You know what there aren’t enough of? Horror movies set on marijuana farms. Isolated. Dangerous. They’re the perfect setting for a good, creepy tale, yet I can’t think of many scary movies that have used them as their prime location. Director Ariel Vida looks to change that with Trim Season, and this is one toke certain to leave you feeling a little paranoid. Written by Vida and David Blair, Trim Season stars Bethlehem Million (who recently killed it in Sick) as Emma, a down on her luck stoner desperate for some cash. When she and best friend, Julia (Starry Eyes’ Alex Essoe) are offered a job trimming weed at a pot farm, they jump on it. How bad it could be? Pretty bad, it turns out, as they begin to realize this is no ordinary farm, and their boss, Mona (Jane Badler) is no ordinary grower. Trim Season is packed with subtle humor and affection for weed—it opens on a woman running her hand through a pot crop Gladiator style—but this is not the fun, trippy stoner movie you might think it is. Don’t expect Evil Bong. If anything, Vida’s film is much more so Luca Guadagnino’s Suspiria on a weed farm. A witchy tale with pot, Vida’s film isn’t a surrealist horror fantasy drenched in color or a brainless, wake and bake slasher. Instead, it's a brutal story featuring witchcraft that shocks the viewer just as much as it tears at their hearts. In Emma, Julia and the others they find themselves working with are characters who all have a troubled past. Bex Taylor-Klaus in particular stands out as shy trans character, Dusty. Through well-written dialogue and moving performances, I found my heart aching for each and every one of these tortured individuals. Trim Season was not a film I expected to tear up during, yet Vida and the cast manager to deliver a surprisingly touching (and gut-wrenching) narrative that reaches into the soul and makes you care about everyone. Paper Street Pictures continues its streak of putting out horror films with a strong heart. As Mona would delight in telling Emma and friends, though, Trim Season is no kumbaya by the campfire. You and I might think it sounds like a sweet gig to hang out in cannabis country for a couple weeks, but Vida does a good job tapping into the uneasy tension of the setting while recreating that paranoid high that something is wrong. The trimmers are without cars. Surrounded by men with guns. With no one but their recruiter, James (Marc Senter) knowing exactly where they are. Aided by Joseph Bishara’s eerie, whispering score, Mona makes matters more disconcerting with her devilish delight in a scene-stealing performance by Badler. A sadistic woman with a disconcerting air of menace, the actress moves like a hungry cobra, entrancing the cast and the viewer. Everything about the situation sends the sus meter through the roof while disallowing audiences to say “just leave”. They can’t. Like a good high that descends into a bad trip, Trim Season moves at a gradual pace that puts the audience under a hypnotic spell before lighting it up with shocking terror. The blood. The death. The emotional punches. All of its cast without mercy. Remember that bone-crunching scene from the Suspiria remake? Vida’s film captures the essence of that sort of distressed horror, packs it in a bowl and forces you to inhale. Trim Season is a stoner’s worst nightmare…at least for the first half. The issue with Trim Season is that, for a supernatural horror ripe with paranoia, it doesn’t do much to capitalize on that potential for a keep-you-guessing sort of mystery. You can probably see where it’s going from the minute the trimmers arrive at the farm. Once the film erupts into confusing chaos, the spell of it begins to wear off, furthered by a clunky pacing that trades suspense for thin as smoke (and expected) reveals. Despite curious ideas involving a heavy dose of weed worship, the tail end of the film is a frantic high that dissipates too quickly and leaves you unsatisfied; Film munchies that not even a whole bag of Cheetos will cure. Loaded with a dank style, burning tension and an emotional core rooted in heartfelt performances, Trim Season is a strong outing from Vida, but struggles to keep the joint lit with a lack of surprises or a fulfilling finish. Still, those with a taste for some witchy weed in their horror will find plenty to enjoy in this blended strain of frights and tears. By Matt Konopka
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