Horror Off The Rails: WGTC’s Top 13 Horror Films Of 2016 (And More!)

8) Trash Fire (dir. Richard Bates Jr.)

If you’re a cynical, cold son-of-a-bitch like me, you probably already know Richard Bates Jr.’s catalog. Excision and Suburban Gothic display the filmmaker’s signature wicked streak, but neither with the ferocious wit that Trash Fire unleashes. Bates’ meanest, nastiest, most laugh-yourself-straight-to-hell title elevates his game without ever taking a single exasperated breath – and boy does it make me question my own sense of humanity.

Adrian Grenier and Angela Trimbur star as a couple on the rocks, mainly because of Grenier’s masochistic, self-abusive tendencies. Every conversation turns into a new way for Grenier to offend, berate and belittle his girlfriend, as they run through motions almost just to spite one another. Verbal lashings are accompanied by unenthusiastic sexual encounters, all vicious in Bates’ ability to keep dialogue hilarious, horrifying and gleefully inappropriate. Horror exists in latter reveals, but the flames of moral abandonment are what engulf viewers, and boy do they burn.