Trim Season

4/23/2023

_This movie was screened at Panic Fest._ The gruesome shocker of an opening scene is almost all that director Ariel Vida‘s “Trim Season” has going for it, and it’s all downhill from there. With a kickoff like that, it makes the rest of the sluggish film seem even slower than it actually is. I don’t want to hear any of that “but it’s a slow burn!” talk: if a movie is unhurried to the point it’s no longer entertaining, then it’s not a success. Horror fans are going to be disappointed with just about everything up until the bloodbath of a finale, which is teeming with plenty of gore, carnage, and supernatural violence. In this stoner folk horror story, recently unemployed Emma (Bethlehem Million) is in desperate need of rent money. When she and her best friend Julia (Alex Essoe) learn