In an earlier installment in these pages, I made the proclamation that Dust Devil was the horror DVD of 2006. And that wasn’t a bad call. Subversive’s DVD package is fantastic. However, Dust Devil is a bit too cerebral to really qualify as a drive-in movie. It’s really more of an art film than a [...]

In an earlier installment in these pages, I made the proclamation that Dust Devil was the horror DVD of 2006. And that wasn’t a bad call. Subversive’s DVD package is fantastic. However, Dust Devil is a bit too cerebral to really qualify as a drive-in movie. It’s really more of an art film than a horror movie to me.

Now I have a different DVD that I think hold the title of Best Horror DVD of 2006. It’s the Synapse 2 disc Meltdown Edition of Street Trash.

By any standard, Street Trash is a brilliant low budget exploitation horror movie. But you’d have to have been there at the time to truly understand the excitement that many of us felt for it. Conceived and shot in the mid-late 1980’s, Street Trash was a conscious attempt to counterbalance the limp excuses for horror that were all-too-common back then. Things like Critters, Ghoulies, House 2 and numerous others. I admit to feeling fondness for many of these productions, but the genre needed a shot of adrenalin at the time. The classic grindhouse theaters were closing down and so were the drive in theaters. People were holing themselves up in their abodes and were satisfying themselves with a lot of safe genre movies. Street Trash was intended to be unsafe viewing. It would fuck you right in the brain with no condom.

Fangoria championed Street Trash in its pages and the excitement was palpable and infectious. The photos that ran in the magazine were mind-blowing. Early word about the film and interviews with its cast and crew promised something that we’d never quite seen before. And man did they deliver.

Street Trash is, on the surface, a wild story about an unearthed crate of cheap wine that has an explosive effect on those that imbibe it. At a buck a pop, it becomes a popular choice on the street and the bums that drink it meltdown and explode. But really, the story works best as a look at the lives of various street people and the community they have created. The depiction of them is sometimes disgusting, often hysterical, and even oddly touching at times. The exploding winos are merely icing on the cake.

Street Trash was eventually released on the Lightning Pictures label on Vestron Video. I lived directly across the street from an Erol’s Video at the time and I was friends with the manager. One Saturday I had some company over and the manager called me and chuckled and said that he had Street Trash for me. This was before the actual release date and I got it for free. I think that I surprised my guests when I yelled, “ALL RIGHT!” into the phone and ran out the door and across the street.

We watched the movie and we all roared with laughter at the right places and cringed at the explicit gore sequences. Street Trash was exactly what it had been promised to be: A modern exploitation classic.

Street Trash might not have been an enormous money maker, but it was seen by those that needed to see it and those that experienced its marvels have never forgotten it. Numerous individuals, like myself, waited for its arrival on DVD.

Our dreams came true a couple of years ago, when Street Trash was released in a fully restored edition from The Criterion of Exploitation, Synapse Films. I suppose that ‘restored’ isn’t really the proper word here…because this DVD looked better than any previous release. Far, far better.

I had the pleasure of meeting Roy Frumkes, the writer and producer of Street Trash, at The Horrorfind Convention 2005. Frumkes is a charming, funny and obviously intelligent guy. He was at the Synapse table to help promote the first, bare bones, release of Street Trash on DVD. I knew that a Special Edition was forthcoming, but I bought one anyway. I got the leaflet insert signed and inscribed by Mr. Frumkes, and that edition also contained a sticker which could turn any bottle of wine into a faux bottle of Tenefly Viper. Which is the name of the toxic wine that ignited and explodes the assorted bums and misfits in the film.

Now, a couple of years later, the deluxe, 2 disc “Meltdown Edition” of Street Trash is available. To those that have purchased the single edition, I urge you to double dip this time. And for those that haven’t seen Street Trash before, this is THE must-own movie of the year.

In this time of extras and documentaries and bonus features on movies on DVD, I grow weary of it all. Most tend to be a bit boring and similar to each other. This is most definitely not the case with The Meltdown Memoirs, a feature length documentary about the making of Street Trash. Even longer than the film it documents, The Meltdown Memoirs is as entertaining and fascinating as the feature itself. Roy Frumkes’ likable personality permeates The Meltdown Memoirs and he shares an abundance of information about the film and the people that made it. People that are are as interesting as the characters in the actual film. The two hour running length of The Meltdown Memoirs went by all too fast for me, and I wanted to watch it again the very next night. Many know that Roy Frumkes makes excellent movie documentaries…anyone that has seen Document of the Dead can testify to that. But The Meltdown Memoirs is even better than the in depth look at the making of Dawn of the Dead. It is, in fact, the single best documentary of the making of a movie that I’ve ever seen.

The extra disc also contains the original 16 minute short that inspired Street Trash, as well as a long lost teaser for the film. Add two commentaries from both Frumkes and director Jim Muro (who went on to become the most sought-after steadycam operator in Hollywood) and a still gallery.

Christmas is here and you owe yourself a present. Buy the 2 disc Meltdown Edition of Street Trash and you’ll thank me for it. Or maybe buy it for someone you love. This is easily the best horror DVD package of 2006.

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