Trash Humpers (2010)
Directed by Harmony Korine
Follow a small group of elderly “Peeping Toms” through the shadows and margins of an unfamiliar world. Crudely documented by the participants themselves, we follow the debased and shocking actions of a group of true sociopaths the likes of which have never been seen before. Inhabiting a world of broken dreams and beyond the limits of morality, they crash against a torn and frayed America.
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What critics compared Trash Humpers to
The opposite of Korine's relatively posh, celeb-impersonator snooze, Mr. Lonely, Trash Humpers suggests a cretinous remake of John Water 's Pink Flamingos or perhaps a musical created by the brain-eaters from the original Night of the Living Dead —and, like Jack Smith 's Flaming Creatures, compounds its sins by pulverizing the rules of "normal" filmmaking.
Korine has also experimented with formats—shot on distressed outmoded videotape, his 2009 Trash Humpers is as radical in its way as was the phone-camera verité of Tangerine.
The sideshow characters in "Spring Breakers" are prettier than Korine's usual protagonists, especially when compared to the Halloween-mask-clad stars of his last film, "Trash Humpers."
Continuing in that vein, Korine's prior feature, the homegrown "Trash Humpers," a VHS-shot chronicle of a bunch of misfits in old-man latex masks behaving badly in Korine's Nashville neighborhood, seemed to this viewer to be something of a practical joke on film critics (see Rotten Tomatoes to gauge how well it worked).
Filmmaker Harmony Korine is known for making abrasive, experimental films ( Gummo , Trash Humpers ) appreciated by a small audience.
Actually, this universe belongs to Harmony Korine, the brat provocateur whose previous movies — including 1995’s “Kids’’ (which he only wrote but everyone gives him credit for anyway), 1997’s “Gummo,’’ and 2009’s “Trash Humpers’’ — have enraged proper-thinking audiences and critics while building a small, devoted base of cult followers.
The movie affords an opportunity for three young Disney-affiliated actresses—Selena Gomez (Wizards of Waverly Place), Vanessa Hudgens (High School Musical), and Ashley Benson (Pretty Little Liars)—to scuff up their wholesome images a bit; and it allows Rachel Korine, the director’s wife, to wander through another of her husband’s films (she also featured in his Mr. Lonely and Trash Humpers).
Technically, Spring Breakers is a far cry from the ultra-lo-fi camerawork and storytelling he implemented in his last feature, 2009’s Trash Humpers.
Not coincidentally, this provocation was backed by the team behind Harmony Korine’s grotesquely funny Trash Humpers (and co-written by Korine’s brother).