Panic Fest 2023 Review: TRIM SEASON, This Weed Will Get You Harmed

It’s easy to assume that a movie titled Trim Season, which takes place mostly on farm that grows marijuana/cannabis/weed/whatever the kids are calling it these days, would be a horror comedy that could pair easily enough with any number of stoner classics.

But one of the film’s greatest surprises is how serious it is. From the first scene, where two young women violently take their own lives using gardening scissors, Trim Season establishes its deadly serious tone.

The narrative proper begins by introducing us to Emma (Bethlehem Million) who has just lost her job, is months behind on rent, and is getting collection calls from lending agencies. She’s desperate for money, so when the opportunity arises to spend some time on a weed farm and get paid well for simple work, she seizes it; albeit apprehensively.

James (Marc Senter), the recruiter searching for trimmers, is somewhere between charming and creepy in a way that’s simultaneously inviting and screams danger, almost like a scrawnier, less classically handsome Robert Mitchum in Cape Fear. Things only become more dubious when Emma and her friend Julia (Alex Essoe) meet up with other recruits at a park and are told that they need to leave their car behind so James can drive them to the farm, where he promptly leaves after an introductory dinner.

That dinner introduces farm owner Mona (Jane Badler) and her two sons, who, along with some perhaps overzealous gun-toting guards, are the only permanent residents of the farm. Badler gives a phenomenal performance as Mona, she’s a beautiful woman who’s terrifying not for any violence she commits or malice she emits, but for the severeness with which she carries herself.

Even when she is kind and welcoming, there’s an intensity to Mona that feels as though she’d be willing to kill anyone who stood in her way without blinking an eye. The costumes add to this; she’s often adorned in pearls and always wears long gloves with her exquisitely tailored dresses and (what looks like) 19th century business attire.

Her performance is key to the film working, as she is the center from which the film’s increasing sense of dread grows. She wields her power kindly but firmly at first when one of the trimmers breaks the rules, but grows increasingly stern when the rule-breaking continues.

What makes the film more interesting is that it’s not only Mona’s actions (actual or potential) that are cause for concern. At one point, a trimmer attempts to smoke some of Mona’s personal stash and her body immediately rejects the plant, offering a gorgeously realized sequence of a body rebelling against its owner until they die.

As the film progresses, director Ariel Vida creates increasingly grotesque scenes of body horror. As bodies contort they're shot in closeup and combined with crisp sound design to make sure every snap, crackle, and pop is seen, heard, and felt by the audience. These sequences are all the more disturbing for their contrast with the natural beauty of the farm and the surrounding areas that are framed as if they were part of an IMAX nature documentary.

Trim Season doesn’t succeed at every moment -- ironically the scenes of recreational drug use and its effects are among the worst -- but the highs are very high. From Badler’s commanding performance that contributes to the uneasy atmosphere Vida expertly curates to the stomach-churning sequences of body horror, there is undeniable greatness here that’s well worth seeking out.