If you ask the stoners, cannabis can do anything man. It can cure anxiety and depression, it’s been used to help fight cancer (doubtful), and it could even bring world peace if everyone just took a toke. You’ll find all those airtight opinions in Ariel Vida’s Trim Season but the supernatural horror flick goes one step further and uses this miracle plant for evil.
Looking for some last-minute cash to get her life back on track, Emma (Bethlehem Million) convinces her best friend Julia (Starry Eyes‘ Alex Essoe) to come with her to remote farm in Northern California to trim marijuana for a big-time grower. It’s a gig that pays really well for only two weeks of work, but it’s an offer they eventually realize is too good to be true.
After a sudden death on the farm leaves them and their fellow trimmers (including Scream: The TV Series’ Bex Taylor-Klaus) second guessing their isolated situation, this paid pot-smoking position become the temp job from hell. Desperate to make it back down the mountain alive, the ladies soon uncover the evil secrets hiding in the remote foothills of this godforsaken land.
That’s a lot more of an official “back-of-the-box synopsis” then I normally like to string together in my plot recaps. Unfortunately, a lot of what makes Trim Season an interesting watch, and a lot of what I’m sure anyone expects to see when they press play on a Stoner Horror movie, is saved for the last 20 minutes. Despite a promising cold open that features two hippy trimmers dispatched in gory detail, it’s a full hour of shifty eyes and weed talk before we’re back in Horror country.
As far as Stone Horror movies go, Trim Season is very Indica Dominant. It’s an easy-going, slow ride that you could sink into the couch watching. It goes harder in the third act but by then those blips barely register. And what makes me really sad is that talking about the mysterious evil and what makes the villain of the movie worth discussing feels borderline spoilery because of how long the movie takes to get the story there. Suffice it to say, there’s an evil strain of weed growing up in them there hills and its use/cultivation hints at an interesting spin on more than one classic villain type.
It’s hard to say where a movie like Trim Season will sit in the pantheon of Stoner Horror. It very early on separates itself from loony horror-comedies like Evil Bong, opting instead for a “horror movie that just happens to also be about weed” approach. There are some really good ideas and clever takes in this flick but overall, Trim Season plays like a good first draft for what could eventually be molded and reworked into something great.
On the plus side, there’s some haunting imagery where entire sets are bathed in red light, multiple characters meet their end with blood streaming from their eyes, nose, and ears, and there’s even a gnarly scene where someone has their hand savagely cut off with a piece of jagged glass. I can’t honestly say it’s the perfect movie to kick off a Stoner Horror binge sesh, but it will definitely sit comfortably in between a few other over-the-top classics in your next 4:20 Puff-Puff-Slash Marathonâ„¢.
“Trim Season will definitely sit comfortably in between a few other over-the-top classics in your next 4:20 Puff-Puff-Slash Marathonâ„¢”
Ariel Vida’s Trim Season celebrated its World Premiere at the 2023 Overlook Film Festival. Click HERE to follow our continued coverage of the festival and let us know all about your favorite Stoner Horrors over on Twitter or in the Nightmare on Film Street Discord! Not a social media fan? Get more horror delivered straight to your inbox by joining the Neighbourhood Watch Newsletter.
