1987 – Horror Ghouls

Ghoulies II (1987)

Posted on October 24, 2025October 24, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

This time, you better flush twice!

Moon’s fuller than usual tonight, says the old alcoholic uncle Ned, as he and his nephew Larry are driving the big Satan’s Den truck to a carnival. The same night, we also see a man running through the woods from a group of Satanic cult members with three ghoulies trapped in a sack bag. He hides in an empty gas station where he dumps the ghoulies in a gallon of toxic waste. The man falls down into the waste himself when he suddenly gets attacked by a bat ghoulie. Not only one or two, but FOUR ghoulies rise from the toxic waste, just because, to make sure that we’ll have a fun, cheesy and entertaining sequel for the whole family. And the kids should know by now that there are no monsters in the toilet, unless you happen to live in Australia. We also get introduced to a new type of ghoulie here, the Toad Ghoulie. Uncle Ned and Larry stop by the station where the little rascals hide in the truck, and something wicked this way comes to a carnival not so far away.

The carnival is an economic crisis, and all the attractions that don’t make any profit during the upcoming weekend will be closed down. And all of us ghouls can agree that a carnival without a haunted house is not a carnival. And if The Satan’s Den goes, it will be replaced with a ladies’ mud wrestling tent. Meh. The young and smug businessman, Philip Hardin, who owns the carnival with his company and thinks he’s Tom Cruise from Risky Business, will make sure of that. The trio who runs the haunted house, Uncle Ned, Larry and the littleman Sir Nigel, has a lot of work to do. Well, that goes for Larry and Nigel, as Uncle Ned is drunk all the time and believes everything will be solved by magic. Try black magic instead. Oops, someone already did. And that leads us to the ghoulies who are hiding somewhere in the Den, waiting eagerly for the audience to show up so they can have some kill counts.

Ghoulies II is this time directed by Albert Band, the dad of Charles and composer Richard, and this is probably the most polished film in the franchise. There’s also a couple of known faces here like veteran Royal Dano as drunk Ned, and Phil Fondacaro as Nigel, who looks like a shrunken Frank Miller in his older years. Even though the acting here is better than the first one, the rest of the cast are NPC’s, and the romance sideplots are just dead meat to flush down the toilet for the sewer rats. The good news is that the ghoulies themselves have far more screentime here both in form of puppetry and stop-motion by David Allen. The tone is also way more consistent with its blend of comedy and light-hearted silly horror where the carnival-setting amps up the fun-factor and some extra cozy/charming nostalgic atmosphere.

The film also works fine as an isolated watch as it has no connections with the first. The same can be said about Ghoulies III: Ghoulies Go to College. And that one is actually what it sounds like: the ghoulies gets drunk on a college campus, filled with cringe humor and as little horror elements as possible where the only one missing is Pauly Shore. Haven’t seen the fourth one yet.

Director: Albert Band
Writers: Danny Bilson, Dennis Paoli
Country & year: USA, 1987
Actors: Damon Martin, Royal Dano, Phil Fondacaro, J. Downing, Kerry Remsen, Dale Wyatt, Jon Pennell, Sasha Jenson, Starr Andreeff, William Butler, Donnie Jeffcoat, Christopher Burton
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093091/

The Gate (1987)

Posted on October 11, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

The movie opens with the nightmare of Glen, a 12 year old boy. He dreams that his home is abandoned, and he goes out to the backyard to enter his tree-house, where is gets struck by lightning. He wakes to a somewhat uncanny coincidence as he sees that some workers in the backyard have cut down the same tree. He and his friend Terry later discovers that the removal of the tree has unearthed a large geode, and at the same time Glen is catching a splinter and leaves a little bit of blood behind. And of course we know that this little detail is going to have some sort of significance later on…and yup, shortly afterwards some strange things start happening.

Then Glen’s parents are going to leave town for three days, and Glen’s older sister Alexandra (whom he refers to as Al for short) will look after him. Al, being a 15 year old girl, immediately gets in contact with her friends to make proper use of the situation and throws a party. While she’s partying with her friends downstairs, Glen and Terry are in Glen’s room. Terry’s brought with him his LP of a heavy metal band called Sacrifyx, as he found a booklet inside the vinyl album that describes some eerie resemblances to the hole in Glen’s backyard and the strange events that followed. They play the record backwards, which of course ends up opening the gate fully. Good work, lads. Downstairs, Glen and Terry discovers that Al and her friends are playing some sort of levitation game, and wants Glen to try it. At this point I was surprised they didn’t bring out a ouija board too just to out the cherry on top. Supposed to be just a silly game, Glen starts levitating for real, causing everyone to freak out. And that’s only the beginning. Something has started a chain of supernatural events, all of it in preparation for something bigger to come…

The Gate is a supernatural horror film from 1987, directed by Tibor Takács and written by Michael Nankin. The movie was a co-production between Canada and the United States, and has since its release gotten itself a cult following.

There are always some films you watch at an older age, and think “oh boy, I wish I’d seen that one when I was a kid“. The Gate is definitely one of those. It’s got all the perfect ingredients for a spooky movie that can be watched and enjoyed by a younger audience. The plot is somewhat simple: children discover that a gate to hell has opened in their backyard, and they must try to close it before all hell literally breaks lose. The kid characters are your typical “smarter than average and definitely smarter than the adults“ kind, which were often a thing in movies like this. Most interactions are between the protagonist Glen, his buddy Terry, and the sister Al, and their chemistry is fine. None of the characters are especially memorable, but they work for the setting.

The movie is using several techniques for the visual effects, including some good old-fashioned stop-motion animation, forced perspective, and of course the classic rubber suits. Ah, the good old 80’s. Towards the ending we get some really crazy scenes with all kinds of demonic and otherworldly elements, including tiny demons (which reminded me a bit of the subspecies in Subspecies), a zombie, and of course a big, big bad. And all of it because of a heavy metal band! Fits right in with the 80’s Satanic panic.

The Gate is a fun 80’s horror with lots of cool practical effects and the typical whimsical 80’s tone, filled with heavy metal, demons, practical and stop-motion effects. It’s one of those light-horror movies speckled with a lot of whimsical fantasy and fun times, never getting heavy in the gore or anything that could be considered particularly scary, which makes it work pretty good as a gateway horror. Fits fell with the title too, I guess.

In 1990, a sequel called The Gate II: The Trespassers was released. A 3D-remake was also scheduled to have a release in 2011, but nothing ever came of that.

Director: Tibor Takacs
Writer: Michael Nankin
Country & year: Canada, 1987
Actors: Stephen Dorff, Christa Denton, Stephen Dorff, Louis Tripp, Kelly Rowan, Jennifer Irwin, Deborah Grover, Scot Denton, Ingrid Veninger, Sean Fagan, Linda Goranson
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093075/

Dolls (1987)

Posted on October 28, 2024March 6, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

Young Judy has brought along her beloved teddybear, Teddy, on a trip together with her father and stepmother. And Teddy is pretty much the only comfort she’s got, as both her father and stepmother sees her as nothing but an inconvenience. A thunderstorm leaves them stranded as their car gets stuck, and in frustration the stepmother takes Teddy from Judy and throws him far into the bushes, where Judy can’t get to him. This then leads to a strange scene where Judy actually imagines that Teddy comes back as a giant monster-teddy and kills both her stepmother and her father. Yeah, there ain’t any happy family vibes to find around here, that’s for sure, but who can really blame the little girl, both her stepmother and her father are assholes.

The trio ends up seeking shelter by getting into a nearby mansion, owned by a charming elderly couple named Gabriel and Hilary Hartwicke. The couple immediately takes to young Judy, and when learning that she “lost“ her teddybear, Gabriel gives her a Jester-doll whose name is Mr. Punch. Then, three more people also arrive at the mansion, seeking shelter from the weather: Ralph, a very kind-hearted dude who maybe suffers from being a tad bit naive, and two hitchhikers named Isabel and Enid, who are two more additions to the asshole-group. So, we have an innocent little girl, a nice man with a good heart, and four douchebags who are now invited to stay by the elderly couple, who are both dollmakers. The mansion is filled with toys and dolls, but these soon prove to be anything but harmless.

Dolls is a horror film from 1987, directed by Stuart Gordon (Re-Animator, From Beyond, Castle Freak), written by Ed Naha, and produced by Charles Band and Brian Yuzna through Empire Pictures. The story was inspired by a book called The Uses of Enchantment, by Brunio Bettelheim. The film was shot in Italy at Empire Studios, prior to the director’s next film From Beyond. However, due to all the effects for the dolls that were added in post-production, the movie wasn’t released until almost a year later.

Now, what could possibly be the highlight in a movie from the 80’s titled Dolls? Take a wild guess. This was released before any Child Play‘s, and way before any Annabelle‘s. One could look at it as a little precursor to a certain film series involving puppets, though: the Puppet Master franchise, where the first movie was released in 1989. Because this movie, just like the Puppet Master films, uses a mix of stop motion animation, puppets and animatronics for the dolls by David W. Allen, who worked on special effects for numerous films and especially several Empire/Full Moon movies. He unfortunately died from cancer in 1999, and had been intermittently working on stop motion effects for a film called The Primevals, which was actually his own production, a true passion project of his. Despite seeming like what would be a lost project for so many years, The Primevals was actually completed and released in 2023.

There aren’t any big names on the cast list here, but the actors are a mix of people whom you may have seen in other movies and TV Series, so it’s far from being a no-name actors movie either. The one playing Isabel for example, is Bunty Bailey, who plays the girl in the famous music video for the Norwegian pop group A-Ha’s Take on Me from 1985. Dolls was her feature film debut. Their performances are solid enough for a movie like this, which is overall childishly cheesy and with that strange tone you mostly only find in movies made during the 80’s. It’s whimsical and slightly goofy, and the effects for the dolls and puppets are of course the raison d’être for the movie.

Despite being a pretty fun movie, Dolls wasn’t well received by the viewers, and the fans of Stuart Gordon in particular thought it was tame and lacking in gore compared to his previous works. Well…this one’s quite different for sure, where despite the little bit of gore there is it could have been a cute little horror movie for kids. It’s charming in its own way, and overall a fun little film where the baddies gets their comeuppance and the goodies can have their happily ever after.

Stuart Gordon was initially interested on making a sequel for the film, but that never came to be.

Director: Stuart Gordon
Writer: Ed Naha
Country & year: USA/Italy, 1986
Actors: Ian Patrick Williams, Carolyn Purdy-Gordon, Carrie Lorraine, Guy Rolfe, Hilary Mason, Bunty Bailey, Cassie Stuart, Stephen Lee
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0092906/

House II: The Second Story (1987)

Posted on October 23, 2024January 1, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

In this odd little sequel we meet the young couple, Jesse and Kate, who move into an old mansion, which is not the same house we saw in the first film, just to point that out. The house has been a multigenerational home for Jesse’s bloodline, and I can bet I’ve seen the exteriors of that building in numerous movies, without being able to mention a single one. Anyway – Jesse’s parents were murdered when he was a kid, and after some exploring they find an old picture of his great-great-grandfather where he’s holding a crystal skull while standing in front of an old temple. OK, he was the real Indiana Jones. C o o l.

And things slide straight into weird land when Jesse and his best friend Charlie decide to…uhm…dig up his dusty corpse to get the crystal skull. Because why not. After some digging, they get met with a skeletal zombie simply credited as Gramps, but no need to worry, cuz he’s friendly, even though they tried to steal the crystal skull from him. Whatever, because nothing here makes any sense either way. Now that he’s been resurrected, barely, he joins the life of Jesse and Charlie and lives in the house’s basement.

And… lives go on, until things get even weirder. Because we also need a kind of a villain shoe-horned in here, and Gramps has a nemesis from the old west who also wants to claim this crystal skull. And now that the house has opened several portals to alternative dimensions, it’s a matter of time before our villain finds his way inside the house.

House II: The Second (NeverEnding) Story is a cluttered mess overstuffed with camp, molded cheese and zero logic. The most noteworthy is the horror elements that are mostly wiped out. We have two half-rotted skeletons, one friendly and the other not so much with his skeleton horse, and that’s pretty much as far as the horror goes. The first one also had its overtly goofy aspects, but here it goes overboard with childish acting, a series of nonsensical scenes just thrown at each other. Several sets and scenes also gave me some Full Moon/Empire vibes, which is not a bad thing. And then we have some innocent, cute-looking claymation puppets, one of which looks too alike the Luck Dragon from The NeverEnding Story (1984). The only link this sequel has to the original is a house that has portals to other dimensions.

And what is up with the old DVDs that display the house from Psycho on the covers? And if my ghoulish little brain isn’t already confused, the cover says “Endelig uklippet!” which is Norwegian for “The uncut version!“. Huh, yeah right. I assume they misunderstood this for being House III: The Horror Show, which ironically didn’t get a fully uncut release until 2017.

House II is overall a fun, charming little whimsical 80s cheese flick most suitable for the youngest audiences. Very light-hearted, oddly entertaining, and family-friendly that could easily be aired on Disney Channel alongside with Mr. Boogedy. The polar opposite could be said about the unofficial sequel that is the aforementioned House III: The Horror Show. Because when that film starts rolling, it’s time to get the kids in bed.

Writer and director: Ethan Wiley
Country & year: USA, 1987
Actors: Arye Gross, Jonathan Stark, Royal Dano, Bill Maher, John Ratzenberger, Lar Park-Lincoln, Amy Yasbeck, Gregory Walcott, Dwier Brown, Lenora May
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0093220/

Prequel:
– House (1985)

Sequel:
– House III: The Horror Show (1989)

Uninvited (1987)

Posted on April 19, 2024June 12, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

We’re at a genetic research facility, where a bunch of crazy scientists have decided to genetically alter a house cat into some kind of mutant. Why? Well, probably because crazed scientists always think “can we” when instead they should have been thinking “should we”. It goes just as well as one might expect: the cat escapes, leaving a trail of blood in its wake. Don’t be fooled, though, because this mutant kitty isn’t all that bad. After escaping, it meets a nice man who gives it food, who is then mugged by two thugs who steal his truck. The cat jumps on it and have them both killed, using its pussy power and serving up some instant karma right there. Go kitty! Those aren’t the only sleazebags we meet, however, as a multimillionaire by the name of Walter Graham is preparing for an escape to the Cayman Islands in order to avoid the usual: tax evasion, criminal prosecution, and all that stuff those islands provide a safe shelter from for felons like him. He’s made sure to bring with him enough money and liquor in order to make the journey pleasant. Before boarding his luxury yacht, however, he does of course make sure to bring some booty together with the booze, inviting two young nitwitted girls aboard. The girls bring along three boys as well, much to Walter’s dismay. But not only that, they also bring along…dun dun dun…a certain orange feline one of the girls just found close to the harbor! Walter protests even more about the cat, saying it’s not invited. Well, too late, everyone’s already on board and he’d better start the trip to the Caymans without further delay before even more uninvited guests ends up on deck, specifically those from the authorities. Best to haul ass out of there and get the party started! Of course, things quickly goes awry when the drunken captain gets killed by the cat after threatening it, and falls into the deep blue sea. Since no on else witnessed this, they believe it was an accident, but it so happens that one of the boys aboard is a biologist, who decides to inspect a blood sample from what they assume is the captain’s blood, and finds abnormalities in the blood cell count. It doesn’t take long before they realize they have a very dangerous uninvited guest aboard the luxury yacht, with a mutant killer kitty on the loose!

Uninvited is a creature feature B-horror film from 1987, written and directed by Greydon Clark. Back in the day it was released on VHS by New Star Video, and here in Norway it was released as Killer Cat. It later got a DVD release in 2009 by Liberation Entertainment, and in 2019 a remastered version was released by Vinegar Syndrome.

If you haven’t guessed it already: this one is totally B-cheese all over the place, topped with some catnip for good measure. It’s ridiculous as hell, which of course is part of the charm, but it’s also a bit of a mess and somewhat uneven. There are periods where things are crazy and fast-paced, and then there are periods where everything slows down before it amps up the pace again. It’s worth sitting through the more boring parts though, and of course the highlight of the movie is the cat itself. Already from the start, the mutant cat is more the hero than the villain here, where many of the characters are utter scumbags, so at first it appeared to take a bit of the “monster misunderstood and good, humans bad” trope, but the kitty doesn’t discriminate, and not only the baddies are killed. So, who are you actually supposed to root for..? Well, it doesn’t really matter in the long run, because of course you’re rooting for the cat! Which is constantly meowing during nearly all its screentime. Except it isn’t, because for some retarded reason they decided to play the two stock-sound meowing effects on repeat whenever we see the cat on screen, despite the cat’s mouth being closed. It’s both hilarious and annoying at the same time, and while I would like to say “take a shot for every time the cat meows without even opening its mouth”, I think I’d rather not, because you’d end up with alcohol poisoning before getting halfway through the movie. Yes, the constant meowing really is that much.

The cat itself is for the most part a cute and fluffy one, but the mutation has caused it to sometimes let loose a monstrous Mr. Hyde version from inside its own mouth. Whenever this happens, this monster crawls out of the cat’s very obviously fake head, and sometimes attack people in true Hobgoblins style (meaning the people just hold a puppet while shaking it, pretending for dear life that it’s alive and trying to kill them. Just as convincing every time). Some of the filming was indeed done on a boat, at least, as the director paid $15.000 in order to rent the luxury yacht for two weeks. But this is of course not the only place the film was shot. Like in many B-horror movies, some inventive ideas had to be used, and of course the classic of filming stuff in the director’s garage was a thing here. Other than that, there were several shots featuring a miniature of the yacht which was done in the director’s own swimming pool.

Uninvited is one of those B-Horror movies that makes me glad we have badges instead of ratings here at Horror Ghouls. Because, how the fuck are you supposed to properly rate a movie like this? At one hand, a simplistic take on the movie’s quality would be something akin to a 4/10, but on the other hand it’s a 8/10 when it comes to B-horror entertainment value, topped with extra cheese and overall a ridiculously fun pastime. So, if you enjoy those kinds of movies, check it out if you can. The Vinegar Syndrome releases are out of print and going for a hefty price at eBay, but it’s also available on several streaming sites.

Writer and director: Greydon Clark
Country & year: USA, 1987
Also known as: Killer Cat
Actors: George Kennedy, Alex Cord, Clu Gulager, Toni Hudson, Eric Larson, Clare Carey, Beau Dremann, Rob Estes, Shari Shattuck, Michael Holden, Austin Stoker, and a cute fluffy ginger cat
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0096341/

The Hidden (1987)

Posted on April 28, 2021January 13, 2025 by HorrorGhouls

It’s apparently a regular sunny day in Los Angeles, where the random middle-aged guy Jack DeVries (Chris Mulkey) brutally robs a bank and storms off in a black Ferrari. He drives in full speed like a madman through the famous Echo Park, hits an old geezer in a wheelchair while he headbangs to some hair metal on the radio, and goes pretty much into full GTA-mode. His crazy adventure is quickly going towards an end when the police blocks the road, blows his car to flames, and… the guy walks out of the burning car and gets bullet-stormed by the police. He miraculously survives and…Nothing to see here, folks, move along. He gets brought to the hospital while the police scratch their heads and struggle to come to a conclusion as to why this man, with no criminal record, suddenly snapped…and how the hell he’s still alive. On top of that, he had during the last two weeks killed twelve people, stolen six sport cars, robbed eight banks and six supermarkets, four jewelry stores and one candy store. He even murdered two kids with a butcher knife. Good Lord…

DeVries wakes up in the hospital, gets out off the bed and approaches the unconscious patient next to him where he spews out a slimy parasite-like creature into his mouth so he can transfer to another body and continue the killing spree journey of looting and mayhem. The police officer Tom Beck (Michael Nouri) teams up with the FBI agent Lloyd Gallager (Kyle MacLachlan) to get to the bottom of this what-the-holy-fuck case that quickly gets weirder and weirder.

The Hidden is really what you could call a hidden gem, and it’s pure fun from start to finish. Director Jack Sholder is probably most known for Nightmare on Elm Street 2: Freddy’s Revenge and the hilarious Wishmaster 2: Evil Never Dies, and even though The Hidden is more action driven with elements of dark comedy, drama, and a dose of 80s political incorrectness, he does a great job stitching it together to a fast-paced and highly entertaining B-movie. With a budget of five million dollars, which is basically nothing in today’s standard, there’s many well-crafted scenes with some wild car chases, gunfights, explosions, and of course a parasite-possessed stripper going berserk while fucking a guy to death in his car. While I wish we could see more of the alien itself, our partners Lloyd and Tom makes up for it with some great and somewhat bizarre buddy-cop dynamics, which manages to drive the quite simple plot fast and steady (or furious, if you will.) It’s also worth to mention that Kyle MacLachlan brought a lot of the character in The Hidden over to his most known role in Twin Peaks as Agent Cooper three years later, and the similarities are quite striking.

And yeah, a direct-to-video sequel was made in ’93, and it looks like… well, see for yourself.

Director: Jack Sholder
Country & year: USA, 1987
Actors: Kyle MacLachlan, Michael Nouri, Claudia Christian, Clarence Felder, Clu Gulager, Ed O’Ross, William Boyett, Richard Brooks, Larry Cedar, Katherine Cannon, John McCann, Chris Mulkey, Lin Shaye, James Luisi, Frank Renzulli
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0093185/

Nekromantik (1987)

Posted on November 20, 2020September 19, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

Rob and Betty are two deranged necrophiliacs who share a small flat in Berlin. Rob works for a street-cleaning agency where he cleans up dead bodies from road accidents, and takes some of those bodies home so he and his girlfriend can have a nasty threesome now and then. After one of their sex rituals, they have a fight, break up, and Betty leaves Rob alone with their cat – which he smashes in a rage and then takes a bath while he rubs the cat’s intestines over his body. He loses his mind completely, as if he already haven’t, and goes out at night chasing hookers to kill (and rape their dead bodies). And to fill out the running time, we get some bizarre and tedious artsy-fartsy avant-garde montages that doesn’t add much more than an urge to push the fast-forward button.

The trivia page on IMDb can tell us that the director, Jörg Buttgereit, never intended to be a director and Nekromantik was just a film to rebel against the German film rating system, trying to shock as many people as possible. And I’m not doubting that for one bit, since there isn’t much film-making to witness here, really. The technical aspects speaks for itself when the director has to start the commentary track by explaining that someone is pissing on a dead pigeon in the opening scene, which you can’t see due to the poor image quality. And when the director says it’s terrible, then that’s all you need to know. Most of the film takes place in a cramped, filthy apartment, shot with a Super 8 camera showing close-ups of the couple sitting and daydreaming, bathing and fucking a corpse when it gets too boring. We also get a complete random, pointless stock-footage scene where a rabbit gets skinned and slaughtered on a farm to add some cheap shock value. However, I can at least point out a certain, hysterical scene that includes a big, erected rubber dick that doesn’t look real for a second, which is the films most memorable moment, for all the wrong reasons. Even though Nekromantik is too sloppy and amateurish to be taken seriously, it quickly found its way to controversy and made its purpose by being banned in numerous countries, and has a dedicated cult-following.

To point out some qualities, the musical score by Hermann Kopp is pretty remarkable, the poster is pretty cool, and the cadaver dolls look decent enough, which took four weeks to make, and I assume that’s where the budget was spent. They also used slimy pig’s eyes to put in the corpse’s head, since they couldn’t afford to make fake eyes, which one of the actors got the honor to suck on during one of the nekro-love scenes. He could tell us that it tasted like turpentine. Yummy. John Waters is of course a big fan of Nekromantik in which he calls it “Ground-breakingly gruesome” and proclaimed it as “the first ever erotic film for necrophiliacs”. So, at the very first glance at the title and cover you should quickly know if this is your thing or not. And if you don’t get enough, there’s also a sequel, Nekromantik 2 (1991) to enjoy. And just to put the cherry on the top if you want to feel extra dirty and maybe a little nauseous, also check out the short film Aftermath (1994) by Nacho Cerdà.

Director: Jörg Buttgereit
Country & year: Germany, 1987
Actors: Bernd Daktari Lorenz, Beatrice Manowski, Harald Lundt, Collosseo, Henri Boeck, Clemens Schwender, Jörg Buttgereit
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0093608/

Street Trash (1987)

Posted on May 21, 2020March 15, 2024 by HorrorGhouls

We are in Brooklyn’s decaying slums, and the year is 1987. The state of the streets is described in a nutshell by the title itself. Not a place that you’d go barefoot. An old dusty box containing the mysterious drink “Tenafly Viper” is found in the basement of Ed’s little liquor store. A green liquid from way back in the 1920s, that Fred sells to the local hobos for a buck. The one who gets the first bottle, is Fred: a runaway who lives with his brother in a small homeless community by a car wrecking yard, run by former Nam Vet Bronson. He’s a raging nutcase who’s lost his mind completely due to PTSD and severe paranoia, and have constructed the place as his own kingdom and safe space. Here he lives in his own grandiose, delusional bubble where he is the king and everyone fears him. He also shares the throne with his “Queen” Winette, a schizophrenic vegetable who constantly screams and begs him to have sex with her. Sound like a cheery place, doesn’t it. So maybe this mysterious drink will make the hellish daily life a bit easier for the poor hobos? Well, they could only wish, as the drink turns out to be a corrosive, toxic acid that melts the one who drinks the first drops, in seconds. As homeless people start dropping dead in every corner due to the liquid, a brute cop named Bill is trying to get the bottom of the source. And good luck with that.

On the surface, Street Trash may look like a more polished Troma film that could easily share the same universe with The Toxic Avenger. But instead of a guy running around and serving justice in a mutant costume, we get a bunch of mentally unstable hobos doing stupid, random shit. Things like necrophilia, penis severance, shoplifting and gang raping… those are some of the daily doings we get to witness. There isn’t much of a plot to be found here. It’s basically just a series of skits, more or less, that are randomly stitched together. Street Trash is based on the short film of the same name, a fun concept that worked better in a short dosage than a very stretched-out feature film where it is far between the major highlights. The film’s biggest, or fattest highlight if you will, is the guy who explodes like a big balloon. A pretty juicy and messy scene you’ve probably already seen on YouTube. The effects here are pretty inventive and deliciously gooey, to say the least, and arguably the film’s main strengths. Even though most of the effects give some exaggerated, over-the-top cartoony vibes, I have to give Street Trash an extra credit for having of the most memorable decapitations scenes I’ve probably ever seen.

Director: James M. Muro
Country & year: USA, 1987
Actors: Mike Lackey, Bill Chepil, Vic Noto, Mark Sferrazza, Jane Arakawa, Nicole Potter, Pat Ryan, Clarenze Jarmon, Bernard Perlman, Miriam Zucker, M. D’Jango Krunch, James Lorinz, Morty Storm, Sam Blasco, Bruce Torbet
IMDb: www.imdb.com/title/tt0094057/