So, yeah, I'm a few days behind. This should be entry 27, and I'm only making it on the 30th of October. I have long stood firm by my credo, "fuck salad," and my latest absence completely supports my previous beliefs. Earlier this week, I decided to start eating healthier in anticipation of rich bounty of holiday gluttony on the horizon. So, I went to the store, picked up some lettuce, and made myself a salad. Three days and twelve pounds later, I find out HEB (our regional grocery story here in Central Texas) had their lettuce recalled due to a salmonella outbreak. That's what I get for trying to be sensible. Anyway, I'll do my best to catch up.
Somewhat inspired by the struggle with my own violent bodily functions over, today's selection is the phenomenal "Street Trash." Zack Carlson, author of "Destroy All Movies," has aptly described this as being the ultimate Troma movie if Troma actually had their shit together. It's chaotic and huge but without ever calling itself out on its own cheapness. A lot of attempts at camp generally turn into a celebration of ineptitude, where the makers not only point out the figurative wires holding up the UFO but go out of their way to make SURE you see them. This film doesn't celebrate its own cheapness at all. While believably made for very little, it goes out of its way to stretch the parameters of its own womb without either snapping it or making visible protest about the narrow constraints.
The film's central characters are a bunch of foul urchins, or street trash, who've taken up residence in a junkyard. One adolescent bum seems to be developing a romance with the wrecking yard's bleeding heart secretary, which is really the closest thing to a true plot this thing has. The weirdest element is the prominent subplot involving a lethal brand of liquor called Viper which turns hobo bowels inside out in spectacular fashion. It's definitely the most memorable part of the movie, but does virtually nothing to really move the story forward, nor does it really impact any of the characters who matter. It's always outside of our periphery as a threat, though.
Director J. Michael Muro basically does here what a lot of total miscreant losers wish they could with their hyper-violent gross-out affairs, in that he manages to be as wretched as humanly possible without making a film that will make you sick. What you see is repulsive, though it rarely repulses you or makes you want to turn away. After all, if a tree falls in the woods and no one's around to hear it, then who gives a fuck, really? Here, Muro goes for the gullet but without ever crossing the edge that might turn people off or away. He uses both restraint as well as humor at inopportune points to create the most watchable fucked up movie ever made. It's also probably the dirtiest looking movie since the likes of "Bring Me The Head of Alfredo Garcia."
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