Teenage Sheila (Jennifer Clay) is running away from her Los Angeles home, and hitches a lift one night with a young mother and her baby. As they drive along the highway, a car tyre bursts so they have to stop in a layby and all three get out and make their way to the nearest telelphone box. As the mother makes the call, Sheila hangs onto the baby's hand, but while she waits a large, fierce dog begins growling at them and suddenly launches itself at the child, grabbing it in its jaws... The next day teenage Evan (Bill Coyne) is relaxing at home when his mother returns with the groceries, and is furious that he has done no housework; she throws a bottle at him, which is the final straw for Evan, and like Sheila, he runs away...
Basically an update of the nineteen-fifties genre of juvenile delinquent movies, complete with a bunch of kids who society just doesn't understand, Suburbia was writer and director Penelope Spheeris' attempt at putting the world of her documentary The Decline of Western Civilization into a fictional framework. Using a cast of largely unprofessional actors she aims for gritty realism and for the most part succeeds, at least until the matter of a proper plot raises its head, and she finds time to include some of the punk bands of the day in concert performances.
Evan wanders around without much purpose until the nighttime when he winds up at a club where one of those punk bands are playing. Spheeris includes a bit of business with a woman having her clothes ripped off and complaining loudly until the band are forced to stop and the gig is called off; meanwhile Evan has been slipped some kind of narcotic in his drink which leaves him barely conscious. Luckily for him he is noticed by Jack (Chris Pederson, probably giving the best performance), a young punk who bundles him into his car and a new friendship is forged.
Jack leads Evan to his makeshift home in an abandoned area of the suburbs which he shares with a group of others of a similar age, and they call themselves The Rejected, or T.R. for short (initials they tend to spray everywhere, and even brand on their arms). Despite their acting deficiencies, the cast manage a convincing manner about them as the lowest members of society, each, it seems, with a hard luck story of abuse behind them. In the same neighbourhood are the packs of wild dogs, and perhaps Spheeris is equating the two groups, especially when a couple of gun-toting locals appear and begin shooting the strays.
These locals want to see The Rejected ousted from their home, blaming them for all the trouble and crime in the area (and fair enough, the do their share of stealing to stay alive). But the sympathy for these misfits outweighs the attitudes of those who want to see them kicked out, and their aimless lives are well conveyed. Then a storyline has to make its presence felt, with a drugs overdose and a needlessly tragic death or two that pushes the film over into melodrama and "what a senseless waste!" misery, which despite its undoubted sincerity looks a little corny. Its earlier scenes are the strongest, chiefly because the camaraderie between the outcasts rings true, and for the star spotters the film also features Flea from the Red Hot Chili Peppers in his acting debut (with a pet rat). Music by Alex Gibson.
[Suburbia has recently be re-released in the Roger Corman Early Films Collection. This features an audio track commentary by director Penelope Spheeris, original trailer and cast biographies.]
