by Jim Morazzini
Stars: Sean Cameron Michael, Donna Cormack-Thomson, Suraya Rose Santos, Joe Vaz, Lloyd Martinez Newkirk, Shuraigh Meyer, Gary Green, Ryan Kruger, Warrick Grier | Written by Ryan Kruger, James C. Williamson | Directed by Ryan Kruger
While remakes in general don’t bother me, I have to admit I didn’t think remaking Street Trash was a good idea. The original is the kind of weird, offbeat film it’s almost impossible to sit down and deliberately write, it’s the kind of weirdness that has to come organically, something any number of deliberate attempts at creating cult films have proven.
I did find it encouraging that Ryan Kruger had been picked to direct it. If anyone could pull it off the maker of Fried Barry, a seriously WTF comedy about a junkie’s encounter with aliens and its aftermath, stood a good chance of being the one to do it. I also found it encouraging that he wasn’t doing a straight remake, but a standalone sequel set in Kruger’s hometown, Cape Town, South Africa, in the near future where skyrocketing unemployment and poverty have led to violent clashes with the police.
After barely escaping the police after one of these clashes, Ronald (Sean Cameron Michael; Triggered, Black Sails) finds himself rescuing Alex (Donna Cormack-Thomson; Catch Me a Killer, Monster Island) from a couple of Rat King’s (Suraya Rose Santos; Professionals, Broken Darkness) goons and bringing her back to the squat he shares with Chef (played by Joe Vaz; Critters Attack!, Slay), Wors (Lloyd Martinez Newkirk; Fried Barry), Pap (Shuraigh Meyer; There Are No Heroes, The Umbrella Men), 2-BIt (Gary Green; Death Race 2, Alien Dick) and his imaginary friend Sockle (Ryan Kruger).
On the other side of Cape Town, Mayor Mostert (Warrick Grier; The Scorpion King 2: Rise of a Warrior, Dredd) has found a way to rid the city of the homeless and ensure his reelection. His scientists have managed to recreate the Viper substance from “The New York Incident” and manufacture it in mass quantities so that he can literally eradicate homelessness.
The script by Kruger and James C. Williamson (Exo Sapien, Fried Barry) is full of references to not just the original Street Trash, but to other favourites like Robocop, Escape From New York, and They Live among others. The filmmakers’ love for not just the original film but the genre as a whole is obvious, which makes it hard to understand why they took the approach to the material that they did.
Rather than lean into the over-the-top nature of the plot and frame it as a dark, dystopian comedy, Kruger mostly plays it straight apart from the constant stream of raunchy comments and weak jokes the characters direct at each other. Jokes like “If two vegetarians get into a fight, is it still called a beef?” or a rambling explanation of how Peter Pan is a paedophile and Captain Hook is actually the hero. At first, I thought the actual joke was how unfunny they were, but there’s no payoff, only more horrible jokes.
Actually, given jokes like those, maybe Kruger was trying to make a dark comedy and totally missed the mark. But there’s nothing like the outrageous scene from the original where people play keep away with a severed dick or the lethal flying gas cylinder here. Just weak parodies of greedy politicians and scumbag cops mixed in with too many scenes of people mourning dead friends and another meant to invoke images of the showers in Auschwitz. And that serious tone is at odds with a plot you can’t take seriously and loads of Troma-style gore.
And it’s that gore, all done with old school prosthetics, along with an action-filled final act where the surviving homeless rise up to take revenge that are Street Trash’s saving graces and give it what entertainment value it has. Kruger has said the shoot was difficult with several recurring problems, but the real problem is the script, which lacks the kind of anything goes humour that made Fried Barry work so well. How he managed to get this film so wrong after getting that one so right is a mystery worthy of a Netflix special.
In the end, while Street Trash is watchable, especially if you already subscribe to ScreamBox, it’s a pale shadow of the surreal spoof of class warfare that I was expecting and that it should have been. Hopefully, if you know what to expect going in, you won’t be as disappointed as I was.
** ½ 2.5/5
Cineverse will release Street Trash to Digital Platforms today, November 19th.
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