Trash

Sure, Street Trash has a convoluted, ridiculous plot, but it also features bums who melt into rainbow sludge upon drinking a fermented relative of Thunderbird, Tenafly Viper. In this '80s B-movie akin to The Toxic Avenger or C.H.U.D., Fred (Mike Lackey) is the main homeless guy who distributes Viper he's lifted from the local liquor store. Once he discovers the alcohol's lethal potential, he wields it as a weapon, eventually fighting head criminal, Bronson, a psycho-killer Vietnam vet who carries a human femur bone handle knife. Side plots, such as one involving a begrudging policeman who seeks to clean up the Street Trash community housed in a junkyard, or the one featuring Wendy, the hot girl who guards runaways from the junkyard's fat, mean owner, are beside the point. Watch Street Trash for its infamous penis scene, in which a member is chopped off and tossed around in a game of keep away, or watch the film to see a man melt down into a blue pile as he's flushed down a toilet bowl. Street Trash's gore isn't so disturbing as it is comic, as are the bums' New Romantic costumes similar to Dexy's Midnight Runners in the video for their '80s hit, "Come On Eileen." Applaud Street Trash for its gaudy, horrendous splendor. Notably, this re-release contains the original Super-8 short of the film, featuring even more homemade special effects and low-grade humor.--Trinie Dalton