Roy Frumkes wrote the screenplay. He later said: "I wrote it to democratically offend every group on the planet, and as a result the youth market embraced it as a renegade work, and it played midnight shows.
The Plot:
The owner of a liquor store in lower Manhattan finds a case of cheap wine ("Tenafly Viper") in his basement. It is more than 60 years old and has gone bad, but he decides to sell it to the local hobos anyway. Unfortunately, anyone who drinks the Viper melts away in a hideous fashion. At the same time, two brothers find different ways to cope with homelessness, while an overzealous cop (Bill Chepil) is trying to get to the bottom of all the deaths, all the while trying to end the tyranny of deranged Vietnam veteran Bronson (Vic Noto).
The film is littered with darkly comedic deaths and injuries. It also contains the notorious "severed privates" scene where a group of homeless people play catch with the severed genital of one of their number, as he futilely attempts to recover it.