Street Trash, Zombie Night, and Dead Drunk

In 2005 I was named General Manager of Castaways, a dive bar that was literally hidden under a bridge.

What could possibly be better than being named General Manager of a bar with no budget, no staff, and no customers?

Well, it was also the dead of winter, and I had to bartend for 100 straight nights.

Believe me, there wasn't a single person in the world who wanted to see me behind a bar at that point, especially me. To complicate matters, I had almost no experience. I had no idea what I was doing.

By spring we were broke, and I had to come up with some ideas.

Anything.

So we started trying things: Punk Rock Night, karaoke with the Roller Derby, Pajamas and Cereal Night, Old School Beer Night, and eventually Zombie Night.

The first Zombie Night consisted of about eight of us sitting around watching Children Shouldn't Play with Dead Things, still one of my favorite zombie movies.

Eight people wasn't exactly going to save the bar.

But something happened.

People started coming back. Then they brought other people. By that summer we were consistently getting at least 150 people into a dive bar under a bridge on Tuesday nights to drink beer and watch movies like Hard Rock Zombies, The Stuff, and Street Trash.

There was something wonderfully ridiculous about it. None of this was the result of market research. We didn't have a promotional budget. We were simply trying things that sounded like they might be fun and discovering that there were apparently a lot of other people in Rockford who thought sitting in a strange bar watching terrible horror movies on a Tuesday night sounded fun too.

I, Thomas L. Vaultonburg,  watched Street Trash again late last night.

What a pisser of a movie.

Apparently I liked it enough that I later more or less stole its central premise for my screenplay Dead Drunk.

Street Trash is a filthy, reprehensible movie, and there isn't another one remotely like it. If gore is your game, and you can stomach enough misogyny to fuel Congress, this is for you. Don't try to eat while you're watching it.

The premise is beautifully awful: a liquor-store owner discovers an old case of cheap booze called Viper in his basement and decides that instead of letting perfectly bad liquor go to waste, he'll sell it to the local homeless population for a dollar a bottle.

People who drink Viper melt.

That's pretty much all you need to know.

I wasn't eating when I watched it again last night, which was probably wise, and I managed to set aside the movie's relentless ugliness long enough to enjoy it again for the strange fucking delight that it is.

But watching it now also brings me back to Castaways.

A bar with no customers became a bar where 150 people would show up on a Tuesday to watch somebody melt after drinking a dollar bottle of fictional liquor.

I had no idea what I was doing.

Apparently, neither did anyone else.

Maybe that's why it worked.

The first night eight of us watched Children Shouldn't Play With Dead Things, my favorite zombie movie. 

By that summer we were consistently getting at least 150 people on Tuesday nights at a bar under a bridge to watch movies like Hard Rock Zombies, The Stuff, and Street Trash,

I watched Street Trash again late last night. What a pisser of a movie that is. I liked it so much, apparently, I completely ripped off the premise in my screenplay Dead Drunk. 

Street Trash is a filthy, reprehensible movie, and there's not another one remotely like it. If gore is your game, and you can stomach enough misogyny to fuel Congress, this is for you. Don't try to eat while you're watching it. The premise: a cheap liquor store owner finds a crate of a hooch named Viper in his basement, and decides instead of letting it go to waste, to sell it to the street bums for a dollar a bottle. It makes them melt. I wasn't eating last night when I watched this, and I was able to set aside the unsettling misogyny in the movie and just enjoy it for the strange fucking delight it is. 

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