Really Awful Movies: Ep 23 – Street Trash

A sleazy Brooklyn liquor store owner discovers a dusty case of “Viper” in his cellar, some nasty hooch. He decides to unload it to local hobos dirt-cheap, unaware of its scary side effects: Viper makes imbibers ooze, melt and then explode goo.

Street Trash (1987) is one of the sleazier films ever made, complete with some of the most unpleasant nudity you’ll ever see, a group of homeless people who live in a rusted out car in a scrapyard, corrupt cops, Mafiosi and our heroes: two hobos who discover the drink’s toxicity, while doing battle with the psychopathic leader of a scrapyard gang, Bronson (a Vietnam veteran).

There’s a great closing song, an expletive-filled We Do Things My Way, based on the famous Sinatra song My Way.

Really Awful Movies: Ep 22 – Samurai Cop

Samurai Cop is an absolute gem of a bad movie.

A samurai cop and his side-kick go after the Yakuza, that notorious Japanese organized crime outfit. However, it’s set outside of Los Angeles. And there’s barely a Japanese person to be found.

The samurai cop (Matt Hannon) has a Bon Jovi / Friends / Fabio hairdo that proves to be distracting, not only for aesthetic reasons but also for what we described as “hair continuity issues.”

We discuss second unit footage and cutaways, both of which are used amply here.

The film’s villain utters lines like “I want his head on my piano!”

And we’ve also got the incomparable Robert Z’Dar (Maniac Cop)

 

Really Awful Movies: Ep 21 – Latter Day Steven Seagal

In Submerged, Chris Kody (Steven Seagal, in full Cajun accent mode at the outset, then promptly abandoned midway through) is a mercenary released from prison but with strict conditions: he must take out a South American bad guy who’s taken over a nuclear sub (a sub with Italian language controls that is referred to as Spanish for reasons unexplained).

And in this podcast, we get double your pleasure (and doubled in size) Seagal as we also look at Half Past Dead.

When a sinister European international gangster stereotype says “I am a soldier trained in the art of killing” we know we’re stamping our passports for a visit to Craplandia.

And who better to act as a guide than the aikido legend himself, Steven Seagal?

Half Past Dead is a jail break film based on a phenomenon which is frequent enough that Wikipedia has a page devoted to it: helicopter prison escapes. But lest you think baddies can get away with such shenanigans, this super jail has an undercover agent who twists limbs. Guess who? Also, we get Ja Rule as an Ebonics language instructor / sidekick.