Suburbia — Suburbia (Blu Ray)

Suburbia is a punchy ‘n’ gob flecked slice of 80’s drama/ thriller focusing in on a group of young punks living in an abandoned housing estate on the outskirts of LA. The film largely stars none actors/ real punks, with in- your face performances from  D.I., T.S.O.L. and The Vandals- and an appearance of a young Flea as a rat loving punk. The film is a largely charming and gritty blend of drama, adults trying to interfere thrills, with touches of sly humour and amusing cockiness. Sure the acting is decidedly mixed, and at points, it feels like there could have been a more even/detailed plot, but as a dramatized/ though real feeling look at the 80’s US punk scene it’s most worthy/ important. Here on 101 films, as part of their black label series, which sees definitive versions of cult/ genre films is a new Blu Ray release of the picture- featuring new interview with the director, and an inlay booklet featuring new writing, plus two archive commentary tracks.

Released in 1983 Suburbia( aka Rebel Streets, The Wild Side) was written/ directed by New Orleans born Penelope Spheeris. She has seven feature-length credits to her- going between celebrated punk/ metal docs The Decline of Western Civilization I, II, III. Onto teens on a killing spree film, The Boys Next Door(1985), punk comedy with Flea and John Cryer Dudes(1987),  classic metal slacker send-up Wayne’s World(1992), and The Kid And I (2005) a black comedy about a has-been actor who teams up with a teenager with cerebral palsy who wants to be an action star.  Suburbia is a good blend of gritty drama and in the crowd/ on the stage US 80’s punk performance. 

The film focuses on Evan(Billy Coyne)- a teen who lives with his working, though nasty drunk mother and his around ten-year-old brother Ethan( Andrew Pece). One night, after he's had another verbal battering from his mother- he grabs what he needs in a black bag and splits. Heading into the city, and follows a group of punks to a show- he stands at the back watching the punk chaos unfold, including pumped-up ‘n’ spitting band performance and manic circle pits. Someone drops some drugs in his drink, and he ends up chucking his guts up outside after the show.  Coming to his aid is bleach blonde haired older teen Jack(Chris Pedersen), who it turns out to squatting in an abandoned house estate with his gang of friends who call themselves TR( The Rejected)- they are a mix of runaway teens, young street punks, and the general let down/ forgotten young adults. The gang spend their days watching daytime TV, and light drinking 'n' drug-taking. From time to time, they steal from middle-class houses garages but largely don’t bother folk unless they bother them. After Evan has settled in somewhat they decide to go and get his younger brother, and for a while, all seems well and good. Until William( Donald V Allan) Jack's African American cop stepdad tells the gang to clear out for a while as the locals' busybodies want them gone one way or another. The TR gang decide to not leave, and this leads to more than a few issues.
 
The acting from Pedersen as the streetwise-though-caring gang leader Chris is good enough, though Pece as the runaway is a little flat/ shaky, as is much of the cast. Though apparently many were none actors, and as mentioned in my intro we get Flea as always with his pet rat Razzle, who even at this young age has a real screen presence. The plot/ story structure is a little loose/ lacking- but largely this isn't an issue as the pace/ flow of the whole thing is kept at a pacey, and nicely broken up by energetic and chaotic punk shows. On the whole Suburbia is rewarding Punk focused drama, with light thriller touches, with honest and largely charming performances.

 

Moving onto this new Blu Ray release, and on the new extras side we get just one thing- a new thirty two minute interview with the films writer/ director Penelope Spheeris- and she is very no-nonsense, out-spoken, and often quite dryly amusing. She starts off talking about how she first got into filmmaking via music videos, how difficult it was to be a female director in the 1980s. She moves on to talking about how Suburbia came about, meeting Roger Corman who landed up producing the film, and how she wrote the script. She talks about the first time she met Flea- who at that time was living rough on the streets of LA, she discusses how Corman wanted to call the film The Wild Ones and how she fought to keep the Suburbia title. She talks about how The Pet Shop Boys ripped off the film & used visual ideas from it in their video for the track "Suburbia". All in all a most entertaining and rewarding interview. On the archive side, we get two commentaries- one with Spheeris alone, and one with her with one of the film's producers Bert Dragin and actress Jennifer Clay, who played one of the female leads in the film. We also get TV spot’s, trailers and an image gallery on the disc. The disc also comes with an inlay booklet- this features new writing Punks in Suburbia by Jon Towlson and Before Suburbia: Gangs on Film by Barry Forshaw.

 

It’s great to see Suburbia getting a UK release from 101 Films, and if you enjoy punk rock focused teen films, this really is something you’ll be needing to pick up.