How do you know when something with limited cultural acceptance finally goes mainstream? When pop culture begins to reference it. With that in mind, advocates for legalized cannabis will be pleased to know that a soon-to-be-released horror flick relies on cannabis harvesting as the backdrop of its story.

Trim Season is a new film loosely inspired by real world events. Apparently, a group of women in Humboldt, California went missing some time ago during the cannabis harvest season. Trim Season‘s writers played off that event to tell the story of a group of young people who travel to a remote pot farm only to discover that it is not all it seems to be. The film’s production just wrapped up. Now it is on to marketing.

A Search for Believable Stories

Despite the horror genre being largely unrealistic on its face, screenwriters and film producers still have to search for believable stories. One way to do that is to look for a backdrop that truly exists – even without the horror elements. Creating a believable backdrop forces viewers to consider that what is being seen on screen could actually happen.

This was the brilliance of the Friday the 13th and Halloween franchises. Both franchises are set against backdrops everyone is familiar with. How many people have seen the Friday the 13th movies and wondered if their next trek into the woods would be their last?

Trim Season exploits the concept by utilizing a backdrop that California residents are familiar with. That backdrop is the legal cannabis trade. Across the Golden State you will find sizable cannabis farms producing millions of pounds of plants every year. Those plants have to be harvested by someone. Who better than a group of Los Angeles young people who plan to get high and earn a little extra money at the same time?

It all adds up to the perfect recipe for a low budget slasher flick. Now that production is complete, we await to see if Trim Season makes it to the silver screen or goes straight to streaming.

The Irony of Utah

It is interesting to note that Trim Season was produced in Salt Lake City, Utah. That is ironic when you consider how restrictive Utah’s medical cannabis laws are. Unlike California, Utah does not allow recreational use. They don’t even allow smoking among patients with valid medical cannabis cards.

A patient can visit the Deseret Wellness pharmacy in Provo and find an ample supply of cannabis flower. That flower can be dry heated in a specialized vaping device or crushed and put into edible recipes. But patients cannot smoke it.

How ironic that a state willing to restrict recreational cannabis use would be attractive to filmmakers looking to produce a film that utilizes recreational cannabis as its foundation. In the film industry, this is just the way it goes sometimes. Filmmaking can make bedfellows as strange as politics.

Pop Culture Recognition

If you ever end up watching Trim Season, take a moment to think about the legal cannabis industry. It has now gone mainstream to the point that a filmmaker has used it as a backdrop to tell a story. Pot harvesting became part of the film’s central theme in that it provides the entire premise for the main characters being in the story. If that is not a sign of going mainstream, what is?

As for the quality of the film, viewers will ultimately decide its fate. But at least cannabis advocates can say that the industry they love so much is now part of pop culture. That is a big step up.