By MATTHEW DUPÉE
Starring Jo-Ann Robinson, Christopher Wesley Moore and Meredith Mohler
Written and Directed by Christopher Wesley Moore
CWM Entertainment
There’s an inherent risk anytime a filmmaker decides to incorporate a well-known holiday as a setting, backdrop, or plot point. At a minimum, the film will be compared (perhaps unfairly) to its holiday-themed contemporaries. At worst, a film without properly incorporating tropes or even basic symbolism associated with the holiday it seeks to exploit imperils its chances of winning over the expansive fanbase of holiday horror cinema. Christopher Wesley Moore’s latest outing WHEN THE TRASHMAN KNOCKS is a slasher movie set at a Thanksgiving that fails to serve up relevant seasonal vibes and stumbles over its emphasis on convoluted psychological scares.
WHEN THE TRASHMAN KNOCKS opens with a faux docu-style explanation (à la Unsolved Mysteries) of an intra-familial Thanksgiving massacre in 1994 at the hands of Crispen Callaway (Derek Robert Hull Bond), a murderous child who ends up in a mental institution, with exhausting nods to John Carpenter’s Halloween. After several years in a mental health facility, Crispen escapes from custody the night before Thanksgiving in 2003, kills a nurse, steals her car and returns to his childhood home. He savagely murders twelve more victims before disappearing without a trace. Though Crispen’s motivations are never fully fleshed out, it’s made clear that he prowls his old neighborhood, knocking on his victims’ doors three times before dismembering them with a meat cleaver and taking the parts he “likes” and placing them in a trash bag in hopes of recreating the loving family he yearns for. His Thanksgiving killing ritual earns him the moniker the “Trash Man” among locals and galvanizes his reputation as the town’s very own boogeyman.
In a dizzying yet ploddingly paced story, the Trash Man returns after decades of dormancy and inexplicably starts slaughtering random victims in his former hometown in Mississippi. Writer-director Moore also stars as Justin, the film’s troubled protagonist, who shares a traumatizing past with his ailing agoraphobic mother (Jo-Ann Robinson). whose husband and eldest son were killed by the Trash Man in 2003. So, as the bodies pile up, Justin and his mother grapple with their shared trauma and try to protect each other. Will they survive, or succumb to the madness of the Trash Man?
WHEN THE TRASHMAN KNOCKS works best when it fully embraces its slasher movie aesthetic, with competent gore and blood effects mixed with effective synth scores. Even the Trash Man’s cheap-looking costume of overalls and muted clown mask are forgivable. Still, the film suffers most from its own identity crisis; It never quite materializes as a slasher movie and becomes distracted by the psychological-drama aspects of Justin and his mother, with Justin being the most likable of the pair. Justin, who suffers from survivor’s guilt and alcoholism, is tormented by his past and his inability to properly care for his mother. While Moore excels at portraying the troubled Justin, Robinson’s agoraphobic episodes feel stale and clumsy. Sadly, both performances are offset by sluggish pacing and a convoluted premise that never gels.
Nevertheless, Moore once again proves to be ambitious behind and in front of the camera, making the production’s $20,000 budget stretch well beyond its humble capacity, especially considering the large number of cast members and locations used. It’s a shame the film’s Thanksgiving setting did not receive more attention and visual representation, which might have solidified the film as a holiday horror entry worth rewatching each season. Otherwise, when the Trash Man comes knocking, don’t bother answering.
