MOVIE #1,940 • SCORE 6/10 • 09.03.24
SERIES: TWO FOR TUESDAY
This is an interesting one: essentially a lost film until a VHS surfaced online about two years ago (on YouTube here), this Wicked City (also known as Sam) is a mid-90s NYC character study about a girl who runs away from her maybe-pedophile father to the Big Apple. Not that this is a 1:1 comparison, but it’s immediately 1000000x better than Clerks. Not sure why I thought of Clerks but maybe there's an alternate universe where this became the northeastern indie movie that broke out (one can dream — it will always come back around to me hating on Kevin Smith lol).
Wicked City ‘98 is known for anything, it’s probably its soundtrack, which got a proper release via Gypsy Records and was produced by writer-director Richie Vetter. This is Vetter’s only directorial effort but he worked in the music industry (he served as music supervisor on Jeepers Creepers and even produced and wrote several songs on the original Critters OST! Remember "Power of the Night"?). That being said, the music here — which is constantly playing — is mostly godawful, a mix of 90s kitchen sink alt: shitty grunge ska rap rock crappy punk, with a few decent NY hardcore tracks. It’s so bad and relentless that it kind of grew on me as it becomes clear that it's part and parcel with what the film has to offer: a time capsule.
CHRONOLOGICALLY
⫷ MOVIE #1,939 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,941 ⫸
⫷ MOVIE #1,939 - (YOU ARE HERE) - MOVIE #1,941 ⫸
In this gritty drama, a woman comes to New York City in hopes of making her dreams come true, only to find herself lost, destitute, and forced to fend for herself on the streets among her fellow homeless. It was released on November 16, 1998.
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