Suburbia (1983)

Director: Penelope Spheeris

Writer: Penelope Spheeris

Composer: Alex Gibson

Starring: Chris Pedersen, Bill Coyne, Jennifer Clay, Timothy O'Brien, Wade Walston, Flea, Maggie Ehrig, Grant Miner, Christina Beck, Andrew Pece

More info: IMDb

Tagline:  The kids from ... The Wild Side ... The Side You've Never Seen.

Plot: Evan and his younger brother leave their broken home in an attempt to escape their alcoholic mother. They fall in with The Rejected (aka T.R.), a group of punks who live as squatters in an abandoned home by the side of the highway. With T.R., the boys find a new family. But their new found family will be tested when they become the target of Citizens Against Crime, a group of unhappy suburbanites.

My rating: 7/10

Will I watch it again? Maybe.

If you don't dig on punk movies you at least owe it to yourself to watch the opening 5 minutes.  A toddler gets brutally eaten by a large dog!!!  Let that digest a minute. It's fucking awesome.  If I ever make a movie I want to start it off with a bang just like this one. One thing that's interesting about this picture is that nearly the entire cast are non-actors and it works.  Doing this gives the film a different vibe than what you'd normally get.  Spheeris made an interesting film for teens during a time when most teen movies went for something a lot more clean cut and safe.  And the soundtrack is very well handled, giving me a vibe of FAST TIMES AT RIDGEMONT HIGH (1982)...not a bad thing at all.

Kids teaching other kids on how to blow a snot rocket.  How fucking adorable is that?