By Karina Wilson
AFI FEST Daily News

A masked family living in squalor. Sex acts with shrubbery. Wanton destruction of TV sets. Creepy dolls wrapped in plastic. A soundtrack consisting of hollers and maniacal laughter. And of course, the pleasure to be got from humping wheelie bins. Any cursory description of the latest feature from Harmony Korine (GUMMO, MISTER LONELY, JULIEN DONKEY-BOY) might suggest this is a horror movie, perhaps THE HILLS HAVE EYES 3 or WRONG TURN 4. However, it’s impossible to fit TRASH HUMPERS into any kind of genre box–Korine has never worked within the usual parameters–and it stands on its own as a funny, sometimes sweet, and inventive movie.

There is no plot here, just a fragmentary series of scenes, showing the Trash Humper family engaged in domestic bliss. A gleeful set of axe-wielding proto-chimps, they dance (tap, modern, jazz) around the edges of society, doing exactly what they want to, all the time, acting on the kind of impulses the rest of us have, but usually manage to repress. That can involve low-grade torture, storytelling, setting things on fire, spanking hookers, making pancakes or attacking an empty wheelchair with a car-wash pressure hose. The only unmasked member of the family is a bespectacled boy, possessed of a ceaseless grin and an unnerving cackle, who likes bludgeoning dolls with a hammer. Dead bodies start to turn up, twisted white bloats in the undergrowth. All this is recorded on lo-fi videotape, designed to look like a worn home movie, complete with drop-outs, tracking failure and crude titles. Blown up to 35mm, TRASH HUMPERS is the complete antithesis of the usual cinema experience, but it’s strangely compulsive viewing: the degraded, fuzzy images possess an idiosyncratic poetry that lingers in the mind.

It’s difficult to pin down why this movie should appeal. Perhaps it’s because the Humpers have so much fun, celebrating chaos in everything they do? Despite their propensity for sex and violence they seem to be a close-knit unit, all their aggression is directed outwards, usually towards inanimate objects. The old people masks are oddly expressive and add to the sense of liberation–we don’t normally expect to see seniors having such a raucous good time. Once you enter the Humpers’ world, you begin to appreciate their rhythms and reasoning. They love to chant and sing, in moments that can often be very poignant (there’s a surprisingly haunting rendition of “Silent Night”). After some time, you start to wonder how you go about joining their “loser-gang cult-freak collective.” After the movie is over, you’ll contemplate the trash cans in Hollywood’s back alleys with new, salacious eyes.

TRASH HUMPERS is a special kind of treat. The mockumentary approach drops you into a different, but spookily familiar world, offering a glimpse of life through the looking glass, a case study in what happens when you decide not to give a rat’s ass any more. If you like the idea of joyous public urination, this movie is for you. If not, then pick something else. Korine’s latest arcane vision has definite charms, but is not for everyone.

Karina Wilson writes at Horror Film History.