Three vagrants in Halloween masks spend their nights humping rubbish bins and their days befriending likeminded individuals in this quizzical comedy from Harmony Korine. Whereas Korine's latter 'Spring Breakers' is a remarkable film that gradually reveals itself to be anything but what one would expect from its title, promotional posters and opening shots of bikini-clad beachgoers, 'Trash Humpers' is a film that delivers exactly one would expect from the title, posters and opening shots. Any semblance of plot is near non-existent here as the trio simply engage in strange and depraved behaviour for the whole 78 minute duration. Some of their mischief is admittedly memorable, such as making two flatmates eat pancakes covered in dishwashing liquid and teaching a well-dressed boy about various pranks, but the vast majority of the film comes off as extremely repetitive due to the very limited plot. It does not help that the film looks unappealing too, shot and edited on grainy VHS with large bouts of video interference. With their high pitched squealing and cackling laughs, the characters are additionally grating to follow around. It is easy enough to appreciate what Korine is trying to do here, presenting three individuals who manage to find enjoyment and fulfillment in life while defying social conventions. There is also a lot to like in the idea to shoot the film on VHS to give the material a found footage appearance, however, whether all this makes for a film that is entertaining, enlightening or at least engaging is highly debatable.
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sol-4 March 2017
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StevePulaski2 April 2013Harmony Korine's Trash Humpers is an ode to cinematic lawlessness and unadulterated mischief. This is the strangest film Korine has ever made, which says a lot seeing as he was the driving force behind Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy, two of the most unique films of the nineties decade. What makes it so significant in its perplexing obscurity is that it seems to be devoid of any meaning, where with Korine's two previous films you could totally sense there was something there - regardless of how it was presented or how subtle it appeared to be. Trash Humpers seems to have no meaning at all, and feels like Korine's handwritten insult to the unwritten laws of cinema that have threaded the cloth of conventionality.
The film is shot on a low-quality VHS camera and follows three grotesque subhumans around town, who commit several unthinkable atrocities such as vandalism and public indecency, almost obtaining a strange form of pleasure from it. The three characters also wear petrified masks, resembling elderly people, to hide their identity and further make themselves irredeemably ugly. That's what this picture is in a nutshell - "irredeemably ugly" - as well as repulsive, unappealing, beyond offbeat, and a tough sit, even for its seventy-eight minute runtime.
Korine's goal, if he even has any here, seems to be incorporating so much senseless imagery, unique style, lewd acts, shameless and ugly characters, and no cohesion in an attempt to make the most unwatchable film. And don't forget the touch of old school film editing and taping, which we'll get in to. It's one of the first times I'll call a film "unwatchable" not because of poor content but downright bad content committed by the film's characters. The stuff they are doing, humping mailboxes, running aimlessly screaming, breaking public property, and engaging in murder is unwatchable; the film itself is a mildly-amusing, but trivial novelty.
However, I especially enjoyed the film's shot-on-VHS style, making strong note of the choppiness, the messiness, and the long-forgotten imperfections of VHS-quality tapes in a flawless, digitally-driven world. This gives the film a very lowly look to it, almost appearing like a sick home movie that was released to the public due to a criminal mistake. Some have compared it to Jackass, due to the excessive amount of silliness and pride the characters take in reeking havoc. I simply can't, because Jackass made me smile and laugh, while viewing Trash Humpers left me deeply disturbed and somewhat scarred.
And yet, I emerge more positive than I thought I'd e. The tone of the picture is so eerie and unpleasant, and the effect it has on a viewer is somewhat lasting. I can't give it a completely positive review, for the film doesn't feature many attractive qualities other than its cinematography and is burdened by a longer-than-necessary length (forty-five minutes would've been more ideal). However, it earns a recommendation to the most adventurous and curious cinephiles - a group that might still emerge disgusted and somewhat horrified. It's a hard film to watch, and even harder to like, yet that could be Korine's ultimate goal overall.
Directed by: Harmony Korine. -
theloam16 July 2010"Make it, don't take it, make it, don't fake it."
Anyone who has ever played with a 90's camcorder will be familiar with the colours and textures seen from the beginning in this film. This is not some nostalgic sun drenched glo-fi romanticism however, this s**t is dark. And this s**t sticks.
The very first scenes are all just seconds long and in them we are introduced to a number of odd looking characters. They appear to be old but clearly with enough vigour to grind/bang/hump/whatever garbage bins and trash pussy as if they were still in their youthful prime. They certainly seem to have much youthful mischief and we watch in a kind of distanced, disgusted trance as they defecate, smash televisions, let off firecrackers and tap dance.
Are we to judge these people? Are they real or are they actors? What will they do next? Will we stick around long enough to find out or will we leave the theatre? Are we laughing with them or at them or worse, are they laughing at us?
The introduction given at the start mentioned Lynch, Hitchcock and Jackass. In the future I think you need only mention Korine. Whether he is saying something intelligent or something dumb about American outsider society, whether he is merely holding up a mirror to us wherever we are we can not say he isn't an original, an auteur and a provocateur. Should this be a film for film students to study or should it be one that the weirdo's in class try and make you watch? The themes thrown up (maybe that should be shat out) are certainly interesting but why on Earth would you want to deconstruct what is essentially a bunch of drunken old juvenile delinquents laughing and embracing failure, f**king trees and living their version of the American dream?
The most shocking parts of the film are the sounds not the visuals, if anything I found it oddly easy to watch after the initial punches in the eyes, my ears however did just not get accustomed. In one scene a man tells the most offensive 'jokes' to a rapt audience, and there are many clips showing just how noisy America is, even at night. There is a constant buzz of electric lights everywhere, there is the traffic and there are the crickets. Its enough to drive someone insane.
This film is beat poetry. This film is soapy pancakes. This film is noise metal. This film is giving a birthday cake to a constipated man sitting on the toilet. This film is a headache. This film is trapping your d**k in your flies. -
chaos-rampant17 January 2014Here's a film where a bunch of old people literally hump trash and lampposts, masturbate plants, throw firecrackers as they recite verse, tapdance in a parking lot and smash TVs. There is no story. There is no cinematic beauty to speak of, it's shot on ugly VHS and the artifact shows. It is, at first and possibly second and third glance, a pointless film designed to grate.
But what do we learn about ourselves if we shy away from the confrontation? Watching this, a self that criticizes comes to the fore for whom all of this has no point, he might not be altogether wrong, but let's surprise ourselves, pipe that self down and, not giving him final say in our view, see what else may pop up. Let's engage our own limits of sense.
What grates here seems to be this: old people do unnatural things, babies are dragged behind bicycles, elsewhere a kid hammers a baby's head or a man dressed as a french maid lies murdered in a pool of blood in a kitchen floor with a hammer next to him. Korine himself partly labors under the concept of a media satire, giving us bare sketches without the framework of story or visually dressed of the same violent inanity we consume elsewhere, not much interesting in itself.
The beauty comes once you start to see through that uptight self that can only settle for these things as part of a story. The men only wear masks of old people, the baby is a doll, we plainly know that the man in the french maid costume is playing dead and that is maple syrup on the floor. Unlike other films where the illusion sweeps us into belief, here we know it is all make believe, know this as we watch.
So why be struck by a sense of desolation?
It seems only because we are anxiously prepared to engage a world where the objects (a man lying murdered) are enlivened by their significance, supplying that horizon is what we're made to do. But here plainly they don't, there is no murder, no baby being savaged and only the form, the context of their significance. A man lies naked in the mud, the image carries a sense of something wrong. The assumption is why would he do that if something wasn't wrong? But how uptight is that? He's just a dude told to lie there.
Having peeled through this, what's left?
'Make it, don't fake it'. A dude lying there, faking it and yet not. The vivid reality of this being a play. The playing itself. Not just an ode to destruction, there's no value to that, but the joy of tapdancing in a parking lot. No mistake, it's one of the great films on the illusion of story and the real life beyond that, but you'll have to be still until that nagging old self exhausts his critique and you become the wandering eye finding unexpected happenings among unremarkable America.
It pays off with more evident value in Spring Breakers. There the partying figures pushing against the limits of sense become desirable young girls, the landscape is similarly inversed from drab middle America to alluring Florida, the humping becomes twerking, but the journey is the same marvelous one: finding in the standard perception of something being empty of value, a deeper one which is the capacity for immersion.
There are plenty of films about a staid beauty, like Baraka. This is for those who want to get dirty living it through. -
MoonBog21 October 2012I need to string this review out to ten lines (IMDB rules), which will be a struggle. But kind of appropriate after watching a dull, repetitive, derivative attempt to challenge the viewers, which was clearly strung out from about 5 minutes worth of ideas to a tortuous 74 minutes.
Trash Humpers is the cinematic equivalent of Piero Manzoni's "Atrist's Sh#t", but not as original. Shocking? No. Provocative? No. It may have been both of these thirty years ago.
Remarkable only because so many people, some of them very intelligent, where duped into thinking this is actually worth watching.
Anyone for sh#t in a can? -
SteveHistory17 December 2010Like watching someone pick at a scab, this movie was painful and pointless from the opening scene. It is hilarious to read glowing reviews from alleged film experts that attempt to praise this piece of garbage. I only made it through half of the movie (and much of that was on fast forward) until I could feel myself getting dumber. I finally had wasted enough time and turned it off. I would LOVE to talk for fifteen minutes with some of the reviewers that praised this movie and see what OTHER cinematic classics they recommend. Granted some of the scenes will stick with me for a long time, but I also saw a dog get hit by a car when I was eleven--that has stuck with me as well.
Avoid at all costs unless you have much more spare time to waste than I do. -
Harmony Korine returns to his classically-rough style of film making, in this peculiar film centered around four elderly people who roam the streets. Their acts consist of vandalism, destruction of objects, and, well, quite literally humping trash - or trees, for that matter.
Trash Humpers has no real plot to it. We simply watch these people do the most obscure things, in a mock-doc found footage kinda style. I'm not going to delve into any of the 'story' details because there is really nothing to say. It's just as I described above, really - extremely odd.
In terms of style, Korine has gone back to his roots of Gummo and Julien Donkey-Boy, by using very low quality cameras, grainy visuals, some out of focus moments, and freehand camera movements. Things just happen, and the camera just looks on. What is interesting in this film is that Korine decides to go all out with the hand-held VHS camera work, and almost makes it a character in itself. We are aware that one of the characters is in control of the camera, which is why I would refer to it as 'found footage'. What we gain from this is a knowledge that the characters are in control, and thus, they are the ones that determine what we see, and what we do not see. It not only gives us more of an insight into their characters, but it promotes a very natural and realistic feeling in the film. It also gives the audience a feeling of being right there with the characters. We are, for lack of s better word, trapped with these characters for the entire 74 minute run-time. We see what they see, or watch they want us to see. We are basically forced to watch what they do, how they do it, but we are left to figure out 'why?'
Which leads into my next point, or question. Why? Why are these characters doing this? I'd like to think I have some sort of idea of what the film is trying to do. However, it is the age old question of 'how far does the film need to go in order to make its point?' Does this film really need to show us the amount of weird acts it does, just to clarify it's ideas? You can ask this for many films: did A Serbian Film really need to show 'newborn porn' in order to get the point across? Did Salo really need to show people eating poop to get its point across? I guess that's left for us to decide, but for me, I can only get so much out of watching people do random weird acts before wondering where we are actually going with it.
To me, this film is a look at forgotten people. The ignored underbelly of America, which Korine loves studying. What I took from this film was a sense of freedom. People letting go. Returning to their childlike ways, with a lot more debaucheries, of course. A group of old people with pretty much nothing to live for, they could be sad and depressed. However, they choose not to do so. They choose to be happy, to be free, to let go. Rather that whither away, they get up and out into the world. They simply enjoy themselves. I'm not one to judge, so if enjoyment to them is humping a plastic bin, then so be it. The point is that they are enjoying what they have, and living freely, without a care in the world. Albeit slightly demented. The humping of the trash could quite literally show their love and affection for what they have, and where they live. They are bottom of the pile. The opposite of the American dream, but they choose to accept it and embrace it. I feel like this is amplified by Korine's characters speech towards the end. Maybe I'm just babbling, maybe the emperor has no clothes, but I guess Korine has left that for us to decide.
Despite looking into this film, and picking out some meaning here and there, I definitely think this is Korine's weakest work. For me, despite being technically intriguing, and having interesting characters, the film still lacks that total conviction for me. I feel like if you want a meaning, you really have to explore it and go digging. I don't mind that, but my point is that this film doesn't initially have a massive amount to it. For some there will be meaning to pick out, and aspects to respect, but at the end of the day this film is just old people humping trash and carrying out debaucheries. There doesn't appear to be anything obvious to it, and do they really need to show us acts THIS obscure. Does the film really need to be this strange, random and vulgar just to get its point across? And how far can we decipher this film before there is nothing left to look into, yet we are still watching the same acts. We can only get so much from seeing the same acts over and over. Still, I'd like to think I got something. And artistically, this film is vastly unique and different to anything you'll ever see. Love it or hate it, I can confirm that these characters and their acts will linger in your mind. -
framptonhollis12 February 2017...but certainly not very good, either.
Believe it or not, there were a few things about this movie that I genuinely liked. I found some of the weird comedy to be hilarious and laughed out loud several times throughout the film. I also thought that Korine did a pretty good job at creating a really dirty and disturbing atmosphere. These elements of both comedy and horror both work to make the movie at least watchable at times, but unfortunately do not save it from being just an overall bad movie.
Perhaps I found it to not be absolutely TERRIBLE only because of how low my expectations were before watching this oddity. I thought it looked like, well, trash-but then I found some highly well done aspects and thought that this movie could possibly be okay, but then it just dragged on and on and on. At just 70 minutes, this is a needlessly long movie that easily could have been half as long and much better.
I would also like to comment on the film's annoying and ugly visual style. It's obvious that it was an experimental, stylistic choice to have the movie shot on crappy looking video, and it does work slightly to the films advantage to make it seem more creepy and trashy, but it just doesn't appeal to me in any way. There's other, more tolerable ways to make your movie look sort of real and dirty.
I would not recommend this movie to most people, but if you're curious enough and a big fan of Harmony Korine's work, I would give it a mild and cautious recommendation. -
Chris Knipp30 September 2009Young provocateur filmmaker Harmony Korine, who lives in and grew up in Nashville, has made a film in trashy cheap VHS that evokes the nightmare world of degenerate southern redneck swine.
He doesn't exactly say that. He explains when talking of the film that growing up, there were some scary old people who used to peek in windows at night, particularly next door where there was a young girl. Now the underpasses and open lots that he roamed as a youth are full of trash, and looking at trash receptacles one day the idea came to him of people humping them. He couldn't get real old people to play his roles so he gathered together a group of friends earlier this year who wear old person masks in the film. A couple of weeks of warming up and a couple of weeks of wandering around and shooting as the cast improvised and the film, like a sketch made on a whim, was done. It's perhaps an antidote to the more elaborate process involved in Korine's last film, 'Mr. Lonely,' a more straightforward film starring Diego Luna, Samantha Morton, and others.
There is no plot, just a series of random scenes. A boy tries and fails to sink a basketball in a hoop. The garbage cans get humped. A screeching old lady rides a small dirt bike around with a baby doll tied dragging behind. The boy takes a hatchet to a doll in a parking lot and tries to chop up its head. A man recites an improvised poem about a nation of trash while one of the masked oldsters sits in a wheelchair and throws out firecrackers at a bunch of balloons. There is some nakedness. There is some nasty talk. There is almost the fear Korine said his wife felt when he played a VHS tape somebody'd given him, that it was going to turn into a snuff film. Korine wanted this to look and feel like found footage, like stuff on a strange videotape found in the trash somewhere. Made by old and demented perverts living a free and aimless life.
Some of the images may evoke various sources such as Diane Arbus or Ralph Eugene Meatyard's still photos (strangeness, retardation, aimlessness, Gothic vacuity), but he denies any such connections. Somebody has suggested Korine is treading on the ground of early John Waters. But Waters has a knack for plot; even Korine's structured 'Kids' scenario rambles. And Waters has a great sense of humor. 'Trash Humpers' is ridiculous -- it's a horror movie that's also a comedy -- but there is no wit in it. It's a kind of improvised voyeurism. It does succeed in wandering well outside the mainstream. Its use of a very primitive kind of VHS reminds us as in a far more complex way did David Lynch's beautiful 'Inland Empire' that seeming "found" footage can be deeply evocative and scary. Even 'Blair Witch Project' comes to mind. Not many filmmakers would have staged a series of casually revolting stunts like those encapsulated randomly and (he says) in order of staging that Korine dumps on us here. It's a statement about limits and about freedom. And it's been acknowledged as valid. Even 'Variety' concludes its review of the film with the line: "Across the board, tech credits are appalling -- in a good way." Korine is an odd one (and an articulate interviewee in the NYFF press Q&A) and for festival and film buff audiences he is a force to reckon with. The question is, what's next? Will he go backwards or forwards?
Dennis Lim has written an appreciative piece on the film for Cinema Scope. "Can the most regressive work yet by an artist known for arrested development also be a sign of his newfound maturity?" Now there's a bit of interpretive convolution for you. And the statement implied by the question may be true. But still the remaining question is, what's next?
Shown as part of the main slate of the New York Film Festival at Lincoln Center 2009. Premiered at Toronto. -
Ralphus21 July 2011Three little devils jumped over a wall...or so one of the characters sings constantly throughout the film, seemingly in lieu of the ability to express her reaction to events taking place around her. The three devils of the movie--or at least the three utter utter FREAKS--travel about randomly smashing stuff up, masturbating, humping stuff, and bumping into other random freaks they meet here and there. It's best if the people they meet entertain them. Smut works best of all. The three freaks giggle and chuckle and sing the three little devils song at any bit of smut or sexual talk or wanton violence that amuses them. The film is peppered with scenes of the depraved trio humping things: trees, walls, fences...trash cans seem to be particularly popular (or should I say, particularly arousing). They take great joy from smashing stuff up, too. So, humping and smashing and giggling at smut (and a bit of murder) is what these FREAKS do best.
So what's it all about? I'd seen Gummo, so I knew Harmony Korine was a director with plenty to say. I haven't read the other reviews here or postings or any comments by the director, so my thoughts here are purely my own response to the film and may well be way off what Korine intended or what others see in it, but, no matter. I think it's about a consumer society that produces trash--obsolescence, consumption, wastefulness, trinkets, toys, the blandishments of consumerism. Human trash, too. Of a sort. Humans that get left behind--by education, wealth, affection, nurture, stability. This film shows three (four, really, plus a few more 'real life' examples) pieces of disenfranchised human trash doing their 'thang' amongst all the rest of the trash, because it doesn't matter what they do, no-one cares about them so why should they care about anything--even if they were intellectually able to. At one point, the female freak says, "I don't mean to do wrong, Lord". This is the closest one of the characters comes to some kind of lucidity, awareness of her condition and the behaviors she takes part in. Otherwise, it's just a litany of "Three little devils", "Make it make it", and "Single girl" (the three most common 'riffs' repeated in the film). These songs are meaningless, too, because, again, it just doesn't matter. It's all just trash trash trash: hump it, kill it, laugh at it, jerk off at it, sleep on it, fall over in it...who cares! As I said, maybe I'm way off the mark with my interpretation. Nonetheless, there is often hilariousness (and a touch of envy?) when these characters disport themselves with utter brainless abandon in the most ridiculous and antisocial ways--I kind of wish I could dance crazily and giggle uninhibitedly as I smashed up a TV in a parking lot for no reason at all.
The film ends with the woman freak having a real live baby in her possession. We've earlier seen what she and her fellow freaks do with a doll and with the 'education' of a young boy, so the thought of her having a real baby has the potential to send shivers down the spine. But...Make It Make It Don't Fake It. "Three little devils jumped over a wall..." -
OChrist15 November 2009Comparing this worthless, punishing swill to even the worst of John Waters or David Lynch gives it way too much credit. So Harmony Korine (a great name for a gangster's moll) was able to replicate the look of a crappy 8th generation VHS videotape? That's some feat. So he got a bunch of irritating exhibitionists to unconvincingly disguise themselves as old people and then set them loose to hump trashcans and break old TV sets? Bravo. The only true accomplishment here is getting intelligent people to A) masochistically sit through this non-movie and then B) actually try to critique and interpret it like it's something more than the pathetic indulgence of someone who has so much contempt for his audience that he makes Marguerite Duras look like Nora Ephron.
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oOgiandujaOo_and_Eddy_Merckx26 October 2009Oh my god, what the heyeeell is going on with this movie? Korine's latest film is a cinematic quasar. It's a jamboree of mad mad footage filmed as if on VHS: you actually get the auto-tracking banner come up on the screen a couple of times - which is pure nostalgia for me. It's meant to maybe be some weird found tape that you could have got in a job lot at a house sale or something.
You've got these three people, two young men and a young woman, out cruising some semi-rural Southern suburbs, wearing masks that make them look liked wrinkled pensioners. They delight in sheerly bizarre behaviour, one of my very favourite scenes is the trio in a car park throwing up these fluorescent light strips way up into the air and then watching them smash. Also as the title of the movie implies, they hump trash cans. It's not all sick yet harmless frolics though, they do some pretty bad stuff too, although that's maybe for the viewer to interpret (what is this artifact we're seeing?).
I've always liked movies where you get people "spassing", the von Trier's movie the Idiots, and the scene with the daughter and the nurse in Fassbinder's Chinese Roulette. And I recommend spassing to you too, do a little spassing, it is damned good fun, just do some dumb stuff, give yourself a break! This movie is a kind of dark homage to spassing. The point I think that is being made is, well OK, if you're going to say that this way of life that these people are following is stupid, how about your nine-to-five two-point-four-children prayers-on-Sunday life? I know which I prefer.
The one great part of spassing is lunatic ditties, and I was reminded of being a kid again listen to these ones endlessly repeated, "Three little devils jumped over the wall, chopped of their heads and murdered them all"; "Make it, make it, don't take it, suck it, suck it, don't **** it".
I wasn't shocked by anything the movie had to offer, however it is clear that this is going to offend a lot of folks, and the ending is really very deliberately provocative, so much so that I was giggling. If you showed this to the average bible-belter, they'd have an aneurysm.
Pure genius. -
I saw TRASH HUMPERS at a screening in L.A. where Harmony Korine was there to introduce it and also do a Q&A afterwards.
I was wildly disappointed with the lame array of questions that were thrown at him. Probably 90% were brainless, pointless, and uninteresting.
The question I wanted to ask him was "is Trash Humpers in any way a statement or mockery on TRASH ART in general?".
To me, this is how the movie came across. With a name like Trash Humpers, what else can you expect? It is one of the most pointless and trashiest movies I have ever seen - but that is exactly what I came for, and it effectively delivered that.
It's full of humping, cussing, assorted offensive jokes, violence, vandalism, religion bashing, and anything else you'd expect in a trash art film. The difference is that with most trash art, the point is to try to shock you, scar you, or offend you. Trash Humpers, to me, seems more like it's doing these things in such a way that it's all a big joke - to take all of the other movies that have already done it, and re-enact them while giggling.
After all, I feel that movies really are coming to a point where it is nearly impossible to shock people through exploitative sex, violence, etc. So why not find a nice comfortable place where we can live in that kind of world for an hour and a half and not try to shock anyone? We can just float through it and accept this demoralized joke of a world - that's the world that Trash Humpers creates to me.
Unfortunately, when you start mocking your own genre or personal style of art, along with that comes the instinctive drive to take it to a far enough level where you are pushing people away. I felt that with several obnoxious things repeating throughout the film (such as Harmony's character constantly YELLING in your ear through entire scenes from right behind the camera) - he was showing signs of this kind of behavior. This is something I have observed from my own experiences as part of artistic projects, as well as observing friends mocking their own work. I have watched this kind of behavior occur with a lot of people towards the end of their artistic cycle.
Of course, my interpretation of the movie could be completely off from how Harmony sees it. But, it's nice to have different perspectives isn't it? I enjoyed it - especially the fact that I got to see it in a theater with Harmony in attendance. But, I don't know if I'd ever want to watch it again. We'll always have Gummo for those endless viewings... -
super-susann4 December 2009If I was still 15 years old I would probably have thought of it as daring and provocative and enjoyed it for the very same reason. But since I'm not fifteen anymore thats not good enough.
The first 30 minutes of the film I kind of enjoyed. Weird people doing weird things, well I can go for that, but the movie should have ended after about 30 minutes. There is no plot at all and you don't get to know any of the characters so there is simply nothing to be curious about in the movie. You don't give a s**t about what happens to any of the characters or how the movie will end.
The only thing that left me after having seen the move was a bade taste in my mouth and I couldn't say anything about it besides that the song/saying "Make it make it, make it, don't fake it, make it, make it..." was quite funny.
Personally I think highly of Harmony Korines earlier work and I guess he is just taking the p**s with this movie. If it will be well written of and seen as a work of a genius, I think he will be as surprised as I will be. But if he decides to cut it down to a short movie, than I say go for it. -
ihrtfilms4 August 2010Harmony Korine knows how to make a film that will interest audiences and have them talking about it for some time to come, Gummo is a prime example. whilst his last film Mister Lonely was perhaps his most mainstream effort, Trash Humpers presents itself with more accessibility than Gummo. But none the less, it's not a film that everyone will want to see and that was proved by the amount of walk outs during the screening, I counted perhaps 20.
Nothing really happens in Trash Humpers, the characters, actors made to look old, literally do hump trash cans as well as an array of other inanimate objects, give branches oral sex, smash a variety of objects such as TV's and tap dance. There are surreal conversations and offensive jokes. But it never gets to offensive, it's never violent in an over the top way and in fact it's quite harmless, if not strange. It's also quite funny in parts, the acts we see are often so bizarre, you cannot help but laugh. It does become slightly more serious near the end and I began to wander when it would end, so is the repetition of what we see.
The point of the film is less clear. Does it present a image of small town rednecks with nothing better to do than behave strangely? Perhaps. Maybe it presents the notion of being an anti film, crap and pointless, with the lowest standard of production values. It is perhaps just there to provide a conversation point on the very topic. In that it's perhaps interesting. Easily can be compared to Von Tries 'The Idiots', but that film at least had a coherent plot that whilst is a vile story, made sense, whilst Trash Humpers, doesn't and that's where for me the film falters.
More reviews at my site iheartfilms.weebly.com -
chow9133 April 2016I'd like to note I am currently writing this review from my padded cell.
How bad could a movie shot on VHS about masked homeless people humping piles of trash really be? It's directed by Harmony Korine, that's how bad it its.
What else is there to say about this movie that could possibly convey how horrible it is other than simply stating it's a Harmony Korine film (video) about masked homeless people humping piles of trash? WHAT ELSE IS THERE TO SAY?
Since I can't talk about the movie, I'll talk about the people giving this movie positive reviews. They're liars. They're lying to themselves when they say this film (video) has any value at all. They're lying when they say Harmony Korine proves the nothingness of being. Because Harmony Korine openly brags about being a drug addict, and his films (videos) really shows it.
'Trash Humpers' isn't even amusing the way 'The Room' or 'Troll 2' are. This is just plain bad. Not even Tom Servo and Crow T. Robot could make this film (video) watchable.
Now it's time for my electro shock therapy. I'll be needing a lot of it after watching 'Trash Humpers.'
"Make it make it don't fake it."
AAAAHHHHHHHH!!!!!! -
valis194915 February 2012TRASH HUMPERS (dir. Harmony Korine) A Transgressive Festival of The Grotesque which appears to be a crude extrapolation of Dogme 95, Cinema Verite, and Bill Griffith's comic strip, ZIPPY THE PINHEAD. The film features a "loser-gang cult-freak collective", and is shot on poor-quality VHS with a minimum of production values. The actors are made-up to appear retirement age or more, and this adds an off-beat and twisted unreality to the film which would not work if the characters had been younger. It's very hard to accept people of this age to act in such an uncivilized manner, and it also introduces an inadvertent element of tenderness from time to time. 500 copies of the soundtrack to the film were released with each sleeve "hand-filthed" and signed by director Harmony Korine. PROCEED AT YOUR OWN RISK.
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I wish there was a zero out of ten choice, because giving this piece of manure a one makes me feel like I just donated money to Bernie Madoff's defense fund. The makers of this so-called film are laughing at anyone who says this is some piece of brilliant performance art. It is a total waste of time and effort. The "characters" if they must be called that are just the director's relatives and friends in five dollar masks running around acting like they have some kind of mental disorder. The use of VHS video film was probably made for budgetary reasons, nothing more. It is hilarious to think it was a stylistic choice made by some thoughtful auteur. Please. If that is all it takes to impress people, then we really need to be looking at what it takes to make a decent film in this day and age. Perhaps next time there will be no video at all, just a soundtrack. Actually, I wish this film had been made that way, as it then would have been at least watchable on some degree. In conclusion, if you have a choice between watching this garbage or watching your pants spinning in a clothes dryer, choose the latter and thank me later.
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yaktheripper26 July 2012People either respect it or disrespect it...you watch a movie like "Trash Humpers" and either you get it...or you don't. Not saying I do "get it"...it's like "getting" a surreal dream from some psychotic, redneck stranger you've never met. Is it art? Yes. There are more then a few moments when director Harmony Korine finds simple yet profound beauty where we would not expect, and with a VHS camera no less...reminiscent of "American Beauty"'s young camcorder holder. There is also, for me, a message in the madness. Is Korine slyly telling us what monsters the previous generations have been...how they "hump" up everything they touch...how they worship, even sexualized materialism? If so then I get that. It's too subliminal and abstract to be preachy and it's to shockingly grotesque to be analyzed by the mainstream for that message. There is a very talented and intelligent film maker below this "trash". There is value to this film. I dare to submit it in the realm of genius.
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catpantry3 March 2020Tryed to watch this, had planned to watch it for the rest of the year (starting from the beginning of the year). Buuut, i decided to walk laps around a brand new john deer tractor. Sometime people would pass by and wave. I would wave also, but i only allowed myself to wave at an exact point (ounce a lap). So sometimes they'd wave and i wouldent wave back until i was at a another point in space and time during the lap.
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Beard_Of_Serpico20 April 2020Trash Humpers is a movie which sort of plays out like an art house version of MTV's Jackass but whereas Jackass is funny because it's dumb and crass and you can laugh at it over some beers with friends, Trash Humpers is just depressing. It's a non movie. There's no characters, no story, no memorable lines, just people in creepy masks which make them look elderly being weird and breaking things, simulating sex with tree branches and trash cans and screaming for an hour and a half. I think if this was made by anyone other than Harmony Korine it would have been ignored and forgotten. Was he trying to make a bad movie on purpose as some kind of statement? it just wastes your time and it made me angry watching it. Some people consider it to be deep and edgy with some kind of deeper meaning. It isn't, it's crap and it gets very annoying very quickly. It's the cinematic equivalent of looking at a dead dog on the side of the road. Will you remember seeing this dead dog? Yeah of course but did enjoy it or gain anything from seeing the dead dog? No, you felt gross and then got on with your life.
One character does play a blastbeat on the drums in one random scene which was pretty sick but other than that there's no reason to watch this. It isn't even a funny bad movie you can make fun of, it's just oppressively bad. -
After my recent article about "Trash Humpers," I was graciously invited by the filmmakers to see it for myself. Honestly, I was excited going into the film, but nothing could prepare me for the film itself, which was equal parts humor and horror. The film, if you catch the title, is about a threesome (sometimes foursome) of elderly cretins that live on the outskirts of civilization. They spend the film smashing the cast offs of society, whether it's rubbish, old appliances, or even the human bodies. Once can sit and argue about the artistic merits of its Dogme 95 influence and Cinema Verite, but let's be honest. It's just ugly. All the characters (with the exception of one) are disgusting, vile, and boorish. The locations, mostly back alleys, side streets, and ruined homes, look awful. The props, costumes, and makeup are awful looking. The movie, shot with natural and available light on the long dormant VHS format, looks terrible. What's amazing about Trash Humpers is that was the intention by filmmaker Harmony Korine and his team all along. It was intended to be an artifact, something to be discovered fifty generations from now so that people in the future could see how society in the twenty-first century is depraved. Much like we now watch The Great Train Robbery and Birth of a Nation with quiet reverence, the students of the year 2300 will watch Trash Humpers and see what life was truly like for citizens in turn of the century America. They'll see the elderly gyrate their bodies on trash cans. They'll see small children deface babies. They'll see Siamese twins forced to make pancakes and then eat them with dish soap in lieu of syrup. The film is a thinly veiled metaphor for the fall of suburban consumer culture, where perfectly good items are discarded and destroyed. The amazing thing about this film is that you literally have no idea what's going to happen next. Unlike the current crop of by-the-numbers popcorn films that infest multiplexes this time of year, there's no "setup" or "payoff." No "good guys" or "bad guys." I can tell you right now this is the only film of the summer that will have baby dolls being dragged on the back of bicycles. What's exciting are the characters that occupy the frame, and after watching this film, I can tell you that people will be talking about this one for years to come.
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kncwdws13 February 2023I'm honestly surprised I enjoyed this movie as much as I did. I first want to say that I completely understand why people would not like this movie. Mainly there is Zero story structure. What you are really getting is a slice of life film following three deviants being filmed. What starts out as assuming these people playing a character in which they jump trash and do amateur Jackass mischief, we slowly realize that they aren't playing characters.
Harmony has a real talent for creating extremely realistic characters. And trash humpers is no exception. The odd mannerisms they do such as repeating random phrases in an almost compulsive way or laughing unnaturally at on the wrong beat. It feels like they are so far gone emotionally and spiritually, that they can't even express themselves like humans. Eventually you start to wonder if they are even are wearing masks. -
james_kenyon16 August 2012Awful doesn't begin to compare how terrible this film is, i made an IMDb account just to post this review, first off it's not even a film it has no narrative and i don't think they even speak a full sentence within through out it, if its meant to be arty and poncey it's not it's just awful, it looks like it been filmed and edited on a iphone i don't know what else to really say but don't watch it i do not know what the director was thinking he must of been high smoking meth and crack while shooting up some skag at the same time or he is just plain retarded who knows he probably doesn't himself
TRUST ME FROM SOME ONE WHO WASTED TIME WATCHING THIS SHITE DO NOT WATCH -
scottsautobody22 December 2010Um, what can I say. This "film" made me dumber. I feel like an idiot for watching this "film". Can you really call this a "film". Just because you put some crap on VHS, does not make it a film! What total garbage! Enter pun here. WTF. You must be totally retarded to love this "film". Who the F#@$ voted high for this film. I didn't laugh once. Can't believe I watched the whole thing! These people have waaaaaaaaaaaayyyyyyyyyyy to much time on there hands. Go get a real job! You suck as filmmakers, if one considered this a "film". Man, I don't think I would watch another film from these retards ever! I kept watching hoping that something cool would happen. Boy do I feel stupid. Only an idiot would like this crap! Who voted for this thing? What in the world were these idiots thinking? No wonder the director is a total flop. I would watch the other movies, but I am now too stupid to do so. WTF. Jackass ripoff. Totally lame. WTF. WTF. What total crap. Are they trying to be funny? Ironic? WTF. I am now dumber. Thanks retards. WTF. I can feel my brain shrinking. If it is any consolation, my cat watched for 30 seconds, and got bored. He's 2 months old. WTF.