Ryan Kruger's drip-nasty return to 1987's Street Trash lore isn't a remake, but an overseas sequel. South African class warfare brings a rebellious spirit and geopolitical weight to vile body meltdowns, like George A. Romero's unsubtle commentary meets Astron-6's unpredictable shenanigans. Kruger's splatterpunk vibes in Fried Barry translate into a neon-juicy homage to J. Michael Muro's top-tier 80s goop, but it's a tangled Hydra of story tangents, and each head isn't being fed properly. Shock-slop silliness expands horizons yet rambles incoherently, failing to deliver a character-driven Street Trash that'll give you more than a cheap buzz.
Greenpoint's junkyard denizens swap for Cape Town vagabonds, modern peasants abhorred by corrupt Mayor Mostert (Warrick Grier). Should the elected tyrant's wishes be granted, struggling displaced folks like upbeat Roland (Sean Cameron Michael) and his companion Chef (Joe Vaz) would be eradicated. They aren’t, not yet at least, so Roland's crew — including doofy brothers Pap (Shuraigh Meyer) and Wors (Lloyd Martinez Newkirk), along with greasy-haired wild card 2-Bit (Gary Green) — live in an old, gated-off auto parts yard (dubbed Statewide, for eagle-eyed fans). Roland even takes in a stray, feisty loner Alex (Donna Cormack-Thomson), and teaches her the ropes just in time for Mayor Mostert to release pill-shaped drones loaded with "Viper" gas to start dealing with Cape Town's homeless problem using fatal aerosol sprays.
Kruger and co-writer James C. Williamson scribble a story with shades of Land of the Dead's classist infuriation, The Crazies paranoia, scrapheap RoboCop alarmism, and Street Trash's unmistakable eruptions. Muro's original is a stanky free-for-all, whereas Krueger's continuation sets out on an anarchistic mission. There's more stress put on Ryan's collective as a community, but the film's anti-establishment stances are a disservice to zanier beats. Absurd genre gags feel out of place, crammed between genocidal conspiracies and weaponized Viper puffs. 2-Bit's blue-skinned, miniature horndog hallucination Sockle (voiced by Krueger), glowing supersoldier serums, and "Offly" — the behind-the-camera character who's only recognized by breaking the 4th wall (wtf) — don't mesh with straighter-laced John Carpenter-esque warnings about distrusting ruling bodies.
It's a cacophony of fever-dream nonsense that comes together without reason beyond Mayor Mostert's hatred of the underprivileged. Kruger's illustrating Cape Town as Tromaville, but even then, obscenities and oddball goofiness are scattershot head-scratchers. Muro's Street Trash boasts a flimsy narrative backbone, but that matters less because there's a tonal harmony that Kruger never establishes. In representing a wider-scale South African dystopia, the essence of Street Trash's contained insanity evaporates. Signatures such as excessive dick trauma and extreme gore are present, but the "continuation" angle is a pungent stew of clashing ingredients. It's serious, then stupid, then graphic, and so on — exploitation for the sake of laughs, at a detriment to the overall experience.
It's a shame because Kruger's shooting style is flashy and kinetic. There's a futuristic Blade Runner vibe about details, with hologram billboards projected on building facades and whatnot. Fabian Vettiger frames citizen uprisings and gloppy experimentations with a keen eye, leaning into the smokescreen effect of Viper 2.0. Street Trash is a glittery little indie that shimmers and sparkles in its visuals, but spunky arts and crafts SFX aren't enough to distract from the film's overall discombobulation.
"But how about them deaths?" Don't fret; Kruger regurgitates deaths with comparable gunkiness. Colorful liquids squirt from holes eaten through flesh, and there's larger-scale Viper warfare as canisters of the toxic haze infect Mayor Mostert's hit squads or homeless prisoners meet gas chamber fates (kinda yikes). However, the watery quality of Kruger's pastel juices is less thick-'n-gross and weirdly less fulfilling. He also reuses the same "balloon fills with paint then bursts like a boil" rig where Muro's disintegrating carnage is attractively unique to each victim. Gummy pinks, radioactive greens, and springtime yellows burst into attractive mists, but there's a repetitious factor to the film's unique brand of puddly repugnance.
Fried Barry's madcap energy is alive and well in Krueger's madcap rebootquel, which is either a blessing or curse depending on your reaction to the filmmaker’s divisive feature debut. Street Trash is a little bit of everything with an unfortunate outcome. It wants to be a pure midnight movie like Mutant Blast, a government-dragging mutation comedy where anything can and does happen, but lacks consistency and command. Dystopian minions pop like Easter-colored pimples aplenty, but — despite slathering the film in gallons of Crayola-bright internal organ slurry — the film's inherited allure bleeds dry.
Movie Score: 2/5
Matt Donato is a Los Angeles-based film critic currently published on SlashFilm, Fangoria, Bloody Disgusting, and anywhere else he’s allowed to spread the gospel of Demon Wind. He is also a member of the Critics Choice Association. Definitely don’t feed him after midnight.
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