"We choose to live like free people."
sometimes it's nice just to destroy shit
An independent film, directed by Harmony Korine, tells the story of the title characters, four elderly hooligans who live up to their names, and the urban Crapsack World they inhabit.
Senseless destruction, casual murder, abuse, and so much more are simply par for the course.
This film provides examples of:
- Bizarre Taste in Food: Pancakes dribbled with dishwashing soap...
- Cloud Cuckoolander: All the humpers and the people they meet, yes including the little boy at the beginning. Among them are a man who recites a poem about how great it would be to not have a head and a man in a maid outfit who seems to worship them.
- Crapsack World: The entire city, and the populace on the whole, is a total trainwreck.
- Creator Cameo: Harmony Korine is the man in the confederate shirt holding the camera.
- Creepy Child: Complete with rather menacing Evil Laugh.
- Crowd Chant: "Make it! Make it! Don't fake it!"
- Darker and Edgier: Somehow outdoes his entire previous filmography in this regard.
- Dreadful Musician: The OST is done by the cast themselves, and many of them are absolute hacks.
- Exactly What It Says on the Tin: Harmony wanted audiences to know exactly what they were in for. There are several scenes of the main characters, yes, humping trash cans and bags of garbage.
- Fanservice/Fan Disservice: The scene wherein the Trash Humpers hire some hookers alternates between the two.
- Grotesque Gallery: The Trash Humpers are either supposed to be old, extremely poorly-aged people or vagrants wearing cheap rubber masks (the film never actually says), and everyone they meet is either hideous in appearance or hideous in nature.
- Hollywood Tone-Deaf: While the woman humper isn't exactly a bad singer, she's not a good one either.
- The Hyena: Most of the characters, but especially the boy in the suit and the Humper played by Korine himself, both of whom's laughter tends to stick in the memory.
- Invasion of the Baby Snatchers: The film ends with the female humper abducting an infant.
- Nothing Is Scarier: The film cuts out at one point, and cuts back to a (badly degraded) recording of children's shoes in a massive puddle of blood—the next scene is of the Trash Humpers waking up hung over.
- Psychopathic Man Child: The Trash Humpers, who have rejected civilized society and spend their days being absolute pricks to people when not sexually assaulting trash.
- "Shaggy Dog" Story: One of the people the humpers encounter tells a series of wildly homophobic "jokes" that don't actually have punchlines.
- Sharp Dressed Boy: The previously-mentioned Creepy Child wears a small tuxedo.
- Shirtless Scene: Some shots were from the men the humpers meet, including the trumpeter/acoustic guitarist.
- Signature Style: Just in case you thought Korine had gone soft with Mister Lonely, the ickiness, Grotesque Gallery and Crapsack World traits that Korine's films are known for coming roaring back with a vengeance.
- Slice of Life: For the most part, this is cut in a series of vignettes.
- The Smurfette Principle: There's only one female humper out of the four. Notably, she's played by Harmony Korine's wife.
- Stylistic Suck: The film is very obviously shot on a VHS format, as evident by the interference and brief moment of AUTO TRACKING.
- Wholesome Crossdresser: The admirer of the humpers, a street performer wearing a French maid outfit. They kill him in a drunken frenzy.
