TRIM SEASON (2023)

Studio:   Blue Harbor Entertainment
Director: Ariel Vida
Writer:   David Blair, Ariel Vida
Producer: Sean E. DeMott, Jane Badler, Aaron B. Koontz, Paul Holbrook
Stars:    Bethlehem Million, Alex Essoe, Ryan Donowho, Cory Hart, Ally Ioannides, Juliette Kenn De Balinthazy, Marc Senter, Bex Taylor-Klaus, Jane Badler

Review Score:

---

Summary:

Desperate for money, two friends take a job on an isolated marijuana farm where a mysterious woman hides a deadly secret about an unusual weed strain.

---

Synopsis:     Show/Hide Spoilers

Struggling actress Julia takes her best friend Emma out for drinks to console Emma over getting fired and being unable to pay her rent. At the bar, Emma and Julia's socialite friend Pua introduces them to her contact James, who is recruiting temporary workers for a lucrative two-week job trimming marijuana plants on a remote farm in Northern California. Attracted by the money, Emma and Julia agree to the gig.

Emma and Julia drive to a small town's parking lot where they wait for James with fellow new recruits Lex, Dusty, and Harriet. Once he arrives, James insists that everyone leave their cars so he can escort the five of them to the isolated farm in his van.

After passing armed guards Bobby and Shane, James shows Emma, Julia, Lex, Dusty, and Harriet to their quarters. At a welcome reception in the main house, the new workers meet the farm's glamorous owner Mona, her loyal older son Christopher, and her mousy younger son Malcom, the latter of whom takes a liking to nonbinary Dusty. As the five recruits enjoy wine and weed, Mona mentions she only smokes a special strain reserved exclusively for her.

For the first morning, Christopher provides a brief tutorial on how to trim harvested buds. Emma becomes concerned when James leaves, since they'll no longer have any form of transportation.

Despite the others warning her against taking too many casual liberties, free-spirited Harriet tears pasted newspapers off of the trim room's windows to let in more light. Mona unexpectedly encourages Harriet to tear off all of the coverings, which Harriet does. Mona then reasserts her authority by telling Emma she will have to replace the coverings with new newspapers the next morning. Emma makes no attempt to stand up for herself.

While Mona brings Emma to her basement to collect the newspapers, Harriet uses the opportunity to steal a red bud of Mona's private weed strain. Meanwhile, Mona confronts Emma about being more assertive.

The other four trimmers decline to partake when Harriet reveals the bud she stole from Mona's secret stash. Harriet begins vomiting blood and bleeding from her eyes when she smokes it alone. After coughing a red mist that Emma inadvertently inhales, Harriet dies.

Mona shocks Emma and Julia by forcing them to sleep in the same room where Harriet just died. Christopher removes the body. Malcolm starts cleaning up the blood, but Mona stops him. Julia comforts Emma over Harriet's death in a private moment.

That night, Emma has a strange dream. She later sees a vision in which Mona embraces a younger version of Christopher while a forlorn Malcolm observes from a distance.

Mona, Christopher, and Malcom host an awkward dinner for Emma, Julia, Lex, and Dusty. Mona dodges questions about Harriet. The setting grows more uncomfortable when Mona compels Dusty to discuss their father's suicide, which causes Dusty to run away.

At gunpoint, security guard Bobby forces Emma, Julia, and Lex to stop searching for Dusty and return to their cabin. Bobby cryptically tells the women that Mona controls the mountain. Lex fights back, knocking Bobby unconscious and taking his rifle. The three women agree to look for Dusty again.

Malcolm catches up to Dusty. Malcolm explains that he also wants to escape his mother and her farm. Christopher finds the two of them. Christopher beats his brother while Dusty flees.

After smoking one of her special joints, Mona uses her ungloved hand to direct supernatural magic that she uses to control Dusty's body. Mona forces Dusty to stab themself to death.

At his mother's command, Christopher pulls out Dusty's heart. Mona plants it in the potted soil of her special marijuana crop.

Emma, Julia, and Lex are horrified to find Dusty's body. Also upset over Dusty's death, Malcolm recovers an ax that he uses to kill his brother Christopher as revenge.

Mona uses her magical powers to force Emma, Julia, and Lex to beat themselves as well as each other. Unable to control her actions, Emma strangles Julia to death.

Mona forces Emma and Lex to come to her cabin. Mona explains that her family brought over the special weed strain from the Black Mountains of Carpathia centuries ago. Her bloodline now stewards its power, which requires blood sacrifices to work.

Lex tries fighting back, so Mona compels Lex to stab herself in her head. In the commotion, Emma uses broken glass to hack off Mona's hand, which she needs to control her magic. Refusing to help his mother, Malcolm lets Mona die.

Emma gains control over Mona's power. She first uses it to make Shane, the other guard, painfully contort and stab himself in the chest. Emma then burns Mona's plant so that Bobby, now recovered from Lex's earlier attack, inhales its mist and dies like Harriet did. Malcolm brings Dusty's body to Emma. Elsewhere, James begins violently contorting while trying to recruit two new trimmers in a bar.

---

Review:

Thanks to an unreliable car making her chronically late, Emma just lost her job. Her roommate also gave Emma the boot because she owes several months of back rent. With additional creditors calling to collect on debts, Emma is about as deep in the financial doghouse as any cash-strapped person can possibly get.

Emma's best friend Julia, a struggling actor, doesn't have a permanent solution to Emma's problems, but she has a temporary one. On her dime, Julia takes out Emma for a night of drowning their collective sorrows at a local bar. That's where a mutual friend introduces them to James, an outgoing sweet-talker with an offer Emma and Julia aren't in much of a position to refuse. If they want some quick, relatively easy cash, all they have to do is take a two-week gig clipping buds on a marijuana farm in Northern California. How can they say no?

Along with three others in similar situations, Emma and Julia take a trek to the isolated farm, which is overseen by an elegantly mysterious woman. What happens next, IMDb summarizes as: "They discover the location's dark secrets and now must try to escape the mountain on which they are trapped."

"Women go missing in the woods," or any variation of that simple setup, is one of horror's subgenres in desperate need of a makeover. Unless you have a fresh take on that common plot, no one needs to see another madman chasing people through trees, terrible things happening on a camping trip, stumbling into a backcountry event that requires someone to be killed, or getting captured in the middle of nowhere with little hope of rescue.

I'm pleased to report "Trim Season" actually does have a unique hook to set its story apart from similar slow-burn suspense yarns. Revealing that twist should be a spoiler. Unfortunately for the film, it's not. I'll explain in a moment.

Given what's been revealed thus far, you might expect "Trim Season" to take one of the easy routes listed above. Maybe Emma and Julia end up targeted for murder when they discover the drug operation extends into bigger black markets. Maybe they've been unknowingly lured into a human trafficking ring. Maybe some small-town hillbillies just want to torture them. Instead, it unexpectedly turns out that something otherworldly is going on. Mona, the farm's glamorous owner, hides a secret strain of "vampire weed," which grants her magical powers to puppet people's bodies against their will.

Getting all the way into a movie that looks like a routine woodland thriller only for a supernatural swerve would be a refreshingly cool surprise. But chalk up another victim to the misguided "we have to start with a spooky stinger" belief, because "Trim Season" gives it all away by opening on a scene where two entranced trimmers are forced to kill themselves while clearly under someone else's psychic control. Tacked-on prologues rarely add any authentic narrative value to horror films. "Trim Season" makes matters worse by taking something away.

That's no dealbreaker, though it is a baffling creative decision that undermines the film's ability to earn a second-half boost by re-engaging the audience with an unanticipated reveal. More of the movie's toe stubs come from too relaxed of a pace, as though "Trim Season" took its theming to heart and got high on its own supply. With an almost egregious amount of establishing shots and senseless slow-motion sequences of puffing, passing, and euphorically exhaling, "Trim Season" probably could have been cut down to fill a one-hour TV slot including commercials and welcomed a brisker stride.

"Trim Season" evens out stretches of blandness with fitting performances from familiar faces like Alex Essoe and Bex Taylor-Klaus. The script was adapted from a comic book, something you can tell by Jane Badler, who plays Mona not unlike a street-level Marvel villain. You'll either cringe at what is an intentionally over-the-top performance or, if you've idolized her since "V" like I have, you'll come to appreciate Badler's fearless cartoonishness, what with the way her tightened lips chew on Blofeld dialogue like a weird mix of Queen Elizabeth and Elizabeth Taylor draped in an absurdly comical number of costume pearl strings.

Factoring the tempo's warts against the cast's commitment to the material, "Trim Season" becomes a three-star at best thriller, which is honestly only as high as the ceiling needs to be for something likely to end up as an "I guess I'll give it a shot" option on a streaming service. Anyone in the market for a "women encounter danger in the woods" movie may at least get a kick out of the additional witchcraft layer. Or, take a tip from the film itself and blaze up beforehand. That might synch someone with "Trim Season's" speed.

NOTE: There is a mid-credits scene.

Review Score: 55

---