Suburbia

with Chris Pederson, Bill Coyne, Jennifer Clay
Written by Roger Corman
Directed by Penelope Spheeris
(1983)
by William Ham

Before slipping into premature big-screen SNL-ity, Spheeris proved her heavy mettle in the p-rock socio-exploitation genre with Suburbia. Imagine if Decline… had been all about Eugene, and you’ve pretty much got Suburbia‘s gist. It putatively dramatizes the serious issue of L.A. teen squatters, but its first two scenes (a pack of wolves run out of the L.A. hills and eat a baby, and a girl gets stripped to her scanties at a hardcore show) give you an indication of what Spheeris is really aiming for: drive-in kicks for subcultural voyeurs. Thematically, this is cousin to 1979’s Over The Edge (Matt Dillon’s movie debut, if you recall), showing the anti-social depths the children of the children of the ’60s willingly dredge, but this is much better to piss your parents off with. It passes no judgements and actually comes down on the side of these lost boys and girls. Honestly, it’s not really very good, but with lotsa decent second-string punk on the soundtrack and a funeral scene that proves Penelope studied The Wild Angels before filming this, it’s a nice present to give any disaffected sixteen-year-old you know. “Have some fuckin’ fun… MOVE UP!”