Trim Season Synopsis
Emma (Bethlehem Million) is not having the greatest time lately. She just got fired from her job, she is being chased by creditors and is so far behind in rent that she’s about to be kicked out of her apartment, so she clearly needs some way to make a large amount of money quickly. Fortunately, her friend Julia (Alex Essoe) has a contact to get them involved with a marijuana farm where they can be weed trimmers, getting paid up to $5000 depending on how much they do.
While there they’re teamed up with a couple of other women, Harriet (Ally Ioannides) who is the biggest stoner around and Lex (Juliette Kenn De Balinthazy) who has a genetic disorder that makes it impossible to feel pain. There’s also non-binary Dusty (Bex Taylor-Klaus) who is a lot more reserved and quieter than everyone else.
At first, things seem to be going well for the little group, despite a few weird moments involving their transport to the farm. Then they meet the big boss on the farm, Mona (Jane Badler) who runs a tight ship but is seemingly kind about it… unless you cross her. Slowly things start getting more intense and as the numbers of the group of weed trimmers start dwindling, it becomes obvious that there’s something amiss going on at the weed farm… something bloody terrible.
RELATED: Cannabis themed Horror film ‘Trim Season’ to Premiere at Overlook Festival (March 2023)
Trim Season Review
For a low-budget horror film, Trim Season really knows how to use everything it has to its full potential. From the moment the film begins, it creates this strange eerie tone that it manages to somehow maintain the entire time. There’s an underlying sense of paranoia throughout that only grows more with every new scene, culminating in a pretty stunning and simple climax that makes great use of the fantastic location and visual design.
The intensity that builds throughout Trim Season often feels disorienting but when the time comes for something truly horrific to happen (and oh boy is this film not afraid to spray about some red stuff), Trim Season knows just how to hold back and let the horror sink in.
Honestly, the main thing that kept popping up in my weed-free brain throughout watching Trim Season is that it really did feel like what you would get if Suspiria did a gigantic blunt. The colours are bold and intense for no reason other than it just looks freaky and makes the scenes that much more horrifying. The horrific violence that’s somehow made even more extreme due to the strange way it happens.
Even down to the strange score behind the strange sequences of magical movement that at times feel like people being forced to dance themselves to death. It’s an unavoidable comparison but if you’re going to feel reminiscent of any film, there are worse ones to be comparable to than Suspiria.
Anchoring this is a strong set of interesting characters who we’re actually given time to know and start to like before they start dropping like flies. The core team of weed-trimming teens are fantastic, able to banter back and forth with enough chemistry that you believe these strangers would stand up for each other when the time came.
On top of that, there’s just a barn burner of a performance by Jane Badler who slinks in and out of the film like a snake just looking for something to eat, most often the scenery but she does it in a way that fits the tone of the film and works for such a curious character like Mona.
It also must be noted that Trim Season does something absolutely brilliant that other studios might want to take note of… there’s a non-binary character in here, you wanna know how they made that work? They changed the pronouns and hired a non-binary actor, that’s all it took to make that exist in the world and now we have a badass non-binary character in a horror film which is freaking awesome. It’s not hard to do this and Trim Season gets that.
It knows the modern audience and how they function, it gets that a modern audience is going to call out random shit like how weird it is for everyone to just sign up for this so they give it a good reason. Trim Season gets that representation matters and so it just has a wide diverse cast and lets them exist because it’s so easy to get this stuff right when you try. Trim Season just gets it, it gets what the audience needs and wants and delivers on that.
Trim Season Overall
Trim Season is a twisted tale with a lot of great performances and beautiful shots. Basically, it’s Suspiria on a bad drug trip, it’s a bloody fun time that shows what can be pulled off on a smaller budget when you have a fun idea and people are game to go for it. It’s a good fun horror film that’s also doing a few very important things that should frankly be done more often. It’s a really good time, one could even say that it’s high art.
Did Trim Season give you the high you hoped for? Was it a rage of a time or just a bad blunt film?
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