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.
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
“Winnie-the-Pooh: Blood and Honey II” is “marginally more tolerable” than the first film, though I’m not sure if its improvements were intentional or just incidental.