With gloriously hideous practical effects, Ryan Kruger’s Street Trash should be an easy home run of a film. Yet, the film is let down by a thread-bare story that just about does enough to get to each colourfully disgusting practical effects-laden scene.
Homeless people are going missing throughout Cape Town; as the numbers soar, a group of misfits who have banded together as a family must try and work out what is going on and, more importantly, try to survive this apparent extermination from the upper class.
Following up on the wonderfully weird 2020 film Fried Barry, director Ryan Kruger makes his Street Trash a sequel to the 1987 New York original. The trouble with that is that Kruger has little to say or interest in furthering the dialogue of what worked so well in that original film. It wasn’t just a film about homeless people being murdered via a dodgy substance that caused them to mutate and explode. It was about the socio-economic differences and difficulties that that era of New York had, we cared for these people who were at the bottom rung of society. It was scuzzy and uncomfortable, whereas, everything here is too, almost safe and light in comparison. There is a brilliant story ready to be told, especially about the struggles of those in the same position in Cape Town, however, Kruger went the other way, filling his film with the stalest of jokes instead.
It’s the only downside to Street Trash. Still, it is difficult to ignore as our scenes outside of the murder scenes feel akin to placeholders. We are just sitting there waiting for the next over-the-top fantastic practical effects extravaganza, which is a shame as there could be so much more here if Kruger had delved even further to create more of a story. The less said about the character of Sockle (a blue horny 4th wall-breaking monster), the better. You get that Kruger has gone for a wild, fun ride with Street Trash, but to make that work, he needs to have a stronger story for his entertaining gang of misfits to work with; otherwise, they are just cracking jokes and not much else.
What makes Street Trash worth watching, though, is those practical effects. If you are a fan of practical films, then goodness, this is a treasure trove of a film for you to enjoy. Moments go further than you think they could ever go, and although a poor soul is the victim in all of this, you are almost cheering the visual madness that is covering your screen.
That opening death is a tough one to beat; we have a homeless person oozing colours that the human body should not emit, the flesh falls apart as he tries to stop the “scratching” from the inside, and then those bubbles and boils take over his face and body until things start falling off. Gross, horrible, but Christ, is fantastic to see on screen. As a genre fan, you will be in your absolute element during these scenes, and while they can be a little repetitive, you can tell Kruger and special effects supervisor Kevin Bitters want to do whatever they can to outdo the last scene. You see why Kruger took on the film in these moments, and it is a marvel at how great those moments look.
Kruger has a distinct, almost demented style that again works for the majority of the film, you just wish there was more thought and meat to the story than what we get, as Street Trash had all the potential to be something quite special, a throwback that takes the melting/death scenes to cartoonish levels of brutality that keeps you glued. In the end, Street Trash is a film that seems to try too hard to be funny when all it has to do is tell a simple story and let the practical effects do all the talking for it. It’s a bit of a shame, but it’s still worth a watch for the effects alone.
★★★
Street Trash will be released in select UK cinemas from January 10, and on Digital & Blu-ray from February 17. Cinema listings will be added here : https://linktr.ee/StreetTrashUK
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