Trash Fire (2016) ***1/2

After loving Excision (my recent rewatch review here) when I first saw it towards the end of 2012, I next saw Richard Bates Jr.'s third film, Trash Fire (2016), at the Boston Underground Film Festival the year it was released. At that point, somehow I had missed RBJ's second film from 2014, Suburban Gothic (my recent rewatch review here), so I watched it the day after I saw TF, back in 2016. When I revisited RBJ's first two films recently, I decided to finally get around to seeing his 2019 film Tone-Deaf (my review here), and his fifth film, King Knight (2021), is set to be released on streaming in two weeks, so naturally I had to watch Trash Fire again.

I think I liked this one even a bit more on "Take 2". Excision is a fucked up film, but TF is perhaps even more fucked up (albeit in a less gory and graphic way). It does a great job of taking very unsympathetic characters (Adrien Grenier's, in particular) and making you care much more about them by the end. RBJ's signature black humor is present but it takes more of a back seat here. It's certainly his most nihilistic and cynical film but, much like Excision, it clearly cares about its dysfunctional family, which makes the climax all the more affecting.

You can find my Richard Bates Jr. Feature Films Ranked list here.