Blu-Ray Review: ‘STREET TRASH’ Special Meltdown Edition

After some complications, Synapse Films has released the late 80’s oozetastic classic, Street Trash on Blu-Ray. This release has a lot of great features to it so let’s dive in.

The Movie

If you are new to this film, let it be known that the plot is pretty secondary to the actual delivery of the film. Directed by Jim Muro, who is making his theatrical directing debut, Street Trash is one of those films that when you hear about it, you can’t believe that it was ever filmed.  Street Trash follows the life of some winos always looking to grab a cheap drink. A liquor store owner finds a box containing 40 year old bottles of Tenafly Viper and decides to make it his “wino special” for the day. You can get it cheap, real cheap. Bad thing is that this cheap hooch melts any human flesh it comes in contact with into florescent puddles of ooze.

If you have already seen this film, you know how wonderful it is. The film is more a less a day in the life of homeless winos that only care about how they can get some cash to grab their next drink. Sure, there is a loose plot of our main character Mike who is just trying to survive on the streets while building a home made of tires. Unfortunately, he has to worry about a guy named Bronson who commands the other bums in the junk yard. The film is more of a character piece. They are not deep characters but they are characters.

Street Trash falls into a bit of a lull in the middle but for the most part there is quite a bit of energy and the fact that there is definitely some technical talent behind the camera. Unfortunately, the film suffers from not really having a script but more of an idea. Regardless, Street Trash is a blast to watch and is an iconic piece of 1980’s slime cinema. 21 year director Jim Muro still remains as his only feature-length film but is one of the main reasons why the film still has a cult following today. He has gone on to be a cinematographer and a steadicam operator, which even Street Trash features some great steadicam shots. The production value and special effects work is what shines here, other than the liquid ooze.

The Presentation

Synapse Films comes through again! The Blu-Ray was supposed to come out on June 11th but was delayed due to Synapse Films’ Don May, Jr not being particularly pleased with the first couple of restoration jobs the film had to go through prior to publishing the disc. You can read more about it, and I recommend you do, on the Synapse Films website here. It was worth the wait.

Street Trash is presented in its original 1.78:1 aspect ratio scanned from the original camera negative. The video presentation here is amazing. It’s crisp and precise and this is going to be the best you will see Street Trash on your home screens. The film grain is apparent, as it should be. It isn’t a particularly heavy grainy film so you don’t need to worry about it distracting you from the actual image.

Other than the two commentaries that we are treated with, which I will cover in the Special Features section, the disc has DTS-HD Audio Tracks in a remastered 5.1 mix that was “created specifically for Home Theatre Environments”. The 5.1 mix seems a bit quiet which I wish would have a bit of a vocal boost but who knows what Synapse had to work with for this flick. Street Trash is a low-budget film and I don’t know what the soundtrack elements were like but I assume maybe they weren’t the best as Synapse creates such a great visual representation of the film. The other DTS-HD track is a 2.0 Stero track that sounds more true to to its original release, if that is your thing.

Special Features

• Commentary featuring Writer/Producer Roy Frumkes – Roy casually comments on the film as a writer but moreso as someone who has experienced the daily shooting of the film. It’s a decent track that fans will certainly enjoy.
• Commentary featuring Director James Muro – This is the track that anyone who is interested in the camera operation of this film should listen to. Muro takes the technical approach to the commentary, which is nice because the camerawork is one of the strengths of Street Trash.
• The Meltdown Memoirs (2:03:58, SD) – This documentary by Street Trash writer Roy Frumkes, who also created the Document of the Dead film, shows personal accounts of the cast and crew and follows it from pre-production to where they are now. The 2-hour long documentary is a great watch and a complementary feature to the film it comments on. Sadly, the film doesn’t have a chapter menu to access particular chapters to the film. However, the film is divided in 13 chapters that can be skipped through if necessary. The footage combines footage shot during the filming of the film as well as video interviews with pretty much everyone involved.
• The Original STREET TRASH 16mm Short (15;05, SD) – This is a nice watch to see where the origins came from and to see how they further developed the ideas in the feature length film.
• Jane Arakawa Interview (09:15, SD) – The title pretty much says it all. This is a feature that is exclusive to the Blu-Ray. Sadly, it is a video interview that was filmed in SD. It seems like it was shot on the fly with a consumer camcorder during the day with no professional audio equipment. Watching this after the extensive Roy Frumkes documentary, it feels more of an answer/response to her absence from Roy’s documentary. Regardless, it is nice to hear from her and the fact that she has fond memories of the filming.
• Original Theatrical Trailer (02:10, HD) – This is the only extra feature that is presented in High-Definition. The trailer is great, especially when the voice over artist states that “there is always a snake in the Garden of Eden”. The “Garden of Eden” being the fact that you can live on the street for free without a care in the world. It also has one of the best closing lines ever “…we’re all over the place”.
• STREET TRASH Original Promotional Teaser (03:07, SD) – Captured from a VHS Muro found in his storage unit, this teaser was used to try and sell the film to investors. Nothing to extravagant here.
• Deleted Scenes and Outtakes (07:22, SD) – Just a few extended and coverage shots to be found here.

None of special features will allow you to use the Pop-Up menu to return to the film. Special Features and the menu can be accessed via the Pop-Up menu from the feature presentation.

Overall

It’s hard to say that I would recommend Street Trash as a blind buy but if there is anyone that I know that seems to enjoy 80’s exploitation and genre cinema but hasn’t seen the film, I highly recommend it to them. The reason Street Trash has stood the test of time is because of the outrageous “gore” in the film combined with the technical prowess behind the camera. It’s not a gorgeous film but is definitely one that needs to be seen to believed.