Kill the Poor (film)

Kill the Poor is director Alan Taylor's screen adaptation of a novel by Joel Rose. The film is set in Manhattan's Alphabet City in the early 1980s, when the neighborhood was a center of illegal drug activity. The film's title comes from the Dead Kennedys song "Kill the Poor".

Plot

Kill the Poor begins with a fire in the apartment of tough guy Carlos DeJesus and his trouble-making son, Segundo. The screenplay then focuses on the other tenants of the rundown building in an attempt to determine who set the blaze.

The other principals are:

• Joe Peltz, a young man who ignored his uncle's warnings to bring his wife Annabelle and their young child into the neighborhood where his Jewish grandparents had their start in America;
• Spike, an aspiring found-object sculptor;
• Delilah, a flamboyant gay man;
• Butch, a presumptuous graduate student;
• Scarlet, the tenement's resident floozy;
• Negrito, a fixture in the neighborhood.

A shared distrust of Carlos and Segundo unites this eclectic group and prompts them to hold "co-op" meetings with one goal: eviction of Carlos and Segundo DeJesus.

Release

Kill the Poor was first screened at the Tribeca Film Festival in 2003. It was then shown in 2006 at the IFC Center in New York City.

Cast

• David Krumholtz — Joe Peltz
• Clara Bellar — Annabelle Peltz
• Paul Calderón — Carlos DeJesus
• Jon Budinoff — Segundo
• Cliff Gorman — Yakov
• Damian Young — Delilah
• Heather Burns — Scarlet
• Otto Sanchez — Negrito
• Zak Orth — Butch
• Larry Gilliard, Jr. — Spike

References

• Lee, Nathan. (2006, January 6). Ragtag Tenants in a Shabby Part of Town. The New York Times, p. B18

External links

• Kill the Poor at IMDb
• Daniel Handler's official website