietnam Veteran, a mobster dealing with the death of his girlfriend and the doorman at his restaurant, and one gigantic street cop trying to make sense of it all.

The MELTDOWN MEMOIRS is a special treat for anyone who is familiar with STREET TRASH and I’m surprised to say, may surpass the actual film. It contains rare and deleted footage throughout and will be entertaining to people not familiar with the original content. While New York stage regular and STREET TRASH star Nicole Potter steals the show, I found myself most intrigued by David Whitten. The former director of distribution for Lightning Pictures and Vestron Pictures spills his guts with a massive amount of stories about post-production problems . It was great fun seeing the cast members almost twenty years later. This is an underrated one-of-a-kind exploitation/horror/comedy classic that is finally getting the special edition it truly deserves. A great achievement by Roy Frumkes and Synapse Films.

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