Street Trash (2024) Review: A Gore-Filled Disaster That Will Melt Your Patience!
My Partner in Gore, Willow, and I are both huge fans of the original ‘80s meltfest flick, Street Trash (1987) so when Ryan Kruger (Fried Barry) first announced his intentions and then creation of this — a sequel remake thingy — we were very eager to see it. I’ve posted a couple of articles on Severed Cinema supporting what I thought would be a fun fanfest romp filled with gore and dripping flesh. The last article I wrote was about Vinegar Syndrome releasing a limited edition blu-ray (see ‘Vinegar Syndrome Announces Limited Edition Blu-ray Release of Street Trash (2024) – A Gory Action-Comedy Sequel to the Cult Classic’ here). I was poised and ready to order it… but something stopped me…
As it transpired, Chris (the editor and man behind Severed… why am I typing that? You must know!!) sent me a screener to review the following evening. We were gleeful. For a change, because he looked bored, I invited one of my sons, Kane, to the viewing, to share his thoughts. Kane is in his early 20s. His fav flicks are A Clockwork Orange, Dawn of the Dead, and John Carpenter’s The Thing, among others. He studied film back at college and always looks at the details, so why not? A fresh take on a movie.
This dastardly trio of gorehounds settled down and I played Street Trash (2024). We begin in what appears to be a bunker or something, with ‘volunteers’ brought in. “You didn’t write down your next of kin.” says a doctor, to which the subject looks rather bewildered by this statement. As far as he knows, it’s a safe experiment and he’ll get his cash, being that he’s homeless, he needs the quids.
He’s injected and immediately he begins to cry out, “It burns! What the fuck! I can’t feel my legs now!” Thus begins the first meltdown within minutes. Lovely and gooey. It’s a gut spilling, skin dripping delight with vomit to add to the pleasant dinner time joy. The sequence takes nearly two minutes and its quite beautiful.
We’re set in Cape Town; society is divided between the rich and poor (no difference really to anywhere). There’s a dictator-like mayor in charge and the police force are populated by violent hotheads. Poverty and homelessness are rife, which of course brings us a similar cast to the original. Gangs and turf wars rip the city apart. Other things of note, there are floating drones at night after curfew, and mention of the Rat King, some black market, and dangerous propaganda person deep underground — two pointers for later plot developments.
Cue a chase between our central hobo, Ronald, and a loud ass cop called Maggot. The cop gets his dick chopped off by a metal gate. It’s not a very funny set up, but it’s fine I suppose. Afterwards, Ronald saves a woman, Alex, from the Rat King’s gang who want her back and are basically kicking her head in. Ronald takes her home which is a huge, abandoned warehouse that he and his mob have turned into a decent habitat. One by one, we meet his pals and from there the movie decomposes and melts into a childish farce…
“Who wrote this, a twelve-year-old?” I heard Kane mumble as the script delivers immature fart jokes and then sex jokes. The whole gang (aside from Ronald) are irritating cartoon clichéd characters. My personal opinion of this movie was fading rapidly with each and every line dished out. Fucking hell! In fact, there is another good member of the misfit crew, a blue goblin creature that the totally whacked out, 2-Bit sees, and nobody else does. He’s smarmy and funny, but as for the humans — no, absolutely no!
Then a new comedy aspect arrives — the camera man is a character. That pissed me right off! Pathetic! Seriously, is this supposed to be amusing???! Even the lowest levels of Troma isn’t as toe curling and desperate (more on the camera man later on).
They teach Alex the ways of the hobo, how to steal, get food, how to fight (“try to avoid it at all costs!“) which includes a few moments of a musical number. This film is trying waaaaay too hard it’s simply embarrassing.
If the camera man (Offie, played by Ryan himself — who also voices Sockie, the blue gremlin) is an entity, then when the view switches around should another person be seen with another camera? Should we see him? Or is it just one camera so everybody stops whilst he runs to get another shot? If you’re going to be funny, just don’t fucking bother!
Hmm, later on, though it’s never made clear, the camera man could actually be just another bloke who’s hilariously POV. I’m not going to ponder too much, because I don’t give a toss!
Not long after the mayor and his scientists have a tumour-faced homeless woman melt, caused by gas. “The effects are incredible,” said Kane, “But this film is dogshit.” Then Willow pointed something out that had us all shake our heads at the ridiculous set up, “Hang on, they (the mayor and a fella beside him) have taken their masks off. Why aren’t they melting? There’s still gas around and they’re really close up!”
There’s a lorry with a Viper bottle advert on. woooo. More toilet humour, sex jokes, fuck off! Our brains were rotting, I wanted to die! Willow and I were getting flashbacks to Calling Nurse Meow (see review here). So far though, no sad case topless women had appeared, so we were spared that again!
We discussed fast forwarding or switching off but then I heroically said, “No, we have been trusted with this review, we must finish it!” Willow went into a quiet mood and Kane sunk into his chair. Deep inside I knew I’d regret my words, but we have a duty of care to readers of Severed Cinema.
At thirty to thirty-two minutes in we have a confrontation between Ronald and Rat King’s gang. Keep in mind, Rat King’s men have weapons, and who does Ronald have? 2-Bit, who is a skinny topless bloke who administers one headbutt. They back off… they… back… off! That made no sense! Fuck! Was that a comical part? Who knows? Nothing is funny so perhaps.
By the forty-minute mark, we all dropped out of the story. We had no idea what was going on. It was just visual mucus. However, at forty-two minutes a meltdown which reminded me of the Robocop vehicle vs toxic waste body scene occurred. Cool.
Alex is caught and taken to the Rat King. She buys herself one more day because RK wants a drone battery. The gang agree to help, and they plan in a scene totally ripping off Shaun of the Dead.
Ronald’s best buddy, Chef, spends a lot of time explaining why Peter Pan plus Pinocchio have paedo undertones, but when his death scene arrived and there was sad music, were we supposed to care? His passing does reveal to our heroes where the source of the meltdowns are coming from. Like I said, we didn’t care.
Obviously, a lot of hard work has gone into Street Trash. Maybe we’re the wrong audience (or age group) for this material. Ryan is a great guy and one thing we all agreed on, the effects and locations are superb — though when a human torso melts, where’s the purple from? Someone somewhere will enjoy this barrel of gobshite wank wipe scripting. Shit, I don’t think even someone as high as hell could enjoy it, but y’know.
Please could anybody (not part of the crew or cast) defend the stupid writing? Are we being harsh? I want to know. Defend it with a valid explanation how it added to what could have been a great movie, and I personally will take it all back. Defend the (above stated) farts, sex, mistakes, cliché generic predictable character arcs, and because I was so looking forward to this, I’ll genuinely try to like it more. (In reality, as usually happens when I give a film low points, the cast or crew will start slagging me off or questioning my merits. Look, I’m not a tea sipping critic, I’m a lifetime horror fan who writes because I love the genre, not because I’m getting paid or I’m trying to make a name for myself, I have nothing left to prove — that’s my merits!)
The Wilhelm scream is used three times in this Street Trash, that made me and Kane smile. In all fairness when things do start to pick up towards the end, when they’re all caught and rounded up for a gassing, it had lost all interest and respect. As far as melting humans, they top notch, because it’s all practical no CGI. As far as everything else… yeah…
“No matter where you go, there you are…”
One of my friends, Spyda, had watched this Street Trash on a stream, and he’s also a big fan of the first. He switched off after half an hour. Willow loved the gore and stuff, but due to the characters, couldn’t get into it. Kane ranted for a while as the credits rolled, “Work on the writing! Work on the characters! Let them flow. Dialogue was shit, joke after shit joke, sandwiched with a predictable story and toilet humour! Each time it tried to be serious, immediately a shit joke followed! Nothing gelled, nothing was solid!”
There’s a fella called Society who carries a phial of blue liquid waiting for Ronald to be ready because it’ll give him powers. Society is played by an actor which has the air of somebody who has done nearly a hundred movies and is probably well known. I mean, the guy who plays Ronald has acted in loads of flicks as well, but unfortunately he slops into this pit of abortions with everybody else, and that’s the fault of the writers because, to be fair, most of the acting is fair to middle-of-the-road, but it’s the words oozing from everyone’s mouths that smashes this film to bits.
Street Trash (2024) tried too hard (like I said) to be comical and wanted to be likeable but was forcing everything until it flopped tiredly. I can take rubbish characters so long as the scripting is at least adequate. One thing that did stand out for me was the use of lighting, which was very ‘80s in parts.
Street Trash is not going the way of Calling Nurse Meow as I’ll give it points (much to the annoyance of Willow and Kane) because it deserves some merit, but I’m saddened by what a missed opportunity this was. Thank fuck I didn’t buy the Blu-ray!
Fangoria is quoted as saying, “The most socially relevant gorefest in decades.” Huh???!!!
Directed by: Ryan Kruger
Written by: Ryan Kruger, James C. Williamson
Produced by: Ryan Kruger, Justin A Martell, and loads more
Cinematography by: Fabian Vettiger
Music by: Ebanhaezer Smal
Edited by: Stephen Du Plessis
Special Effects by: Joshua Connaway, Adrian Smith, Nat Smith, Neboi, plus loads more
Cast: Sean Cameron Michael, Gary Green, Joe Vaz, Donna Cormack Thompson, Ryan Kruger, Andrew Roux
Year: 2024
Country: South Africa
Language: English
Colour: Colour
Runtime: 1h 23 min
Studio: Not the Funeral Home, Protagonist, Stage 5 Films
Distributor: Cineverse Entertainment, Screambox, Vinegar Syndrome