Take in the Dead Trash

Dead Trash by Ed Kurtz is a loving homage to the exploitation horror flicks of the 1970s. The book is a quick read and blazingly fun with plenty of the kind of offbeat characters who populated grindhouse flicks in its heyday. Our heroines are less than sweet in the form of two strong women: Irma, a buxom (in my mind, anyway) redhead and Arkansas, a statuesque lady with a seven-inch afro. When I say there's just about everything from the exploitation era of film in this book, I mean it. Women's prison with sadistic guards and sociopathic warden? Check. Backwoods hunter freaks? Check. Motorcycle gang? Check. A palladin of the inner-city projects versus drug-dealing pimp? Check. Revenge? Motherfuckin' check. Oh, with a generous dollop of inexplicable kung-fu and zombies on top? Yes, please. It's only a matter of time before one of the grindhouse revival crew comes after this one for the movie rights. Let's hope they don't change anything. Not one. Single. Scene. I give this no-holds barred novel five out five heads exploded by a meteor-fist punch.