You might think a horror-comedy about Ronald Reagan killing hippies that ends with an environmental speech by Robert Kennedy Jr. won't be much fun. But with The Tripper, you'd be wrong.
Set during President George W. Bush's first term in office, The Tripper concerns a group of faux hippies. By faux hippies, I mean they dress and act and take drugs like it was the early 1970s and not the early 21st century. The trio of young couples - Sam and Ivan (Jaime King and Lukas Haas), Joey and Linda (Jason Mewes and Marsha Thomason) and Jack and Jade (Stephen Heath and Paz de la Huerta) - have all piled into a van and are heading to a music festival in the woods. Sam hooked up with this crew after a bad drug trip, trying to get away from her possessive and violent boyfriend Jimmy (Balthazar Getty). After a run in with a fairly generic group of rednecks, Sam and company make it to the festival. But before long, people start turning up dead, pushing local cop Buzz (Thomas Jane) to try and close the festival down. The spirit of freedom and the desire to get high won't be denied, however, and the concert goes on right up until an orgy of murder perpetrated by a crazy guy who thinks he's Ronald Reagan. The murderer also has a pig named George W. to eat the remains of his victims.
When you hear the politically tinged details of the story, you might think this is a strident, overwrought piece of liberal propaganda but you couldn't be more wrong. This is a fun little film that has no actual agenda than trying hard to entertain you. It may cast Reagan as an ax murderer but it's almost as hard on its faux hippie main characters, who, except for Sam, are all huge losers. I don't know if David Arquette thought he was making a political film, but The Tripper is as serious about politics as Groundhog Day is about meteorology.
What Arquette did make is a movie that's constantly working to please you. Whether it's flashes of gore, a couple of nudists walking by, wisecracks from Thomas Jane or a concert promoter who really, really loves the F-word, there's always something coming at you. A lot of films can start out strong but hit a wall. They reach a point where the story just starts killing time until it gets to the end. That never happens with The Tripper. There's no dead spot where it runs out of plot or has the characters lapse into a stretch of pointless screaming and running. Some scenes are shot in a very pedestrian style and no one involved in this movie had any clue how to film a fight scene, but there's a lot of interesting things splashed on the screen. This movie has its own look and its own sensibility, which is fairly impressive for a novice filmmaker working in a somewhat difficult genre. Horror-comedies can go very wrong, very easily, but Arquette strikes a nice balance between humor and slaughter.
He also gets some decent performances out of his cast. Thomas Jane looks like he's having a great time as the cop with a Fu Manchu mustache who has to deal with these faux hippies. Jaime King, as the only character with anything like a real backstory, manages to play a traditional horror heroine without lapsing into self-parody. Jason Mewes, however, is the standout performer of the film. Best known as Jay from Jay and Silent Bob in Kevin Smith's movies, Mewes shows off genuine charisma and screen presence. I'm not sure if he can actually, you know, act. But there are many skilled actors who would kill for Mewes' natural appeal.
This is exactly the sort of movie I'm always hoping for when I grab a DVD off the shelf. It's a film not that many folks have seen or even heard of, but it's still a good piece of entertainment that you'll be glad you saw. The next time you're looking for something to watch, take a ride with The Tripper.
Set during President George W. Bush's first term in office, The Tripper concerns a group of faux hippies. By faux hippies, I mean they dress and act and take drugs like it was the early 1970s and not the early 21st century. The trio of young couples - Sam and Ivan (Jaime King and Lukas Haas), Joey and Linda (Jason Mewes and Marsha Thomason) and Jack and Jade (Stephen Heath and Paz de la Huerta) - have all piled into a van and are heading to a music festival in the woods. Sam hooked up with this crew after a bad drug trip, trying to get away from her possessive and violent boyfriend Jimmy (Balthazar Getty). After a run in with a fairly generic group of rednecks, Sam and company make it to the festival. But before long, people start turning up dead, pushing local cop Buzz (Thomas Jane) to try and close the festival down. The spirit of freedom and the desire to get high won't be denied, however, and the concert goes on right up until an orgy of murder perpetrated by a crazy guy who thinks he's Ronald Reagan. The murderer also has a pig named George W. to eat the remains of his victims.
When you hear the politically tinged details of the story, you might think this is a strident, overwrought piece of liberal propaganda but you couldn't be more wrong. This is a fun little film that has no actual agenda than trying hard to entertain you. It may cast Reagan as an ax murderer but it's almost as hard on its faux hippie main characters, who, except for Sam, are all huge losers. I don't know if David Arquette thought he was making a political film, but The Tripper is as serious about politics as Groundhog Day is about meteorology.
What Arquette did make is a movie that's constantly working to please you. Whether it's flashes of gore, a couple of nudists walking by, wisecracks from Thomas Jane or a concert promoter who really, really loves the F-word, there's always something coming at you. A lot of films can start out strong but hit a wall. They reach a point where the story just starts killing time until it gets to the end. That never happens with The Tripper. There's no dead spot where it runs out of plot or has the characters lapse into a stretch of pointless screaming and running. Some scenes are shot in a very pedestrian style and no one involved in this movie had any clue how to film a fight scene, but there's a lot of interesting things splashed on the screen. This movie has its own look and its own sensibility, which is fairly impressive for a novice filmmaker working in a somewhat difficult genre. Horror-comedies can go very wrong, very easily, but Arquette strikes a nice balance between humor and slaughter.
He also gets some decent performances out of his cast. Thomas Jane looks like he's having a great time as the cop with a Fu Manchu mustache who has to deal with these faux hippies. Jaime King, as the only character with anything like a real backstory, manages to play a traditional horror heroine without lapsing into self-parody. Jason Mewes, however, is the standout performer of the film. Best known as Jay from Jay and Silent Bob in Kevin Smith's movies, Mewes shows off genuine charisma and screen presence. I'm not sure if he can actually, you know, act. But there are many skilled actors who would kill for Mewes' natural appeal.
This is exactly the sort of movie I'm always hoping for when I grab a DVD off the shelf. It's a film not that many folks have seen or even heard of, but it's still a good piece of entertainment that you'll be glad you saw. The next time you're looking for something to watch, take a ride with The Tripper.