AFI FEST Los Angeles International Film Festival 2009

In an unnamed city as deliberately banal as the action is outrageous, a loose circle—a cult, perhaps?—carries on with all sorts of crazed, indescribable games and antics. All but the youngest in this strange family wear rubber masks that both conceal their identity and transform them into theatrical creatures, frequently singing and chanting in a way that makes your bones rattle and give you nightmares. While the movies have always contained a powerful means to tap into the id, Harmony Korine’s TRASH HUMPERS does more than tap. Using an aging videotape camera, he drills down until there seems to be no bottom, no limit to the madness. Wait until the end, when one of the “creatures” expounds on their “superiority” to their faceless neighbors, and it becomes clear that Korine has made his most indelible film yet exploring the outskirts of American life.

–Robert Koehler