Strong and Moving!

Simply A Masterpiece

Tells a fascinating and unsettling true story, and does so well, without pretending to have all the answers.

Story: It's very simple but honestly that is fine.

As a child Owen (Adrian Grenier) survived a fire that killed his parents and disfigured his sister Pearl (AnnaLynne McCord). He was raised by a hateful maternal grandmother Violet (Fionnula Flanagan). He ran away as a child and hasn't been home since.Owen is in therapy and has an off and on serious girlfriend Isabel (Angela Trimbur). Owen is apathetic and volunteers too much information which is part of the fun. Isabel is pregnant and threatens to abort the baby unless Owen straightens up and meets her demands, one of which is to re-unite with his estranged family...the one that blames Owen for accidentally starting the fire and really doesn't want to see him either.This is a cult film. It contains dark quirky humor. It has very little "horror" in it. All the characters are flawed and enjoyable. Not for everyone.Guide: F-word. Bad sex. Nudity (Angela Trimbur).Winner of Audience Award Boston Underground Film Festival 2016

A self destructive bulimic guy and her complaining girlfriend. This girl is not happy after 3 year relationship with his boyfriend and yet she never decided to leave. Why? This guy is having seizures during sex (that's the only funny scene in the whole movie). The grandma is a religious bitter woman with a double moral. The story, the dialogues and the acting is HORRENDUS. The final is pointless. The title of this movie is very accurate.

Pretty much faultless adult movie. Right from the off, the characters are deeply dark yet colourful. There is a thin line between and love and loathing that the film tightropes, almost skips, nonchalantly. I never felt disconnected for a single moment of its bizarre, unfolding world - with characters so well developed, I could smell them from the screen. I couldn't fault anything about it, right down to it not lasting a second longer than it needed to. Wonderful, original film making.

Richard Bates Jr's first film "Excision" was a film that stuck with me for a long time after I watched it, it was very unique and incredibly bizarre. So when I saw that Bates had a new movie coming out I was pretty excited to see what else he was capable of. While not nearly as memorable as Bates' first film, "Trash Fire" does have a bit of dark charm and was an interesting experience. The first thing that really stuck out to me in this film is the fact that just about all the characters are unlikable, everyone is somewhat of a jerk and everyone is pretty judgmental/critical of others. This wasn't a bad thing though, it actually worked pretty well and went smoothly with the premise of the film. As unlikable as all the characters were they were also very interesting, and were the best part of the movie in my opinion. Our main character "Owen" (played but Adrian Grenier) is mean and dismissive to just about everyone he meets and even when he's trying to be nice he still comes off as a dope. But once we learn more about Owen's family it becomes clear why he is the way he is, and that he may actually be one of the more normal people in his family. The story was alright, although it had a bit of a "Lifetime Movie" feel, but the dialogue really sets it apart from the overly simplified movies that come on that network. The conversations that the characters have throughout the film are actually pretty engaging, something you rarely ever see in a horror film. It's a good thing that the dialogue was well done because there is a lot of it, people who are not fans of dialogue heavy films will definitely be put off for the majority of this. I thought it worked though, and I found myself intrigued to see what the characters would say to each other next. Another thing that I think is important to point out is that this definitely isn't a traditional horror movie, in fact I've seen a lot of people make the claim that this isn't a horror movie at all. I would disagree though, while there isn't a masked mad man running around or a spooky ghost haunting people, "Trash Fire" does have a overall tone of horror and the final scene definitely creeped me out and left me with an uneasy feeling. It was refreshing to see the genre approached in a different kind of way.This won't be for everybody, but I enjoyed it, like "Excision" it was fairly odd and a little quirky. Worth checking out for people who don't mind a lot of dialogue and a bit of a slow pace.