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Suburbia (1983): 12 Weird Facts And The Sad TRUTH

Movies We Love

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Suburbia (1984) might be the most real punk movie ever made — because almost nobody in it was actually acting. Director Penelope Spheeris cast real punk kids instead of trained actors, and the result is a raw, sad, unforgettable film about runaway teens who build their own family in an abandoned neighborhood.
In this video I break down the story behind the movie, the wild dogs that mirror the kids, the barbecue-fork brandings, and the moment a young Flea (yes, from the Red Hot Chili Peppers) stuffs a rat in his mouth — completely unscripted. Plus the eerie way the film predicted a future nobody saw coming.

5 Comments

@133dAllZopp 2 weeks ago

So good! I love this film. I haven’t seen any off the others apart from Flea and Jack, he is in Platoon 😎

@rickshempoilaustralia6574 12 days ago

I was 14 living in a youth hostel when that came out and spent the next 30 years in punk bands

@Xanthro2 2 months ago

my cuz was doin the run away punk thing in the later 90s, he showed me this film. great film.
I did tag along with him and his group once in a bluemoon, they wasnt bad people, just harsh and abit off.

@timclary1963 2 months ago

Might I suggest that you look at IMDB before you do a video on a movie. You'll get all the information you need on a movie there. Especially if the members of the cast worked anyplace else. If you had done that you would have seen that Flea wasn't the only one that acted again. Chris Pederson that played Jack Diddley was in a little known film called Platoon. Maybe you've seen it. He played Crawford, the surfer dude.

@donnahanna10565 2 months ago

This movie is very important to me.And somebody that you did not talk about at all was Andre Boutilier AKA Peg leg yeah, can't miss him.He's on the cover he wasn't an actor and never really got anything that would have made his name known to the world.But he was that good period used. He's to tell these amazing stories to people he first met and who didn't know he was an amputee. He would start out talking about how he did want his life. And he really wanted a white picket fence, and he'd go on and on, and he builds to the point where he was acting frustrated. And then he would grab a knife, ram it into his leg. It was so much fun to watch if the blood drain from these people's faces. Of course, then he would reveal that he had a peg leg. She picked a lot of my friends for the movie and yes it was real. There was a place in hollywood where people used to squat was called Hotel Hell that name should ring a bell with a few people. I never stayed there, but one of my dear friends did love you Mrs.T! Forever the A-Team. But the reason I bring up Andre Boutilier is that he was one of the sweetest dearest people you'd ever meet and yes, he did lead a crazy life. He recently passed away and to this day, I can't figure out why he wasn't one of the biggest stars in the world. He had more talent in his binkie than half these people in hollywood have today. So when I see this movie, I see a lot of my friends that are in it and it brings back a lot of memories. And I'm grateful that most of us survived.