Straßen des Schreckens

Director Katt Shea deserves a lot of credit for "Streets", a gritty, honest, heartfelt little movie that serves as more than mere exploitation, creating a hard hitting portrayal of runaway youth in Venice, California, personalizing the story by focusing on Dawn, played by TV star Christina Applegate in a wonderful, tour-de-force performance. Dawn is a heroin addicted, teenage prostitute attacked by a john, and who forms a friendship with a kid named Sy (David Mendenhall) who distracted the cop long enough for her to get away. The budding relationship between Dawn and Sy forms a solid basis for the rest of the movie, written by Shea and producer Andy Ruben, which devastatingly illustrates the kind of hard scrabble existence led by people like Dawn. Applegate delivers a performance that is alternately tough, feisty, sympathetic, kind, and vulnerable - but, most of all, it's believable. Mendenhall also does well as the nice guy who is new to the life being lived by Dawn and her contemporaries, who can't really identify with them as he is definitely not of their world. Enjoyable contributions are also made by Patrick Richwood as Bob, Aron Eisenberg as Roach, Mel Castelo as "Elf", and Alan Stock as Allen. This coming from Concorde, it's still exploitative enough for those watching who expect a certain degree of trash. Applegate does bare her breasts for a scene, but this particular scene is played for romance rather than just sex. And the ongoing subplot with the deranged john, a motorcycle cop named Lumley (played with convincing intensity by Eb Lottimer), is standard enough stuff, although the viewer may be taken aback by Lumley's home made weapon that metes out brutal punishment. The music score by Aaron Davis is supremely effective, as is the beautiful and haunting composition "Dawn's Theme" sung by Elizabeth "E.G." Daily. The use of the locations is excellent, and in general this is quite well made and stylish. Although mostly played (very) seriously, it's not without its humorous moments. Cameos are made by ladies who'd previously starred for director Shea: Kay Lenz ("Stripped to Kill") and Starr Andreeff ("Dance of the Damned"). This is genuinely potent stuff, right up to its riveting ending, and worth watching, both for Applegate fans interested in seeing her show off her dramatic chops earlier in her career and for exploitation film aficionados. It's too good to miss. Eight out of 10.

Christina Applegate stars as, Dawn, a heroine-addicted teen-prostitute fighting for survival on the streets of Venice, whose narrow escape from a psychotic cop (Ed Lottimer) armed with an explosive home-made gun and bent on raping and slaughtering runaways, initiates a bloody pursuit through the hardened world of homeless teens.

After thwarting her attempted rape and murder, Dawn befriends Sy (David Mendenhall), a naive middle-class teen runaway and aspiring musician, who's chosen a temporary life on the streets for seemingly artistic inspiration. Dawn takes Sy under her wing and gives him a guided tour of her world, along the way their friendship of mutual dependence blossoms into youthful love.

Dawn introduces Sy to an interesting array of characters. Most notably Bob (Patrick Richwood) a heroine dealer and eccentric metaphysical philosopher obsessed with the palindromic nature of his own name and its relation to his existence. Also look for a pre-Nog Aron Eisenberg for those Deep Space 9 fans, and 2nd Unit photography by Janusz Kaminski.

"Streets" is a compelling look at the lives of the forgotten and abandon children forced into early adulthood combined competently with gripping psycho-killer action. The violence is superb Corman-esquire exploitation with a nice amount of gore, mostly due to the killer's use of a special gun capable of blasting material into oblivion. However one of the more violent executions is entirely off screen accompanied by a descriptively muffled bang.

The performances are convincing and Katt Shea's direction is outstanding. There are many inventive sequences that utilize techniques that are often misused by others. There is a first-rate use of off screen sound and dialogue, especially Bob's rants, plus a gorgeous temporal ellipsis that brings the audience from one time to the next within the same space. When watching this I was struck how the image of the motorcycle cop hunting down the innocence of a child is something that we've assigned almost icon status to the villain in Terminator 2, however this film demonstrated that same notion of a symbol of protection and justice twisted into the complete opposite -and a couple years before James Cameron's version.

This film is so underrated… why is it not on DVD???

And that one reason is Applegate's lead performance, of all things. This film is mostly typical late 80's Cali-based dramatic thriller fare, with its requisite abusive cops, rundown underpasses and throwaway dialogue.

Or is it? Christina Applegate sticks out like a sore thumb with her deeply poignant performance as the teenage hooker lead. She has at least one memorable monologue detailing how she grew up in motel bathrooms all over town while her hooker mom conducted biz with her clients next room.

She and her character honestly belong in a better film. Unfortunately, that film never materialized.

A psychotic cop in Southern California is targeting prostitutes for execution; meanwhile, a pretty blonde urchin tries getting her life together. I rented this because I was very impressed with director Katt Shea's work on the underrated "Poison Ivy" and I was not disappointed. The psycho stuff doesn't really jell with the homeless kids angle, but it's a commendable attempt to mix genres, and Christina Applegate gives a superb, surprisingly serious lead performance (her final scene in a bus depot is riveting and heart-rending). Much better than I was expecting, "Streets" is a good, hearty try at both social drama and crime thriller. **1/2 from ****

Christina Applegate stars in her movie debut as a runaway teen who can't read. She learns about life on the streets of Venice Beach..not as bad as it sounds.. Applegate does well and the story isnt half bad..the requisite prostitute killing cop kinda pushes it though... on a scale of one to ten..a 6