In one of legendary director/ Warhol collaborator’s Paul Morrissey’s grimiest, most essential, and least-screened street sleaze masterpieces, Los Macateros, a drug-dealing Lower East Side Brazilian gang, start a war with a rival gang, the Master Dancers. On its release, LA Weekly promised: “The best American film of recent memory... you will have a hell of a time.”

The Macateros' soldiers are Latino kids all under 17 because, as leader Rita La Punta (Marília Pêra, Central Station, Pixote) says, “They can kill and not go to jail.” The war escalates to include their German heroin supplier (Ulrich Berr, Beethoven’s Nephew), his English girlfriend (Linda Kerridge, Fade to Black), a Puerto Rican ex-cop, and a Japanese police captain. Plus the screen debut of John Leguizamo!

The movie is a visceral and lively look at racism, police corruption, addiction, and violent crime of every imaginable persuasion. With an amazing salsa-heavy soundtrack, wildly dark humor, fascinating sexual tensions, and off-kilter observations (including a store dedicated to the pop group Menudo) it’s a perfect piece of Morrissey’s style which Brontez Purnell once described as “a John Waters film turned into a serious drama.”

Never released digitally or in HD in any territory, this new 4K restoration from the original 35mm negative presents Morrissey’s film as it was originally meant to be seen. Scan and restoration done in-house by Vinegar Syndrome. A Cinématographe release.