PLOT: A group of homeless misfits must fight for survival when they discover a plot to exterminate every homeless person in the city.
REVIEW: I’ve never understood why Studios remake great horror films when there are so many not-so-great ones out there with plenty of potential. Whether it’s due to budget, acting, or creative bankruptcy, a great concept can be squandered. So it’s exciting to see 1987’s Street Trash get a South African update as it’s a relatively unseen cult film. Because of that, they’re able to take the bones of the original, but not be beholden to any specific events or scenes. And the results are entertaining as hell.
The plot of Street Trash involves a group of homeless misfits who uncover a government scheme to take out homeless people. They each have a certain degree of charm that it’s easy to sympathize with them and their plight. The actors did a great job and really blew my expectations away. There were a couple of deaths that genuinely made me sad since they’d been such entertaining characters. It’s so difficult to actually get an audience to care about side characters yet this does a fantastic job of it. And then the villains are so blatantly evil that any comeuppance they get is so rewarding. I wouldn’t call any character deep yet they get across what they’re supposed to with relative ease.
I’ll be perfectly honest: I don’t have exact recall of the original film but its connections feel rather light. I mostly just watched this as its own thing, but was obviously aware of the loose connections. There’s no mysterious booze that causes all of this, it’s actually a substance created by the government. There’s a fun reference to the genital mutilation scene from the ’87 film, firmly putting this film in the same world. It could practically be a sequel in that it doesn’t really conflict with anything in the first. And the director seems to agree.
Street Trash is surprisingly well shot given the cult origins of the original. The filmmakers clearly were making a point to get past the grindhouse style and provide more interesting visuals. The gore is absolutely fantastic, with plenty of ooey-gooey sliminess to satiate gorehounds. I love this style of practical FX so I couldn’t get enough of all the multi-colored carnage. It was such delightfully gory fun. But Street Trash is about more than just guts and gore; it actually has a very salient social message… even if it can be kind of lost at times in the silliness.
As much as there are evil characters, the film doesn’t do a good job of giving us a villain to work towards defeating. Whether it’s the Rat King or the actual Government Head, they don’t appear in the film for long enough times to feel like a fully formed threat. They mostly just check off a box versus making an actual impact in the film. This is too bad, because nearly every element outside of the bad guys works well. While the filmmakers are taking the technical side very seriously, the story still has that campy over-the-top tone that brings the fun. The Title Cards let us know right away that this is going outside of the norm of cinema with “a Ryan Kruger Thing” getting prominent placement.
Some may go into this expecting something of the so bad it’s good variety but it’s hard to call this bad. Sure, it’s very silly and over the top but the acting is competent and there are never any cheap edits or sets. This really moves past the grindhouse style of the 1987 film and gives it a different feel. They also take advantage of parts of South Africa to really add production value to their dystopic world. There’s still that indie charm of nearly every scene taking place in the same series of locations.
I had an absolute blast with 2024’s Street Trash. The original film never really spoke to me yet this is making me rethink my original take. Despite its low budget, the story never feels constrained. And the unambiguous black/white dynamic of good/evil really worked for me. While it’s still got cult movie vibes, there’s clearly a lot of love and talent behind the camera that pushes this above similar fare.
STREET TRASH WILL BE RELEASED DIGITALLY ON NOVEMBER 19TH, 2024.