General News

Take a Swig of Viper at The Hi-Pointe Midnights This Weekend – STREET TRASH

By Tom Stockman | August 2, 2015

“I don’t need this. I already got trouble with my kids, my wife, my business, my secretary, the bums… the runaways, the roaches, prickly heat, and a homo dog. This just ain’t my day!”

STREET TRASH screens midnights this Friday and Saturday Night (August 7^th and 8th) at The Hi-Pointe Theater (1005 McCausland Ave, St. Louis) as part of Destroy the Brain’s monthly Late Night Grindhouse

Vintage Vinyl, the used record store on the Loop in U City, is housed in the same building that used to be the Varsity Theater. The Varsity is where THE ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW played midnights to sold-out crowds throughout much of the ‘70s and -80s. The theater definitely catered to the cult and college crowd, presenting counterculture film programming, mostly for the students at nearby Washington University and for years was the only place in town to catch 3-D movies. Films I can remember seeing at the Varsity in my youth include ERASERHEAD, BEYOND THE VALLEY OF THE DOLLS, ANDY WARHOL’S FRANKENSTEIN, HOUSE OF WAX in 3D, DIAL M FOR MURDER, MYRA BRECKINRIDGE, FLESH GORDON, and NINE LIVES OF FRITZ THE CAT. The Varsity closed in 1987 and the last movie I saw there was STREET TRASH (I’m not sure if it was the last movie booked there – the old manager could not remember but did say the last film screened there was a special closing night screening of ROCKY HORROR)

STREET TRASH is a perfect choice for Destroy the Brains’ monthly Late Night Grindhouse midnight show at The Hi-Pointe. Sure, the acting is horrible, and there’s about ten or twelve incoherent unrelated plots and the on-the-cheap special effects featuring bubbling bodies looks like some trippy phantasmagoria of carnival-colored death. But STREET TRASHis an essential low budget schlock insanity movie. A great character study of the drunk and homeless, it’s offensive, outlandish, nasty, and outrageous, and you’re going to love every minute of it. Almost every character in this movie is broke, filthy, living on the street, and drunk. They are the stars of this movie which has little story. It’s a random string of events from the very twisted mind of Director, J. Michael Muro, and something that would never be made today. It was filmed on the streets of NYC, and a lot has changed since then. I often wondered what Muro was on when he came up with this movie, which, though always grotesque, is beautifully shot. Watch a beheading by a missile, bodies exploding in graphic detail, hints of necrophilia, and a guy forcefully going down a toilet. The regular Late Night Grindhouse crowd will be pleased.

Don’t miss STREET TRASH when it screens in glorious 35mm (maybe it’s the same print I saw at The Varsity almost 30 years ago!) this weekend (August 7^th and 8th) at The Hi-Pointe Theater (1005 McCausland Ave) as part of Destroy the Brain’s monthly Late Night Grindhouse midnight series.