Title: The Tripper
Actors/Director/Anything Worth Mentioning Right Away: Umm… Yeah, too many to list here. You just have to watch it, because even the cast list it gives you isn’t complete.
Introduction: I actually heard about this movie when it first came out. I saw David Arquette plug it on Jimmy Kimmel Live, back when I had cable television. I hadn’t seen it, but saw it for sale at Games Plus and, well, the rest as they say is history.
Location: Several different places, but primarily the woods where hippies die. I don’t know what they had in terms of a budget, but it was pretty decent I’m guessing.
Plot: There is a musical festival of sorts going on the middle of the woods somewhere. Cool points: A band playing at said fest is Fishbone. Cooler points: The music promoter is portrayed by Paul “I’m Too Old Now To Be Pee Wee Herman” Reubens. So your typical group of college aged kids (two guys, two gals) are headed to this music fest when they run into some trouble. A group of what can only be described as rednecks mixed with lumberjacks (One of whom is played by David Arquette himself) throw a bottle and hit the character played by Lukas Haas in the back of the head. This becomes a running theme, with these redjacks (?), as does the music, drugs and trippy psychedelic scenes. Then the killer emerges and starts killing people. Want to know the coolest part? The killer is dressed up (and talks like) none other than Ronald Reagan. Yes, this movie centers around the idea of a drug-hating Ronald Reagan killing hippies. If that doesn’t sell you on it, maybe Jason Mewes can.
Acting: You have such a mix of cast members here, it has its ups and downs. Lukas Haas is just too cool for words, while we also have Jason Mewes in the main cast and he’ll always probably be typecasted as a horny stoner. The acting is too, dare I say, sophisticated for a teenage type movie (think Can’t Hardly Wait), but it isn’t going to exactly be The King’s Speech either. The balance between what is expected and what the actors deliver seems appropriate. It’s like when they cast those Blue Collar Comedy guys in movies as rednecks or professional wrestlers as prison guards. It just works.
Production: This movie was in select theaters across this country before going to DVD. It shows, as this looks like a movie you’d see in theaters. It’s shot in the woods a lot, so think of a version of The Blair Witch Project that doesn’t look like it was shot with a cell phone camera.
Sex/Nudity: While there is a lot (and I mean A LOT) of unnecessary female nudity, there is also quite a bit of male nudity (I’m talking full frontal here) It makes sense, in some twisted way, that we finally get to see both sides of the coin (if you will) since it seems like horror movies can have some random girl flash her boobs for now reason, or out of nowhere we get some chick running around completely naked (Remember that My Bloody Valentine remake?) So it’s about time we start seeing the male nudity as well, and outside of a John Waters or bromance at that. Now you homophobes who will not want to see this will know how I feel when unwarranted nudity ruins a perfectly good horror movie for me. But yeah, nudity and lots of it here, folks!!
Special Effects: Despite the number of slashings in this movie, my favorite scene will always be when Jason Mewes gets his hand cut off. That’s the perfect representation of the special effects in this movie as well. Though they look mostly believable, at times they can also look slightly over the top—which is how any good slasher movie should be.
Overall Verdict: At the time this was made, David Arquette was still married to Courtney Cox and not going through a nervous breakdown or divorce. The thing is, you give the right tools to a true fan of horror and the freedom to do what they want, then you’re going to get a halfway decent horror picture. Now, if you gave that same horror fan their choice of Hollywood actors and actresses, along with the special effects budget of Scream and the money to back it all from Friends (Come on, she was making a million dollars an episode, people!), then this is what you come up with. And I mean that in the best possible way. It seems like most fans of horror make movies that barely get a budget, whilst the big budgeted movies come out looking like crap, cheap knock offs and are rarely even entertaining (much less scary) at all. So to have someone such as David Arquette who wanted to make this film, had the means to do so but also the desire for more than just, “Hey, let’s bring back Freddy and see if we can make some money!”… I mean, realistically, David Arquette could have purchased the rights to Pinhead and brought back the Hellraiser movies if he really was only concerned with money. But no, he wanted to make a good slasher type movie and that is exactly what he did. Of course there is some comedy thrown in, but come on, it’s Jason Mewes too. SEE THIS MOVIE NOW.
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