What does an experimental movie starring people in prosthetic masks who look like a cross between Johnny Knoxville/Spike Jones’ “Old Man” Jackass characters and the creepy dancing Six Flags guy and film raconteur Kevin Smith have in common? Probably more than you think. But I’ll get to that in a second. First, you probably want to know what the hell Trash Humpers is.
Trash Humpers is a movie with a pretty self-explanatory title. It is about people who hump trash. Actually, I don’t think it is “about” people who hump trash, because the word about implies that over the course of the film we would learn something about these characters. We don’t. There is no plot. There is no narrative structure. I think I went through Joseph Campbell’s hero’s journey looking for a plot, and I couldn’t find one. Though, I did learn a little something about myself along the way.
So, is Trash Humpers a piece of performance art? Well, they are performing something, I guess. And art is inherently subjective, so I suppose some one somewhere would call it art. But is it entertaining? Sure… for about 15 minutes.
Picture this, the “film” (it was shot on a VHS camera, by a one of the trash humpers, as a record of their trash humping misdeeds) opens on one of these “old men” lying fully clothed on top of a large trash can. And he’s humping it. Furiously, furiously humping it. Cut to another old man trash humper orally manipulating a tree branch. Cut to an old lady trash humper humping a trash can. See a pattern? And just when you begin to think that it is just going to be old people humping trash, the start to smash things. They smash a non-flat screen TV, they smash a wall. SMASH!
I was able to acquire a copy of the script. This is all it said: Hump, hump, hump. Smash, smash, hump, hump, hump, smash. SMASH! HUMP! Smash. Hump. Hump-hump. Smash-hump-hump. SMASH! Huuuuuuuuuuuummmmmmmppppppppp! Fin.
At one people an actual gray haired (really long hair with a scraggly beard) man in nothing but a diaper, recited a poem extolling the virtues of trash humping. Here is where you say: Hey, maybe they are going somewhere with this. This is also where you would be wrong. This fellow wasn’t their Moses sent to lead them to their trash humping holy land. How do I know? Because two scenes later he is killed by one of the trash humpers who also likes to smear blood on his face. Back to square one, I guess.
But what about the scene where they tried baby dolls to their bikes and rode around in a circle? Yeah, um, I don’t know.
But what about the scene where 13-year-old Drew Carey (yes, this little kid looks like he could be a young Drew Carey, complete with a square fat head, glasses and a suit with a skinny tie) puts a baby doll in a plastic bag and chokes it and then takes it out and tries to destroy it with a hammer? What does that mean? Hell if I know.
Yep, most of the movie just screams “LOOK HOW WEIRD WE ARE!” I’m not sure if the film is a joke that all the participants are in on, or if it is just a joke. Might be both.
What does it all mean? It means I am going to fall asleep with 20 minutes left and then put the DVD back in the Netflix sleeve and mail it away. Also, the Humper who does the camera work makes the most annoying squealing noises and it is beyond goddamn annoying. It’s godawful and becomes more grating than a plane full of crying babies with diarrhea who eat nothing by blue cheese hummus.
Trash Humpers, for me, is a complete and utter failure on all levels – except one. One very important level. I have never seen anything like it. It was an original work and sadly that is a rarity these days. Which brings me to Kevin Smith. See, I got there.
The internet has been having quite an episode about this new film Red State. For those who don’t know, Mr. Smith took his new movie–that he made without studio help with $4 million he raised himself–to Sundance where he said on Twitter that he would pick a distributor. Of course, this lead everyone one to assume that he was going to auction the move off to the highest bidder and it would be released like any other movie. But that didn’t happen. Instead he sold it to himself and is going to distribute it himself. First by taking the movie on the road and selling tickets to screenings with a Q & A afterwards which he will use the proceeds of to pay back the original investment and then put the rest toward prints and wider distribution.
And I say, kudos to you, Mr. Smith. But I don’t understand why it is such a big deal? And for the journalist’s out there complaining about it, isn’t it way more interesting to write about something like this than to write about how a movie went to Sundance, was sold and then distributed? You know, something that happens all the time? Plus, established artists in other genres have been forsaking the “system” and have been releasing their albums, art and whatnot by themselves for years now. I don’t think it is all that risky. He’s been in the business for a long time, made a name for himself, has a couple of the most popular podcasts on the internet, as released movies that consistently make $30 million theatrically a pop and do even better in DVD sales. The man is a one-man carnival. He doesn’t need expensive tv-spots and bus ads, he has 1,727,095 Twitter followers and a base of fans who maybe weren’t going to throw themselves on their swords for Cop Out, but will most surely come out in droves for his horror flick with religious undertones. I know I will. I can’t afford to put down $100 to see one of these advance screenings and Q&A’s but I’ll be there opening night for the wide release with my $11. Why? Because it’s new.
Let’s face it. Hollywood is broken. This last summer I tried to see a movie a week (hence the blog title) and ended up seeing 10 movies and 7 of them were either sequels or based on books/video games/TV characters. In fact, as I write this 8 of the 14 movies at my local theater are also based on other works, sequels or both. There is a Yogi Bear movie in 2011. Two Garfield movies and right now I am sure there is a struggling screenwriter in a Starbucks in L.A. trying to burn through the first draft of his Maude re-imagining. (Might I suggest the title: Red, White and Maude. Or maybe: In Maude We Trust? Call me Hollywood.) If this self-funded perpetual motion studio idea of Kevin Smith works and it yields one or two fresh movies a year, then I’m happy and everybody wins. And they don’t have to all be great, but as long as they are original and trying to be something good, I am in. Remember, I watched almost all of Trash Humpers just to get the idea of a Dallas movie out of my head.
I don’t hope the movie industry as we know it crumbles because of this either. I am not anti-studio. I loved some of those remakes and good movies still come out, but these days, it seems like they are fewer and farther between. Without studios we wouldn’t have Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings, or The Harry Potter movies or Inception or the good pre-Pearl Harbor Michael Bay flicks. But there is room for both kinds of movies in a 30-screen cineplex. And if more people start to do their own thing and those movies start getting awards and making more money, I am sure the studios will soon go back to making smarter, edgy, more indie movies. After all, it is show business and they will make what makes money.
All that aside though, it is really nice to see someone who could be living comfortably and playing by the rules and not rocking the boat, do something unexpected. Like I said before, it is a marginal risk (way less risky than a convenience store worker putting $28,000 on a few credit cards though) and shaking things up. But it is a guy going at it with his own name on the line. I’m not sure if it qualifies as punk rock, but it is pretty gonzo. Get Kevin Smith some more pot (and maybe dip it is mescaline) and enjoy the ride. But seriously, there is really no need to see Trash Humpers. Watch the clip below and call it a day. You don’t need to see 80 minutes of it. It’s bullshit.
TRASH HUMPERS TRAILER from Trash Humpers on Vimeo.
