User Reviews

The best thing you can say about S.F. Brownrigg and his films is that he had his own unique style and vision. Few directors can actually claim that. But are his movies really good? They work on a Brownrigg level but when you start thinking about them outside his universe, they really don't hold up. I enjoy Brownrigg's quaint "aw shucks with a bloody axe" quality more than the movies themselves. The same can be said about SCUM OF THE EARTH or POOR WHITE TRASH 2. There's actual attempt at direction and acting here, compared to exploitation films made then or even today but the problem is Brownrigg's treatment is better than the material he's working on. The story in SCUM OF THE EARTH is totally implausible: a big city woman is forced to stay with a family of hillbillies after her husband was murdered, with an axe to his chest, by an unknown assailant. The dramatics are not really believable, certainly after Pick rapes the main character. With characters dying like they're in a Friday the 13th film, woman being raped, etc, you expect people to react in a more worried way but they don't. They stay in the house until the killer reveals himself at the end, who just walks in the house just like that. BTW, the killer's identity is lame.

What's missing is atmosphere. It acts like a complete exploitation film (gruesome murders, rape, nudity) but in the end feels more like a grubby afterschool special, with its focus on characters than the horror. Some of the murders were effective but because of the cutesy music, the horror elements were totally nullified. I thought the score sucked the life out of this film.

I'm glad I watched POOR WHITE TRASH 2 (the version I saw on video). Like I said before, I admire Brownrigg's style more than his films. He has certainly created his own special niche in the world of cinema. The problem with this film is that there's hardly anything memorable about it.

Originally known as Death is a Family Affair and perhaps better known as Poor White Trash Part II, this S.F. Brownrigg movie belongs squarely within the genre of hicksploitation or redneck films. After Don't Look In the Basement, where else can he go? Downward, it seems, as this movie is awash in, well, scum while still finding some compassion for even its most depraved characters.

Helen and her new husband Paul have barely unpacked at the cottage where they'll spend their honeymoon when he's killed with an axe to the chest. She runs through the woods looking for help, she runs into Odis Pickett, whose dismal shack is the only shelter for miles.

Somehow, Odis convinces Helen to stay for the night, promising that he has a phone. Soon, she's in the middle of his family, which includes his mentally challenged son Bo, his pregnant wife Emmy and his daughter Sarah. And of course, that killer isn't going to be happy with just one murder.

The Texas Film Commission somehow gave this production $200 a week to get made. Who knows what they thought when they say this sweaty, seamy deep Southern fried movie made by and for maniacs.

This is the kind of movie that you feel like you have to take a shower after you watch it. It feels like you are there, in the dank woods, dealing with this backwoods family, who may be more dangerous to themselves and our heroine than the murderer wandering outside their door. It also proves that the city folks are just are mentally deranged and can have just as confusing relationships as their country relatives. They just hide it much better.

I don't even know what to classify this movie as. It's not horror, but it has those elements. It's also kind of like a stage play, with everyone confined in one room and slowly driving one another insane. It feels like someone could snap and either fight or CENSORED everything around them. For a movie that promises such sex from the poster, it only pays you back in complete contempt for your prurient needs. A masterpiece.

Scum of the Earth. What a title! I love it when movies are so blunt in their names, so eye catching. You almost want to rent them based on the title alone. Movies like I Spit on Your Grave and Cannibal Holocaust share a similar feeling of disgust when you first hear them. It's enough to blindly rent them, hoping the titles are an indicator on how good the movie is, and simply not false advertisement (cough, Zebub, cough).

Scum of the Earth is not misleading. The title actually sets the tone nicely. Of course there is an alternative title to this flick; Poor White Trash 2. I personally prefer Scum of the Earth, I feel Poor White Trash really doesn't do this movie justice as a title. It's not your average backwoods hillbilly horror movie, this is something far more gritty and disturbing. This is some slimy and uncomfortable cinema. Something that might make you feel the need for a shower afterwards. This is Scum of the Earth.

The plot is fairly basic. Helen and Paul have just gotten married, and are celebrating their honeymoon in a secluded cabin in the peaceful tranquility of a forest somewhere in the south. An unknown assailant brutally murders Paul with an ax, causing his wife to run away, fearful and grief stricken, into the dark forest. She soon bumps into Odis Pickett, a frightful man with a frightful accent, and after some pleading for help, accepts to return with him to his house to use his phone. Back at his home, she meets his wife, Emmy, his daughter, Sarah, and his son, Bo. It soon becomes obvious that Odis has no phone. In fact, the family appear to be living in poverty. Helen doesn't trust him, but its dark outside now, and the killer is still on the loose. She has no choice but to stay with them for the night. And it's going to be a long night.

Scum of the Earth is directed by S.F. Brownrigg, the man who did Don't Look in the Basement. Only, Scum of the Earth is a very different type of movie. A simpler kind. Scum of the earth sets out to show just how disgusting some people in this world can be. It's covered with grit and sleaziness, a real uncomfortable sitting. I was equally repulsed and fascinated all throughout. The award for the most despicable person in the movie goes to Odis, played by Gene Ross whose whole manner just makes you want to cringe. Even on our first meeting of the guy, he comes across as so sleazy, it's unfortunate that our heroine was in such a dire situation she had no choice but to trust him. I think it paints a picture what type of person Odis is, when he introduces his pregnant wife as "the skinny one with the big belly". He is offensive in more ways than one, especially in his treatment to his children and his wife. People like Odis make me sad for humanity.

As memorable as Odis is, there is a female performance that really stood out for me. Surprisingly, it wasn't from our protagonist, Helen, but from Emmy, played by Ann Stafford. I have never wanted to hug a character so badly. Emmy is the type of person that reminds us that there are good people in the world. In a movie filled with scum, Emmy stands out as the bright sunflower. She brings hope that there is good in the world. What a wonderful performance.

This movie does drag in some scenes, and some of the acting was a little over the top (looking at you, Helen). I even remember a scene when a character goes out into the woods when it's meant to be the heart of night, only it's as bright as daylight. But I think my biggest complaint was the score. Wow, was that a misplaced soundtrack. But nonetheless, despite its flaws, this was a good movie. For a low budget B movie, it just oozes with atmosphere. And of course, being a backwoods exploitation flick, you can expect lots of violent scenes, including rape and incest. It's one hell of an underrated gem and one that I highly recommend those who like grind house flicks and backwoods horror. Thanks for reading.

In 1956, Peter Graves starred in a swampland drama called BAYOU, which ended up tanking in theaters... that is until 1961 when M. A. Ripps got his hands on it and then re-released it under the new title POOR WHITE TRASH in 1961. What's in a title? A lot it seems, as the new moniker turned what was a bomb into a moneymaking workhorse that played Southern drive-ins for years as a second feature. Nearly two decades later the same marketing technique was applied to S. F. Brownrigg's SCUM OF THE EARTH. While "Scum" is a great title on its own, it was already used for a 1963 Herschell Gordon Lewis flick about a nudie photography racket and didn't quite pack 'em in on that name alone. To boost ticket sales for the reissue (and perhaps trick people into either watching it a second time or assuming it was a follow-up to the first), it was given the new title "Poor White Trash Part II." The film also retained that same title when it finally appeared on VHS and is pretty much solely known under the "Trash" title these days.

Soon after arriving at her vacation cabin, newlywed Helen Fraser (Norma Moore) finds her husband Paul (Joel Colodner) dead with an axe buried in his chest. Someone has also stolen their car keys so she's forced to flee into the woods. The first person she comes across is slovenly drunk Odis Pickett (Gene Ross), who claims he doesn't know anything about the murder and puts her mind at ease by informing her "I ain't killed nobody... lately." Having no other choice, Helen follows Odis back to his shack to call the police. When she gets there, she meets the rest of the Pickett clan: Odis' very pregnant wife Emmy (Ann Stafford), his hateful / slutty daughter Sarah (Camilla Carr) and his incredibly dumb son Bo (Charlie Dell). Tensions are already high in the family for a variety of reasons and things get even worse when they discover the same psycho who killed Paul is lurking around outside.

This has all of the necessary ingredients for a good hillbilly horror flick: grubby rednecks in overalls spouting terrible grammar ("Looky here what I done brung home for supper!"), filthy living conditions, incest, moonshine drunk directly from mason jars, rape, possum for din din and a series of bloody murders including a neck pierced on an iron fence, a strangulation with barbed wire and a gunshot to the eyeball. If the director has one notable strength compared to his contemporaries, it's the ability to get good performances from his actors. He did it with his previous film DON'T LOOK IN THE BASEMENT (1973) and he's done it again here with a solid group of performers all well-cast in their roles. But what really puts this a notch above similar efforts is the low key and somewhat eerie backwoods atmosphere (achieved in part to the no budget minimalism and lack of location change) and the attention paid to characters. Quite a tasteless and tactless group we have here!

The Odis character is an immensely unlikable brute who guzzles 'shine the entire time and constantly berates his kids and poor knocked-up wife; justifying his eventual rape of Helen by telling his old lady that he "don't want to poke an old blowed-up balloon like you." I would call the daughter character a 5 dollar whore, but instead she's more of a 1 dollar whore who spreads her legs for all the local guys for pocket change so she can buy things like lipstick and glamour magazines. However, she's tight enough with her pa to give it to him for free! The son is a slow-speaking half-wit who talks like Forrest Gump and mostly elicits feelings of annoyance from the entire family. The big surprise is the unknown Stafford as Emmy the wife; a dumb but good-hearted door mat who was traded off to Odis by her own father to relieve a debt and who eventually becomes a bit motherly toward Norma. Stafford provides a perfect counter-balance to the over-the-top antics of the rest of the family and creates a surprisingly warm character.

On the down side, there's next to no plot, the music score is a little inappropriate and annoying at times and the surprise twist at the end is pretty ludicrous, but it's all entertaining enough and has a great cheap regional feel to it that Hollywood films frequently try and normally fail to capture.