Double Feature Night: Street Trash (1987) and Society (1989) Or the Freedom of Being a Bum and the Prison of Being in Rich Society!
We’ll start on the street and work our way up the ranks of society…
Street Trash, Directed by J. Michael Muro (credited as Jim Muro) made a movie about homeless people, better than a movie of this sort has any right to be. I’m just kidding. That’s totally classist of me. But the freaks from Society would approve of my lofty prejudice, no doubt. Mwahahaha! Snooty-kins!
We start with a nod to Raiders of the Lost Ark with an ode to the bolder sequence but instead picture a homeless petty crime spree. It’s kind of terrific.
I just call the lead bum “Super Tramp” (as they don’t name him most of the movie and I had to call him something in the meantime). Anyway, Super Tramp sneaks up behind a restaurant owner and “Mickey Mouses” behind him, step for step. He steals a bottle of fine liquor and is chased. Then another guy gets in a car wreck to avoid the bum and he gives chase after Super Tramp as well. The two guys chase him, with great tracking shots, up a fire escape, only the building is on fire. The bum goes in the burning building and stumbles into an apartment full of half naked people. He pulls fire alarm, slaps naked woman’s ass (what a fun spree!).
Eventually he climbs back out into a nearby garbage truck (where he feels at home) with a fist full of dollars and his ill-gotten bottle of whiskey. Super Tramp evades his pursuers but almost gets crushed by the compactor, unable to get the money which could not be grabbed in time, but he’s ahead as he still got his booze.
Tramp is eyeing to steal a mystery bottle of booze labelled “Viper” from a local Jewish liquor store which is some poisonous gunk the owner found in a cobwebbed old unopened box. “You Jews normally don’t sell anything so cheaply.” heckles Super Tramp. I guess the bum can say what he feels. You can’t cancel a bum cause he’s already cancelled himself.
Meanwhile, atop the mountain of garbage is Bronson, a musclebound Vietnam vet with a filthy, naked, toothless whore he fondles. He’s the king of the castle amongst these dirty rascals. He has a human femur bone as his weapon of choice. He kicks around some smiling, sleezy bums just to show them who’s boss. He wants to capture Super Tramp for talking shit about him.
Meanwhile, Super Tramp visits another bum friend who turns on him and beats him and steals his bottle of Viper. This thief bum drinks it and starts to disintegrate from the inside out. Picture a Robocop thug after the acid bath mixed with graffiti colored ooze from some super fast acting Ebola. Great special effects here. It’s shockingly good as is the clarity and use of the camera work.
Super Tramp then goes home to a junk yard where he lives buried in a cave of tires and half crushed cars. There’s bickering from a big fat 300 lbs. owner of the junk yard and a Vietnamese woman who’s being extra friendly to Super Tramp’s younger brother, 16 or 17-years-old. Sex is possible between them it sounds like.
Bronson has a fevered paranoid dream about the Vietnamese chick and infiltrators coming to kill him.
A black homeless guy promises to make Super Tramp and his brother the best chicken they’ve ever had. He goes to the supermarket and stuffs $1,000 worth of seasoning and literal whole chickens down his pants. He accuses the black store clerk of discriminating taking a honkey’s word over his own. Then proceeds to paper bag his head, Shia LaBeouf style, and walks through the store’s plate glass window to exit with dinner. 30-minutes in and I’m loving the world building and commitment to the characters.
A crooked cop, coroner, and mickey-mouse-TV-shirted wannabe tough guy thinks Bronson is holding out on them in terms of quiet streets, muscling in on their protection racket. Bronson, we discover has a knife made from a human femur bone and was a hitman in the middle of Nam. That takes some ‘killability’ skills.
Bronson regales the zombie bums about the atrocities and injustices he beheld which leads into how he ate one of his Vietnamese victims.
Meanwhile, post chicken feast, the bums talk about the crooked cop, the same complaining about Bronson and who busted them fifty to sixty times. Supertramp complains Black Tramp pissed in the booze which he admits he did to thin it out.
Another Bronson dreams of demonic Vietnamese night attacks biting him. He kills a bunch of guards and rescues a Vietnamese woman only to rape her as a reward. But then she initiates as aerial explosions happen behind them “romantically” in Bronson’s dumbass fantasy/remembrance. He wakes up everyone with a grenade.
Super Tramp’s back at the Jewish liquor store eyeing Viper but turns a corner to find a puking hooker who thinks he’s her boyfriend “Nicky!” He plays along getting her to return to his tire and auto wreck fortress. Super Tramp laughs knowingly at a smarmy half-Italian/half-Irish, punkass doorman who’s eating chicken instead of watching the door. As the owner, Nicky was from Goodfellas, the character actor who owned a restaurant and told Paulie Sorvino it might be a good idea to wack Joe Pesci. Anyway. He’s giving shit to his slack ass doorman who’s full of sarcasm when he asks him where his hooker girlfriend went. When the boss leaves he swigs his booze.
The hooker is about to make it with Super Tramp and they start to fuck on top of a Ouija board but other bums come out of the woodwork of tires like numerous mysterious attackers from an early John Carpenter movie where they go onto to bang her into the misty, filthy night (and worse, as we later find out).
A particular old bum, one of Bronson’s eyes and ears (yet cleanly shaven?!), is harassed by a random group of punks with switchblades who throw gasoline on him. But “luckily” he is taken in by the Crooked Cop who loves to harass these homeless sods. This Crooked Cop, who is built like a shit-brickhouse for the record, throws the smelly older bum in the paddy wagon full of hookers. A smorgasbord meets hog heaven!
The Crooked Cop informs the smelly bum that his friends of his were melted (from the Viper) and they threaten him with a shower as a dirty prostitute says she’ll do him with nose clips. She wants to know what he’s got in his pants. “I got my life’s prized possession here.” I can imagine the hypocritical disdain for these lowlifes that Society would express.
The Crooked Cop roughs him up and threatens him with that shower unless he tells him about Bronson. He pisses the wagon and wakes up showered in a dump surrounded by empties. He looks up to the pristine, azure sky. What amazing cinematography for such a lowlife film. I love it!
We return to the 300-pound sleaze raping the Vietnamese woman. “Come on! I’ll give you a $5 bonus!” he states. “Is that all you think I’m worth?! Get the hell off me.” She stresses. Suddenly he dies of a heart attack on top of her. But it’s a fake-out. She bashes him and gets free. He laments his life and the dog licks his balls. He then turns the corner to the edge of the river to have a smoke, whining about his crappy life and sees a dead naked woman. He sleazily bites his tongue and smirks like ‘ah why not’. It appears to be the bum gang bang hooker from earlier. Man, there are some seriously dark implications here. This is uglier than anything from Salò (see Unveiling the Depths of Torture Porn and the Absurdist Humour of Pier Paolo Pasolini’s ‘Salo, or the 120 Days of Sodom’ here).
Super Tramp saunters into Bronson’s territory and he puts the knife to him, threatening him for the money he owes. Another bum pisses on Bronson and Bronson cuts his whole dick off. That bum screams, scaring the 300 lbs. guy who zips up from the dead girl he just necromantically defiled.
The bums play hot potato with the guy’s dick as Bronson laughs hysterically. It turns into a football game with this dick. Then the bum holding his own dick in his hand is rejected by a cab and finally clings to a yellow school bus full of screaming children… alright I get it. This gag is going to go… all… the… way… and it’s good!
The Crooked Cop can’t read who ID’d the dead hooker on the report: “C’mon, I read like old people fuck“. Funny.
Nicky! is still insulting his doorman for allowing his drunk hooker girlfriend to go off with bums and be killed. The doorman is still all sarcasm. “You wrinkled my shirt.” after calling Nicky’s girlfriend a stinky puking wino. “My mother weeps for me ‘cause I work for you.” Nicky replies, “I hope she’s got a black dress.” Burn!
One of Nicky’s goons threatens Super Tramp in the toilet. Tramp zips him up impromptu. Ouch.
The Crooked Cop happens to appear and threatens to fight the Italian goon randomly. Super Tramp watches and cheers it on. A bloody brawl ensues. Crooked Cop pulls the bloodied Italian goon in the bathroom floor and pukes on his head and kicks his head. Damn. He then pulls up to Nicky who’s in a limo and threatens him in the street. Nicky drives on.
Feeling ready to test his mettle he goes to Bronson’s junk yard to start some serious shit. He comes to Bronson’s dirty bag laden summit on garbage hill, only to find his dirty girlfriend. Bronson sneaks up behind Crooked Cop and breaks the femur bone knife into his back, kicked further in by dirty girlfriend. Nasty.
Crooked Cop gorilla press slams dirty girl into a metal slab. A vicious fight then commences. Blood flows down Crooked Cop’s back. Epic! Primal! Bronson then strangles him to death and whistles Taps as he pisses on Crooked Cop’s corpse.
A fat soot-faced-bum beside Tramp, who is relaxing, drinks his own bottle of Viper and he explodes like the final boss Warden from Riki-Oh: The Story of Ricky or the fat Frenchmen from Monty Python’s The Meaning of Life. Pick your filmic analogy. Tramp puts his Viper down. He then sees Bronson’s smelly bum friend from the hooker paddy wagon from earlier — guy who told Bronson he owed money. Tramp decides to scam his ass.
He insults him and allows himself to take a beating from the clean-shaven old bum, allowing him to steal his bottle of Viper. But the Black Chicken Thief shows up to save Tramp, accidentally ruining the scam. Then Old Bum knocks Black Bum out and steals the Viper again! Now he’s really earning it!
Now we get the bum’s names. “Wizzy” is the old clean shaven bum’s name, as Fred (Super Tramp) calls him, just as Wizz turns into a purple melting goop. There are amazing practical effects here. Works of real art.
Tramp runs back to tell the Jewish liquor store owner that he’s selling some novel agent orange in a bottle, but it’s too late. The owner takes a swig and he melts into an orange crawling corpse.
The bum clan buries Bronson’s kill. As he crafts a new femur knife from Crooked Cop’s leg and takes a final swig. A loyal bum friend to Bronson gives him a bottle of Viper but his dirty girlfriend steals it and says he never shares. Her tits melt off and squirt.
Bronson sees the 17-year-old make out with the Vietnamese woman and he wants some after his girl dies. She comes onto him until Bronson breaks in and chases the boy away. Then chases after the 17-year-old. And finally, Super Tramp throws a bottle of Viper at Bronson’s face… I won’t spoil the beautiful ending but it’s visually stunning (the overlapping final scene over credits is also funny). Check it out.
Street Trash Uppers:
Credit to cinematographer David Sperling for the exceptional camera work, pristine lighting, and the clearest film shots I’ve ever witnessed on celluloid. It’s ironic that such visual excellence is showcased in a film centered around society’s grittiest characters. The world building and attention to details in this masterpiece were also truly inspiring. The character acting and all the people endear us into this warped world of grime and crime and the whole production just made this a fun romp through the other side of the tracks. The effects which classify this movie as a horror film are in fact also A+.
Street Trash Downers:
The sexual connotations of this seedy underworld were disheartening and distracting at times, but the truth is probably stranger than this fiction from my understanding and has realistically underplayed the reality of life on the streets. If you can imagine it, it’s been done out there.
– Intermission –
2nd Feature: Society (1989)
Ladies and Gentlemen. You’ve tried the rest, now try ‘the best.’ Onto Society (1989), Brian Yuzna’s directorial debut.
We open with a Beverley Hills mansion at night, dream like meandering outside. We see a door sign: “The Whifney’s.” A young, out of place boy, like a teenage John Stamos, enters the premises and overhears sexual moans, familiar family banter, and insectile clacking. He wanders in the kitchen and grabs a knife. There is a lot of trust in this house I see! Distant maniacal laughing can be heard. The young man with the knife falls to the floor, overwhelmed with a sense that something isn’t right.
He wakes up and his robed mother says, “Billy?” Billy doesn’t respond, locked in his nightmare.
Therapy session:
“I get scared.” “Of what?” the therapist asks. “My parents. My sister. You! I feel if I scratch the surface something terrible will happen.” Billy bites an apple and sees worms coming out of it.
Title credits. A Brian Yuzna film. Score one for the Brians! (I guess Bryan Singer was a grip on Street Trash, does that count?)
Ah yes. A single beautiful falsetto boy’s choir singing regales us about Society. “And we all sing together. Society waits for you.” How lovely, how resplendently transcendent. How foreboding… along with some mutant sexual orgy taking place under darkened light and lots of KY Jelly.
Billy is playing basketball with his nerd friend in his front mansion parking lot. His friend says he’s perfect and could be class president. Billy sees a rape van on his property and promptly warns his sister, Jenny, that her stalker, Blanchard is there. Jenny strips. She’s got a fabulous ass. Then slides into in an elegant pink dress. She drops an earring only to find the pervert Blanchard watching her. Billy throws him out, but Blanchard has something he wants to say. “Something very weird is going on here.”
Billy and Jenny’s mom and dad enter the front door. They start by talking to Jenny and ignoring Billy. “You should get ready. You know Judge Carter will be there tonight.” her mom says. The Judge? What is this a Cormac McCarthy character? Maybe some distant relative?! “I’m almost ready now.” Jenny replies, smiling. The Judge is eventually about 50-years too old for her so straight into Beverly Hills dating logic here.
Jenny asks Billy to zip up her dress. But there is a bulbus sweaty movement coming out of her back. Paranoid much?
Basketball Billy with Cheerleader girlfriend runs against Teenage Bill Gates. Billy verbally jock smacks him around to win as a hot young lady and furrow browed competitor of Billy’s scowls (his name is Ted we soon discover).
A hot chick opens her legs to show panties to Billy. Yeowza! Billy answers: “We should have a dress code, yes, uhhhh.” “Imagine everyone dressed in idiotic clothes, like Marvin (young Bill Gates) over here.” The Auditorium of teenagers roar with laughter. Suddenly furrow brow Ted and his hottie are gone.
Now Billy is conversing with the Therapist again… proud of his performance, he now eats the apple, no worms this time. “What about the family? Still afraid?” the therapist asks. “All one big happy family other than a little incest psychosis.” Claims Billy. “Don’t bullshit me.” Returns the therapist.
“Alright my parents, they don’t approve of my friends like they do Jenny. They don’t even look like me!” (Well, he does look like West Side Story in the middle of the Barbie movie, but I digress). “You know you’re really going to deserve what happens to you. You’re going to contribute to society” the therapist says emphatically. Um, o-kay!
Next scene, and Billy walks in on his sister in the shower. Uh Billy, that’s just you being a creeper. It’s not paranoia anymore. “Oh, what are you doing here?” Like dude. Street Trash woulda been less transparent. But just as I say that, whoa, Jenny’s ass and tits are on the same side of her body, behind the shower glass. Unsettling and original imagery! Nice! Back to reality again and now she’s just upset Billy is there just staring at her nudity. As with most paranoia, he becomes what he fears.
Billy witnesses his parents eating living snails like it were sushi. And his parents are actually proud of him for winning class president. (Take that Jenny. Unlike Prince Harry, a “Spare” no longer! At least not today).
Someone leaves a Ken doll with a screw in his head in his Jeep. I’m sure it’s a clue but anyway… On the beach he’s rubbing his cheerleader girlfriend, and they make out. She’s got a hot little body! Nice! She just can’t believe they weren’t invited to “Ted’s party.” First world problems everyday in BH. And again, “Ted” was furrow-browed from earlier.
Kids steal lotion. Billy chases. It ends up at the feet of the Hottie who flashed him earlier. Very nice! She’s like super model hot! Then, suddenly, Billy runs into Molly Ringwald and Frankenstein’s love child. That was random. She looks lobotomized (or she’s just a terrible actress).
Ted big-dogs Billy. There are levels to the society game you see. And Ted is friends with young Bill Gates too.
Blanchard appears to tell Billy his conspiracy theory. He apparently bugged Jenny’s earring. The waves roll in, metaphorically his paranoia is reborn again, haha. All his worst paranoid fears are true. The tape plays and Ted is conspiring with his sister Jenny, there is odd screaming and perhaps she’s being raped. He steals Blanchard’s tape recording and tries to play it for his therapist at night.
The Therapist is telling him it’s illegal to tape others. Now the tape is totally innocent conversation. Like it’s been replaced. “Some people make rules, and some people follow rules Billy. We need new drugs for you.” Great little speech.
Billy’s not buying it. He calls Blanchard to make another copy of his tape. On his way to Blanchard, his rape van is upside down and there’s been an “accident.” Blood is everywhere. A bloody corpse is removed by the EMTs.
Billy boy comes home. Good news, bad news. Ted has invited him to his party. Parents and Jenny already know Blachard died. (Must have been in the society pages, hardy har). Jenny gleefully asks, “So what are you going to wear?” “To the funeral?” Billy replies. “No, to Ted’s party of course.” she responds. Society always has their priorities straight.
Billy goes to Ted’s party and meets the Super Model Hottie of course. Ted throws Billy in the pool for making waves. Hottie comes onto him. She wants him in a bedroom. We get a full-frontal sex scene with Hottie. Bless you Brian Yuzna!
The hottie suddenly has ass and tits on the same side of the body and Billy freaks. But then she’s back to normal. Billy’s cheerleader scouts the cheating. Nonplussed.
Hottie slut asks “How do you like your tea? Cream? Sugar? Or do you want me to pee in it?” “You’re a class act.” Billy replies. Just as degenerate as Street Trash I see.
They make out and… again Lobotomized Molly Ringwald Frankenstein. The Hottie then confirms it’s her mother??? Jeez, alrighty.
The cheerleader confronts Billy. She leaves him. He comes into his house and his dad is messaging his sister inappropriately and his mother is watching. His mother creepily says to Billy, “You look really nice in a tie.” Continuing she says, “You’ll make such a great contribution to society. You’ll do our whole family proud.” Creepers.
He calls his dad a “Butthead.” Okay. Then threatens to move out. Billy then unreliably witnesses Bill Gates die. He gets the cops and the hottie to confirm. Nope paranoid again. This gets a bit redundant here. Nothing is there. The cops want to arrest him for drugs but don’t because he is “Society.” The hottie cradles him all night instead. It’s good to be rich!
Class presidency. Young Bill Gates is dead. An easy vote. He tells the auditorium he died. Then Young Gates shows up and everyone laughs at Bill. What? More paranoia? Alright. This is American Psycho level paranoia. Who knows what’s true? Basically, question everything until further notice.
Billy enters a room with his family, therapist, and the judge. Men in white coats drug Billy. He’s taken away and his nerd friend follows him to a hospital. It’s getting a little much with the paranoia. He runs out like he’s ditching rehab. He goes to the hottie’s house, and she says, “Don’t go home.” “Why not? It’s time to party hardy!” Billy replies. Haha.
Billy returns home and repeats his dream from the opening scene (this must be getting to the end). He has a knife, but his parent’s goons take it away and he’s put in a long pole noose for crazy people or mad dogs (or zombies in underground Caverns. Jello!).
All Billy’s paranoid fantasies start to unravel. Mother and father confess they’re not his real family. The therapist says “You’re a different race from us. A different species; class. You have to be born into society.” He is then marched past all of society like a subhuman animal. They laugh snidely. He’s then dragged across the floor for everyone’s amusement.
The Judge offers Ted an internship in Washington. The Judge then is very pleased that Billy, who is a very fine specimen, well endowed, and well groomed by his fake parents who were good enough to have this low status person in their home, (the very idea, clutch pearls!), will be on the menu for society.
But first Blanchard is alive and all of society starts to rip off his clothes and men and women alike start to oil up and let the orgy begin! Commencing to The Blue Danube of 2001: A Space Odyssey soundtrack fame.
They’re all jellied up, in fevered lighting, laughing maniacally: judge, mom, dad, Jenny, Young Bill Gates — everybody! It’s Epstein Island the Home Edition!
Now we get seriously surreal mutagenic metaphor with an orgy of flesh. Fingers literally melting into butts, suckfaces connected to their victim’s genitals.
Ted tells Hottie we’re all gonna get our share (of this orgy). “Didn’t you know Billy boy; the rich have always sucked off low class shit like you!” As a massive tongue protrudes from Ted’s mouth to comic effect. What a terrific line. It really puts Epstein Island into perspective.
The Judge looms greasily over Blanchard “and now we’ll get… to the bottom of things.” then rams his fist up his rectum. Hilarious. And yes, the rest of society, half naked, mutant, degenerates that they are, have a good laugh over that one.
It’s Billy’s turn now! His therapist gets the honors on Billy as a reptile, joker smile forms on his mouth and chases after him.
Billy boy ends up in his mother’s room. Some kind of mother-sister hybrid creature is on the bed. And dad, meanwhile, is now, yes, a literal “butthead.” You must see what I mean. This is a great showcase for Screaming Mad George who did these practical effects. The FX are a terrific mix of gross, creative orgy metaphors and laughing, and joyous society types clinking champagne glasses and making out obscenely. Highly creative stuff.
Then the mass of interconnected orgy goers disassembles and slowly devolves back into naked oily individuals.
The Judge confesses “I’m getting too old for this.” (Does this predate Lethal Weapon? Google reminds me: nope). A fight breaks out between Ted and Billy. Billy’s getting his ass whipped. Fine breeding doesn’t win for long as Billy fights back but it’s not enough. The hottie stops Ted from killing Billy, but Ted slaps her, causing Franken-Molly to tackle Ted. Ted then proceeds to punch out Billy then sucks his face. Billy goes for the desperation move we all restrain ourselves from using and proceeds to sock puppet Ted in a way again that must be seen to be believed. Terrific stuff!
Billy punches his “Dad” out and calls him “butthead” one last time. Nerd, Hottie, and Billy make a quick Jeep getaway. The judge relents “Well, it looks as though I’ll have an opening in Washington next summer.” The End.
Society Uppers:
The creative use of effects in Society are of course right on par with Street Trash and goes a step further in fact, integrating real society with a conglomerate orgy creature. It’s great satire.
The hotties are really hot in this movie, and we get a taste. Just as in Street Trash, we get to go all the way with full frontal and lots of teasing the adolescent audiences these movies are intended for.
The incest metaphor is handled rather incisively and without gratuity. It pushes a lot of buttons, and the creative metaphors get the problem’s point across.
I also love the opening title song sequence that really sets the tone, and the inevitability of the situation comes to a head nicely as a well told story.
Society Downers:
The repetitiveness of the paranoia, while part of the point of the way Society makes one feel. Is Billy or is Billy not a reliable leading character? This falls flat on many occasions.
The Molly Ringwald Lobotomy mother of hottie also took me out of the serious horror of the film to provide a distracting element that did not work within the movie as a whole. It was not funny nor interesting. Just a random plop.
Final Thoughts:
In Street Trash people melt alone. In Society they melt together. Street Trash and Society are two sides of the same coin. Melting bums. Melting naked orgy creature. Both are well directed, acted, and inspired with creative abilities. These movies expose the deviancy at the depths and heights which is the universal bond these movies share. It’s a great double bill that I recommend to all Severed Cinema readers! Four stars goes to both film’s filmmakers for really going for it with these two mini-epics. Tops and Tails. Assholes and elbows. So above, so below!
Street Trash
Directed by: J. Michael Muro
Written by: Roy Frumkes, J. Michael Muro
Produced by: Roy Frumkes
Cinematography by: David Sperling
Editing by: Dennis Werner
Music by: Rick Ulfik
Special Effects by: Jennifer Aspinall
Cast: Mike Lackey, Bill Chepil, Vic Noto, Mark Sferrazza, Jane Arakawa, Nicole Potter
Year: 1987
Country: USA
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 1h 31min
Studio: Chaos Productions, Street Trash Joint Venture
Distributor: Lightning Video, Vestron Pictures, Synapse Films
Society
AKA: The Shunting
Directed by: Brian Yuzna
Written by: Zeph E. Daniel, Rick Fry
Produced by: Keith Walley
Cinematography by: Rick Fichter
Editing by: Peter Teschner
Music by: Phil Davies, Mark Ryder
Special Effects by: Screaming Mad George
Cast: Billy Warlock, Concetta D’Agnese, Ben Slack, Evan Richards, Patrice Jennings, Tim Bartell
Year: 1989
Country: USA
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 1h 39min
Studio: Wild Street Pictures
Distributor: Zecca Films, Arrow Video
