Suburbia (USA, 1984) 93 min color DIR-SCR: Penelope Spheeris. PROD: Bert Dragin, Roger Corman. MUSIC: Alex Gibson. DOP: Timothy Suhrstedt. CAST: Bill Coyne, Chris Pedersen, Jennifer Clay, Timothy Eric O’Brien, Wade Walston, Flea. (New World Pictures)
A commonly overlooked entry in the Corman canon, Suburbia (also known as The Wild Side and Rebel Streets) is notable for being the second film that Corman produced after the sale of New World and the first full length fictional film by Penelope Spheeris, who previously had directed the acclaimed punk rock documentary The Decline of Western Civilization. She came up with what could be seen as the love child of The Wild Angels and The Outsiders. The heroes are a group of runaways known as “The Rejects”, who have ditched their lily-white suburban homes because of their abusive parents. Taking refuge in house in an abandoned area of suburbia, they enjoy inspiring fear among the upper-middle-class by raiding houses or just walking down the street in their punk clothing. Spheeris, whose keen eye for generation-X would serve her well in Wayne’s World, created an intense, gritty, and often intelligent critique of middle-class America, with a cast of non-professionals who fare extremely well in their challenging roles.
Critical reaction was generally positive. Vincent Canby of The New York Times called it “a clear-eyed, compassionate melodrama” and “a good genre film,” and Ian Grey of Baltimore City Paper said, “As a bracingly insightful study of youth as the tragic detritus of adult delusion, Suburbia is pretty much unbeatable, and pretty much unforgettable.” Suburbia is not a perfect film – some of the adult characters are drawn too broadly, and the unpleasant opening scene of a toddler being mauled by a dog is gratuitous (on her DVD commentary, Spheeris claims the scene was based on a real incident: “I figured if it’s in real life, it can be in a movie”). Still, I would argue that Suburbia achieves a status that few other movies under the Corman banner have: a work of art.
Originally published in The Roger Corman Scrapbook.
Will Sloan
Will Sloan first encountered ESR at Word on the Street circa 2004 (age: 15) and started contributing not long after. He is now a fully-grown writer and raconteur, and hosts two film-related podcasts: The Important Cinema Club and Michael & Us. You can follow him @WillSloanEsq on Twitter and at willsloanesq.wordpress.com.