Wetiko: The Horror of New Age Environmental Cults

Uber Eats does not shlep psychedelic toads in the Yucatan. That is too bad for Aapo. When he ill-advisedly makes a delivery to a sketchy environmental cult, the customers make him part of their creepy ceremony—and it won’t be the “tantric” rituals the alluring Luz tempted him with. Even without toad-extract, Aapo is in for a bad trip during Kerry Mondragon’s Wetiko, which releases tomorrow on VOD.

Aapo’s mom is specially licensed to handle trippy toads. Her only legal customer is Yaretzi, the region’s official Mayan shaman. However, Luz wants to buy some for the “Empire of Love,” claiming their Shaman, Zake, was trained by Yaretzi. His mom is skeptical, but Aapo is convinced by Luz’s wad of cash and her feminine charms, which she consciously works to her fullest.

However, when he arrives at the commune, even the horny teenager can tell something is off. Obviously, it starts with Zake. He speaks Afrikaans, as part of the film’s clumsy commentary on colonialism, but he looks and acts like a combination Charles Manson and Col. Kurtz.

Indeed, the combination of drugs, dysfunctional sexual energy, and bizarre ecological ideology feels extremely 1970s, which is reinforced by Carlos Gerardo Garcia’s deliberately grainy, throwback cinematography. Honestly, watching Aapo stumbling into the heart of darkness serves as quite an effective advertisement for living a square 9-to-5 consumerist lifestyle. Enjoy that TV dinner. It’s much healthier than toad extract.

Trim Season, Starring Jane Badler

Look, marijuana is bad for you. That shouldn’t be a controversial thing to say. There are still a lot of valid reasons for legalization, but New York City’s inability to close all the unregulated pot shops that have sprung up greatly undermines much of that logic. In addition, some of the suppliers engage in witchcraft and bloody sacrifices. At least that is true of the Northern California farm in Ariel Vida’s Trim Season, which opens today in theaters.

Emma just got fired and her landlord is throwing her out, so her bestie Julia took her out drinking. They do not really like their exponentially more successful acquaintance Pua, but when her boyfriend (or whatever) James pitches a two-week temp gig trimming marijuana buds, they are receptive, because they need the bread.

Of course, even if you hadn’t seen the grisly prologue, anyone can tell sleazy James acts suspiciously like a recruiter for a human trafficking ring. Naturally, they are a bit put off by the armed men patrolling the work-site, but what did they expect? This is literally the drug business. However, the boss, Mona, is something else entirely.

Apparently, she is some kind of witch, who has the power to kill remotely though telekinetic powers, which she fuels through a potential lethal strand of super-weed. It can kill those who are not prepared for it, like the annoying co-worker who steals some of Mona’s stash. Frankly, it looks like Nancy Reagan was right all along. Just say no kids.

You should say “no” to this movie too. The sluggish pace suggests way too many of the “props” were used for real during the production. The pronoun-announcing trimmers are also too annoying to care too much about. Obviously, Emma is the film’s clear final survivor candidate, but her professional victimhood is tiresome right from the start. Frankly, only the energy of Juliette Kenn De Balinthazy registers to any extent as Lex, whose character is largely defined by her inability to feel physical pain (which could very well come in handy).

The Wave: It’s a Trip

Should Frank have just said “no?” The consequences of the bean-counting attorney’s drug use are pretty dire. In fact, it might just cost him everything (really everything), but he just might reach the point where he can accept that in Gille Klabin’s down-the-rabbit-hole freak-out, The Wave, which opens tomorrow in Los Angeles.

Good old Frank is poised to finally win some positive attention from the firm’s senior partners when he spots a way to invalidate the hefty life insurance policy of a fire-fighter, who left behind a wife and kids (“they always do” is the cynical refrain of Frank’s colleagues). To celebrate his anticipated rising position in the firm (and for a respite from his not so passively aggressive wife), Frank joins his hard-partying colleague Jeff for celebratory drinks.

Jeff quickly gloms onto Nathalie and Theresa, the latter of whom really makes an impression on Frank. Consequently, he uncharacteristically joins them at an underground house party, where he and Theresa ill-advisedly partake of a mystery drug offered by mumbo-jumbo-spouting drug dealer (it will “hit you like a wave” he says). For a while, they gambol in some new age dreamscape, but when Frank wakes up, Theresa is gone, along with his wallet and all the available funds in his bank account.

Still tripping his lights out, Frank tries to make it through the most important business meeting of his career. Hoping to find something to take the edge off, he and Jeff set out in search of Theresa, only to discover she is missing in real life too. As Frank loses time and experiences waking visions, his grasp on reality weakens precipitously. Then things really go haywire for Frankie Boy.

There have been plenty of reality-problematizing movies before, but the way Klabin and screenwriter Carl W. Lucas manage to equally balance the humor and the disorientation is really something else. This is a wild ride, with some outrageous mayhem that does not always make total sense, but Klabin manages to fit the fractured pieces back together in clever ways.