Trim Season

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A poor concept that is barely half thought out (perhaps conceived while high?) and never properly explained. Weak writing that leaves you not liking a single character in the film (especially the one they are desperate for you to like). Far too much time spent establishing characters and giving you their backstory for very little point (many horror movies do this but nearly as much as this one). Awful acting pretty much across the board. Their is the odd exception but those people are not on screen enough to make a difference. The only good things to say for it are the opening scene is interesting and the film looks quite good.

It's not very often cannabis and horror go together. We all remember Reefer Madness, and the explempification of evil that came along with that story. To gorify cannabis and demonize the nature of the industry at the same time seems, hit and miss to say the least. The trim season team took the responsibility to turn a nightmare into a pretty well done story. For avid fans of blood and gore this story will seem like Cinderella. It has its HG Lewis and D. Argento moments. For those wanting a new take on the nature of an industry that is plagued. And, im not speaking of film. But. Plagued with callous. Trim season is a great entry for how story telling is done. Using cinematography to metaphor the hardships business owners go through. Using the spin of witchcraft, demon possession as a teachable moment is pretty crafty. To do it in a palpable way, is not easy. The gorification of cannabis in 2023, is pretty brave. Cannabis. It is the drug business. And it should be taken seriously. More than that. It is a fun film to watch with your friends.

If you're looking for a mindless gorefest with underdeveloped stock characters, move on. This is a smart little horror treat with a good assortment of characters, interesting casting and a well-crafted supernatural story. The expansive setting and beautiful cinematography keep this limited location production from ever feeling claustrophobic. Bethlehem Million does a great job anchoring a likeable offbeast cast as a girl whose life is imploding. Out of work and a home, she and her besti friend Julia take a risky job trimming weed at a remote pot farm in the mountains of northern California. We know from the opening teaser that something deadly and supernatural awaits them, something more powerful and unique than the hack-and-slash violence you'd typically find in this kind of movie. The acting and direction are excellent. There's one non-binary character thrown in to satisfy the woke generation, but their acting chops are a plus, giving new meaning to the term "scream queen." The music is angelically eerie, befitting a movie driven by sorcery and sympathetic magic. There are several gory effects and brutal violence, all in the context of the story and just gratuitous enough to please most genuine horror fans. While I personally feel this is exactly what low budget horror should be, I've deducted one star for the muddled flashbacks, which make up about one percent of the movie. While they don't detract from the story, they don't add as much as they could. If you're up for a unique little horror thriller that delivers a solid story with good production values, give it a shot.

But oh boy does it get ridiculous by the end. Especially all the goofy mime stuff. And the fact that that one character's parts were fed to that stupid murder weed when clearly....wait, what?! And the newspapers...what was the point of the newspapers?!?! And Manicure Lady was excessively Vanderpumping her silliness with a creepy Klimt? Then murder weed's A-frame turned white. Ok. Sure That is the level of cohesiveness one can expect from a movie outline clearly conceived on the devil's lettuce and a script clearly written while passing the dutchie on the left-hand side. And what exactly is the message - other than weed can do anything including prematurely aging your forearms and while giving you the power to get people to act like moronic marionettes 400 feet away? Or was it that pot leads to witchcraft and fingernail fungus? Who knows. Dumb movie.

There's a Trim Season comic book that came out in 2022, which was based on an original concept from Megan Sutherland, Sean E DeMott and Cullen Poythress. They were inspired by the story of several women who went missing in Humboldt County, CA during a marijuana harvest. That turned into a screenplay, written by David Blair and Ariel Vida, and then the comic book by writer Jake Hearns, pencils and inks by Mara Mendez Garcia and colors by Lorenzo Palombo. Directed by Ariel Vida, Trim Season is about Emma (Bethlehem Million) and Julia (Alex Essoe), who get recruited by James (Marc Senter) to head up into Northern California for trim season and make $5,000 cash. They're joined by Harriet (Ally Ioannides), Dusty (Bex Taylor-Klaus) and Lex (Juliette Kenn De Balinthazy) and when they get there, things already seem odd. There are guns everywhere carried by masked men. None of those men join them, because the only trimmers are women. Then they meet their boss, Mona (Jane Badler, still terrifying me ever since she ate a rat in V), who looks like the kind of female villain that would once have battled and bedded James Bond. And as they work 16 hours days, they start to learn that this isn't the job they were promised, what with Mona having some kind of magical powers thanks to a strain that only he can inhale and survive. Somehow folk horror meets Suspiria meets body horror, Trim Season exceeded any expectations I had for it. Balder owns every moment she has on screen and man, how many costume changes did she get? As many as she wanted, that's how many.