Street Trash (1987)

Chances are audiences have seen J. Michael Muro's work in many mainstream films.  That is because he is one of the most highly sought after Steadicam operators in Hollywood.  He may not be a household name, but for many movies over the last 30 years, if there is a great tracking shot and it's not a Sam Raimi film, good chance Muro is behind it.  Still, everyone needs a place to start and, with a new Steadicam and some help raising funds from his film professor, Roy Frumkes, who helped flesh out what had originally been a short film into a feature, Muro made his one and only feature film, Street Trash, in 1985.

Fred (Mike Lackey) is a homeless man in the Greenpoint neighborhood of New York.  After an attempt to grab some liquor and a bit of money for a sort of beggar king named Bronson (Vic Noto) goes wrong, he goes to a liquor store known to cater to the homeless.  The proprietor, Ed (M. D'Jango Krunch) has just discovered a 60-year-old stash of booze called Tenafly Viper, and decides to sell it for a dollar a bottle.  Fred steals one, but the bottle is stolen by another homeless person who, upon drinking it, melts.

After another couple of deaths in this manner Bill (Bill Chepil), a local police detective, is called in to investigate.  This leads him to Bronson, but still without any explanation of the mysterious deaths.  Things heat up when the girlfriend (Miriam Zucker) of a connected hood named Jimmy Duran (Tony Darrow) turns up raped and murdered in the junkyard where the bums hang out, resulting in Bill being forced to confront Bronson.  Meanwhile, both Bronson and the junkyard owner Pat Ryan are infuriated when secretary Wendy (Jane Arakawa) starts to fall for Fred's brother Kevin (Mike Sferrazza).  Meanwhile, the bodies again begin to pile up as more of the Viper hits the streets.

What the movie has going for it is a great opening, up to the time when a yuppie (played by Frumkes himself) gets melted homeless guy on his face.  From there, the movie devolves into a plotless mess until the end when everyone remembers this is supposed to be about a beverage that kills people.  Granted, the scene Burt (Clarenze Jarmon) in the grocery store is pretty funny, as is a game of keepaway with someone's severed penis, but about the time the rape and murder of the woman (followed by an act of necrophilia to boot) is played for laughs things start to go beyond the pale.  I would forgive it if it made sense as part of the plot, but it is part of a separate subplot that leads to a hit attempt on Fred, none of it having to do with Viper. 

Neither is the final chase through the warehouse at the junkyard, but at least it's well-filmed and exciting, involving a fully crazed Bronson going after Kevin.  Vic Noto's performance is the one that really stands out, as a former Special Forces "hit man" with Vietnam flashbacks and a knife made from a human femur.  As with most everything else in the movie, though, it amounts to little more than another side journey. 

Street Trash also runs much longer than it needs to.  There was barely enough story to fill up 80 minutes, let alone over 90.  I admire the inventiveness of the gore effects done by Jennifer Aspinall, as well as some of Muro's direction, but the movie, without a real plot to hold it together, seems to be searching for a direction it never finds.

Street Trash (1987)

Time: 111 minutes

Starring: Mike Lackey, Bill Chepil, Mike Sferrazza, Vic Noto, Jane Arakawa, Pat Ryan

Director: J. Michael Muro