Re-printed from the original article by Jose Angeles at his blog: Goreshitdeath.
GUEST HU-MON BLOGGER Jose Angeles presents They Eat Scum (1979)!
Sleaze-inspired B movies from Reefer Madness (1936) and Highschool Caesar (1960) to The Incredible Melting Man (1977) and The Driller Killer (1979) all belong in a category of their own. And now that list includes...They Eat Scum (1979).
A weird Super-8 movie that was responsible for a whole "Transgressive Art" movement. The director, Nick Zedd, even coined the term "cinema of transgression". From my understanding "Transgressive Art" is art that's shocking, taboo-breaking, and anti-conformist. Pretty much it's the kinda shit that fascinates me!
There sure are a lot of wild things in this flick that would be sure to piss off conservative yuppie tastes. The movie is about this Swastika-wearin' punk chick (Suzi Putrid) in a "deathrock" band ("deathrock", another term the director invented). She has a transvestite dog-fucking brother and a mean bible-thumping father that thinks Jesus is the best thing ever. The family's crazy antics make up the first couple of minutes and doesn't resemble a linear plot to follow. I don't even know if it was intentional but parts of the movie were sped-up, making the actors sound like chipmunks. Things get a bit more coherent (although still messy!) when at CBGB's (an infamous venue) Suzi's band billed as Suzie Putrid and The Mental Deficients play their pissed-off music (the movie inserts live shows as if you were watching actual concert footage) and then orders the crowd to go out and kill people. She preached about hatred and cannibalism because they were the main goals in life. The funniest part in speech is when she says guys should cut off their dicks and girls sew their cunts (later we do see a sewn cunt!) so they could concentrate more on random acts of violence instead of sex ("fucking is for animals" she contends).
Some absurd stuff from then on happens like a chick getting her boob skin sawed off, the chick's whole body getting eaten in gory detail, a guy who for some reason lays down in the road to get run over, and a flashback of a sick-incest rapist uncle in a dress. The movie operates on messy ridiculous b-movie logic with "Suzi" (or is it?) becoming the queen of Necropolis after starting a Nuclear holocaust.
This nuclear holocaust and her being a ruler of the land later leads to a mutant revolt...a DISCO mutant revolt. It involved guys in cheap monster costumes fighting bar room brawl style to the music of the Village People! One monster is a gigantic cock roach and we later see some Roach-Gore when he's smashed in an elevator! Cannibalism, incest, bestiality (a dog whorehouse?!), rape, nazi flags, blasphemy, castration, and violence....this movie clearly wanted to push the limits of bad taste. I would say this movie is what would happen if a sleazy bohemian set out to combine the "Fuck You and your society" scumbag punk mentality with a campy b-movie, complete with overacting, zany dialogue, and ridiculous special f/x (there's even some toy animation and a "turntable of death"!). I kept thinking to myself that this was like Pink Flamingos meets GG Allin.
References:
IMDB, They Eat Scum (1979)
Goreshitdeath, The Eat Scum (1979)