The Film (4/5)

     Suburbia is the 2nd theatrical feature film from director Penelope Spheeris following a 1969 film called Uncle Tom's Fairy Tales, and coming right after her groundbreaking documentary the Decline of Western Civilization.  The film which is a logical, narrative continuation of the themes present in Decline of Western Civilization opens with an unrelated (to the narrative as a whole) sequence where a runaway punk rock girl finds herself in  a car that gets a flat tire, and has to help the Mother and child she is getting a ride with. The sequence ends with the child being eaten by a Doberman.

     The film then  dive's into the main story featuring Evan Johnson, who leaves the home of his abusive alcoholic Mother, and ends up on the streets living  in the T.R. (The Rejected) house with fellow punks lead by Jack Diddley (Chris Pederson). The film takes a rough look into their lives, and their dealings with the police (lead by Jack's Father), and a pair of rednecks who won't leave the group alone.

    Suburbia is an interesting film. It has a raw and gritty look to it that makes it an excellent companion piece to the Decline of Western Civilization. The characters are written in such a way to give them a slightly fleshed out tone to them, making them seem more real. Further, Spheeris does not exactly write these characters to be likable,  she approaches a balance of creating characters that the audience can identify with for 2 hours, but at the same time give them racist, sexist, and homophobic  elements showing us a dark and corrosive side to our group of protagonists, as we are told to root for them and their plight.

     On the other side of the film (I'll call it the Corman side), we are given certain teen drama cliches, nudity, and a handful of violent moments that I speculate might not have been there, if Corman wasn't producing and requiring a number of marketable exploitation film elements. Spheeris, of course, handles integrating the exploitation elements into the overall whole, and in doing so creates a truly unique and watchable experience.

Audio/Video (3.5/5)

    Shout Factory presents Suburbia in a new 1:85:1 1080p AVC encoded transfer. The transfer is taken from a new 4k scan created by Shout! Factory from the original film elements. As such we have the best looking version of Suburbia created here. Of course, that doesn't mean the film looks new, it just improves on the grainy and gritty aesthetic favored by Spheeris for this film.

    Audio is handled by a DTS-HD MA mono track in English that brings the sound of the film to life quite well with dialogue and score plus the loud punk rock coming through clearly.

Extras (2.5/5)

   Not much in the way of extras we get a commentary track just featuring director Spheeris, and another with Spheeris, Jennifer Clay, and Bert Dragin. There is also a trailer, TV spots, and photo gallery.

Overall

    Suburbia is a gritty look at the lives of L.A. punks in the early 80's. The film blends the raw aesthetic from Spheeris' Decline of Western Civilization with a solid narrative construct. The Blu-ray looks and sounds quite good, but extras are limited. RECOMMENDED.