[Panic Fest 2023 Review] 'Trim Season' is Suspiria By Way of Marijuana

Recently, I was watching Smiley Face when I came to a realization…most stoner films are from men and about men. What’s refreshing about writer/director Ariel Vida’s latest film Trim Season is that it’s a stoner horror movie for the girls, gays and theys, starring a diverse cast under the spell of a woman channeling her best dominatrix meets giallo realness. It’s Suspiria set at a weed farm. I almost expected Helena Markos to waft out of the smoky ambiance, a joint poised discreetly between two fingers. Its sometimes laborious pacing and messy screenplay by David Blair and Ariel Vida (story by Megan Turner Sutherland, Cullen Gray Poythress and Sean E. Demott) threatens to derail the story, but Ariel’s firm direction and fantastic cast ensures the highs are…well, higher than the lows. 

Emma (Sick’s fantastic Bethlehem Million) desperately needs some good luck. Her car’s overheating, she’s just been fired from her job and her roommate has scrawled “Rent?????” on the kitchen chalkboard. She’s three months past due and her roommate has given her a month to move her things out. Luckily, when her best friend Julia (Alex Essoe) treats her to a night on the town, they meet their flighty friend’s newest boyfriend James (Marc Senter). He’s in town recruiting for a local weed farm and he offers them a chance Emma can’t turn down. It’s trimming season and Emma can easily make $5,000 for two weeks of work. Cash. 

Things are off almost immediately when James shows up to pick up their latest recruits, including Harriet (Ally Ioannides), Dusty (Bex Taylor-Klaus) and Lex (Juliette Kenn De Balinthazy). He tells them to leave their cars and get in his van (“to some unknown place?” Emma asks incredulously) and when they reach the compound, they’re met with masked men on 4x4s, toting guns. When Bex asks if it’s always all girls for trim season, Harriet responds, “Less likely to steal shit…too dainty to overthrow an operation and make off the goods.” It doesn’t sit right with Emma, but, again, she really needs the money and she has Julia with her. 

That night, they meet the head of the operation, a woman named Mona (Jane Badler), who makes a drag worthy entrance as she slinks down a staircase, channelingMorticia Addams in all black, cradling a glass of very dark wine in her giallo-murderer-glove-clad hands. She calls the trimmers her children and she runs the operation with her literal children, two men who, I guess, provide the muscle. After cocktails, James drives away with bagfuls of money as the ominous score by frequent James Wan composer Joseph Bishara tells us how fucked the trimmers actually are. 

What follows is a witchy story that teaches the craft of weed trimming (they're expected to work 12-16 hour days) while reveling in a completely different kind of craft. Weird things begin to happen and as Mona’s kind veneer gives way to something casually cruel and mystical, the trimmers find themselves up against men with guns, a woman with magical powers and a mysterious strain that only Mona can inhale. 

Trim Season is a stacked production, with fun and inclusive performances from Bex Taylor-Klaus’s nonbinary Dusty to Alex Essoe’s best friend who cares deeply for Emma to Jane Badler’s tongue-in-cheek, menacing performance as Mona. Her character adds a layer of camp sensibility to the film, as she seemingly changes her outfits every time we see her, flouncing around as she chews the scenery to perfection. The score by The Conjuring/Insidious composer Joseph Bishara stings appropriately and elevates the indie picture.

Director Ariel Vida comes from production design work with Justin Benson and Aaron Moorhead and other indie directors like Amy Seimetz and it shows with the way the weed farm feels like a real, sometimes mythical, place where weird geometric designs and southern gothic mansions intermingle with dilapidated trim houses. The weakest part of the film is the script, an initial slow burn that feels appropriate for a film about weed as it sometimes languidly moves through the expected beats.

As the film reaches the climax, the ending bits are empowering but do not completely feel earned as we know nothing, really, about Emma and her group aside from the fact Emma desperately needs money. A few character traits come into play like a Chekhov’s Gun, but the beats don’t really come together in a transcendental, “good for her” way that the ending desperately wants.

That said, the film is fantastically realized and the actors commit completely to their roles which often elevates the script just because they are so damn watchable. And it was nice seeing a diverse group of women and nonbinary characters fighting something other than the patriarchy (but, still, down with the patriarchy). Trim Season is a fun trip that wonders what would happen if Suspiria’s Helena Markos moved to a weed farm and spent her time sucking the souls from her foes while smoking a joint and drinking wine…and sometimes that’s all you need.