MY CALL: A bad movie of legendary status, this is the raunchy, slapstick, exploitative movie you’ve been looking for… MORE MOVIES LIKE Street Trash: Not much). Well, there’s obviously the remake of Street Trash (2024). For more “melt horror” consider The Devil’s Rain (1975), The Incredible Melting Man (1977), Slime City (1988), The Blob (1988), and Body Melt (1993).
A liquor store owner exploring the long-forgotten recesses of his business’s dusty basement discovers a 16-year-old case of liquor called Viper, which he sells very cheaply to the abundant local homeless population. The first vagrant to drink this aged quaff becomes the victim of the movie poster, instantly beginning to melt down to the bone with thick blue and green and pink goop pouring down his tibia and over his old boots. His body melts down into a toilet leaving his dismembered boots behind in a death scene worthy of a Toxic Avenger origin scene! This, folks… this is already worth the price of admission to this ultra-messy cult classic.
These Viper deaths are disgusting delights. It turns out, even the melted guts of the victims are as caustic as the organ-melting acidic liquor itself. This movie is both visually and morally gross. At one point, a man induces vomiting on someone he beats up in a fight, and some unfortunate things happen to women.
Truth be told, after the first (truly spectacular) death scene, we wait a very long time (like an hour) for more action worth watching. Watching this movie boils down to the enjoyment of one key scene in the beginning, and a medley of gory deaths in the last 20 minutes. In between there is a lot of gratuitous nudity and socially problematic scenes essentially depicting sex crimes and violence against women.
Overall, this is a very satisfying effects flick. Death scene effects include a exploding fat guy with chonky gore raining everywhere; gnarly, melty death showing several stages of melty disintegration; melting boobs; and then some long-running severed phallic gags.
The plot is pretty thin—not that we should care for this kind of movie. A cop begins looking into the deaths, there is insurgence among the homeless hierarchy in the local junkyard, and a lot of colorful slime oozes, spurts and sprays from melting victims. And did I mention the gratuitous nudity and sex crimes?
Based on his 1984 short film Street Trash, director J. Michael Muro brewed this goopy feature length delight. Somehow, Muro never went on to do more horror or movies at all. Too bad. This occasionally slapstick, quirky little movie has a lot to offer for fans of gory, raunchy, even exploitative 80s fare. This is truly a cult classic, and worthy of its timely 2024 remake.