Trash Fire is one harsh movie. In an age of studio horror where everything works out in the end, that is a blessing, but I shouldn’t compare it to compromised movies. Trash Fire would be bleak and brutal in a vacuum and that makes it the most powerful of Richard Bates, Jr.’s three films so far.

Owen (Adrian Grenier) is an alcoholic misanthrope prone to seizures. His girlfriend Isabelle (Angela Trimbur) is sexually disinterested but still won’t leave. She forces Owen to visit the grandmother (Fiona Flannagan) and sister (Annalynne McCord) he’s abandoned after a family tragedy he causes, which claimed his parents. What they find at grandma’s house is sinisterly horrifying, but it may just save their relationship.

Bates is saying something about relationships here. Owen and Isabelle are pretty up front about their dissatisfactions, but they stay together and try. It might be cynical to say that people settle, but I think it’s optimistic, that people can see the good in their worst partners. But yeah, it’s not like Owen or Isabelle have great prospects in the dating pool.

You can tell this is a Ricky Bates film because the techniques he developed in Excision and Suburban Gothic help him paint a bleak and unnerving picture of this family. He loves framing his actors in the center of a widescreen frame, whether they are doing something disturbing or just talking. He sets up Owen’s seizures to pay off a truly original act of sexual dysfunction that will probably haunt me the next time I’m in bed with someone.

There are Psycho undertones at Grandma’s house, that sense of dread that you can’t quite put your finger on because everything on the surface checks out. There are peepholes and showers but he’s not paying direct homage to Hitchcock. I mean, Hitchcock doesn’t own showers and peepholes. Other filmmakers are free to use them too.

Owen’s sister Pearl is a big reveal. They’ve done a whole elaborate makeup on McCord only to show her tastefully obscured. It’s far more suggestive and effective that way. Pearl is like a nasty sprite who pops in and out of the movie when needed, but she’s the most pivotal character. She’s Owen’s only hope, but he does not deserve redemption.

There are nightmare visions and bloody violence but I suppose the real horror is family itself. More overt horror reveals itself but the vile, bible thumping Grandma is someone we all think we’d just cut out of our lives, but then we meet someone who cares about having a relationship with our family and here we are. Bates gets a lot of suspense out of juxtaposing Grandma’s sinister intentions with her frail body limiting her ability to commit them.

Trash Fire starts in a dark, desperate place and only gets darker and more desperate. It will leave you shaken, but the visceral experience of it is exhilarating. “I survived Trash Fire” could be a rite of passage for filmgoers, whether they’re horror fans or not.