Director: Jim Muro
Year: 1987
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Body-Horror
Plot:
Following the theft of a new shipment, a toxic chemical smuggled into a batch of tainted liquor begins to affect the homeless community in New York when they begin dying off and melting in graphic fashion, forcing one of the few uninfected homeless people to try to fight their way out of the community.
Review:
For the most part, this one was quite a disappointing effort. One of the strongest aspects here is the manner in which this one lets the toxic chemicals loose on the citizens. The first half to this one, with the people shown living in squalor and abject urban decay, manages to showcase the seemingly random notion of the toxic substance getting loose through the alcohol they continually steal. There's a lot to like here with the way in which they have to deal with this as the secondary plotline of the crazed junkyard owner trying to exert control and authority over the remaining people in the area which offers up some rather fun and highly enjoyable plotlines here to get this one going.
As well, there's also the exceptionally fun gore on display because of that setup. With the people here shown to be melting down and turning into piles of multi-colored goo and glop, there's a lot to like here in that the film offers up numerous scenes in full-on detail. The first guy who melts down in the abandoned room with the skin melting off in bright blue gore to the point where they fall through a toilet makes for a striking introduction to this storyline, and it only gets crazier with the later scenes showing them having their full faces disintegrating, their body parts turning into gloppy messes, getting their privates cut off or the crazed finale that features walking puddles of glop that's quite fun to see. However, that doesn't happen often enough here even though these are incredibly fun.
There are a few flaws with the film. The first problem is the completely boring and utterly uneventful middle section of the film that really feels like it takes forever to get going. After the first few incidents involving the crazed individuals getting killed, there's very little that happens here for a long stretch of the film's running time as there are just endless scenes of them wandering around the city for no reason. The grocery store shoplifting sequence, the endless banter with the liquor-store salesman, seeing a bellhop get chewed out by his boss or seeing the journey through the junkyard to the car where they sleep together that goes on forever are just endless and utterly boring making this quite hard to get through when it gets to this part of the film.
The other issue with this one is the real lack of interest this generates with a lot of its main characters. Despite the fact that they're homeless and have no other place to go, there's nothing that really brings your interest to this one when it's not going through the melting stages of the film. A lot of that is due to the overall boring nature of the middle part of this one, but it's also because the actions of the characters don't make any kind of sense resulting in them not being that enjoyable. The exploits of the psychotic ex-soldier tormented by his nightmares aren't that important to the film and feel tacked on while his plan to rule the hobos is never explained making that wholly confusing. Overall, these here are what hold this one down.
Overview: *1/2/5
With very little to like about it other than the gore and plenty of flaws here with a boring, uninteresting storyline, this is quite a big missed opportunity and doesn’t have much going for it. This is really only for the most hardcore 80s-horror aficionados or fans of the body-horror splatter that’s featured here, while all others will find this too dull to be worthwhile.
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