The Tripper (2007)

uneven mixture of politics, horror and satire

**1/2

In "The Tripper," a slasher movie with a political conscience, a serial killer wearing a Ronald Reagan mask stalks a group of anachronistic hippies (so anachronistic they have cell phones along with their tie dye t-shirts and psychedelic van) who have come to the forests of Northern California to celebrate free love and partake in unlimited drug use at a Woodstock-type outdoor event.

The Red State/Blue State divide is never far from the filmmakers' minds as a bunch of gun-toting rednecks go up against a group of Flower Power love children who suddenly descend on the area. The saving grace, if indeed there is one, of this gory, but not particularly disturbing, splatter-fest is the tongue-in-cheek humor it manages to display from time to time. Otherwise, this odd little mixture of horror movie cliches and outdated political satire (does anybody really care about the Reagan administration any more?) falls strangely flat. October 12, 2008

The cast was good....

Considering all of the names that went into this movie, director included I was expecting something more. Multiple times I was tempted to speed past quite a few scenes, but decided against it and am realizing now it wouldn't have mattered if I missed the whole movie. The cast was good, the acting was decent. But this was listed as a horror comedy. I really found no laugh out loud humor in this and I wasn't scared or on the edge of my seat at all in this. It seems as if David A. tried to pay homage to the 70's and 80's cheese slashers like "I Drink Your Blood" or "Slumber Party Massacare." I'm sorry David but if you were attempting to equal the amount of cheese in those movies, you quite didn't get it. May 23, 2008

A homage/parody of the "themed" slasher films of the past

I was pleasantly surprised by how much fun I had watching this movie. In his directorial debut, David Arquette chose to do a homage/parody of the famous "themed" slasher films of the seventies and eighties. Instead of a hockey mask and campers or a "holiday" theme, our killer wears a Ronald Reagan mask and kills hippies. Our protagonists, sort of, are a group of pill-popping hippies on their way to a kind of "Burning Man" or "Woodstock" in the woods type concert.

On the way to the concert our lovable, soon to be messily killed, hippies have to deal with paintball shooting/bottle throwing rednecks, old hippies left over from the sixties, several irritating flashbacks, and the occasional nudist (and if you watch the extras, you will discover that the scariest thing in this movie is the "left over from the sixties hippie nudist . . .).

Although never in any danger of being confused with John Ford or Michael Curtiz, Arquette does a good job with the material and genre in which he's chosen to work. Don't misunderstand, it is both a b-movie and a parody - so it won't be everyone's cup of tea; but if your tastes run to parodies, b-movies and slasher films . . . or if you've ever thought it would be fun to watch animal rights activists getting mauled or tree huggers finding themselves on the wrong side of a chainsaw, this is the movie for you. April 6, 2008

Interesting commentary in here somewhere.

Had I not read the reviews here and had an idea of what to expect from this movie, I probably would have hated it. Since I kind of knew what I was getting into, I was able to sit back, relax and see where this would go. I'm usually not a fan of David Arquette, but I do like Courtney Cox a lot. I have to hand it to Arquette though, this was pretty funny, but it also had some good scares in it. I am not sure that is political message comes across very clearly, none of the groups come across very sympathetically. Not the tree-hugging hippies nor the modern dope loving hippies. However, I found it interesting that at a time where people are rewriting history to make Regan seem like the greatest president ever known, there are still people out there who remember the damaging policies he put into place. A real solid effort from Arquette. I would definitely be interested to see what else he comes up with in the future.
March 16, 2008

Deputy Dewey Directs

I don't really have a whole lot to say about this film. Arquette's film was an attempt at a spoof slasher political satire. Unfortunately it really didn't succeed at anything it seemed to be going for. Usually these films are right up my alley, and the idea of an axe wielding Ronald Reagan scores high marks, but something about it wasn't working. It's not a terrible film, it does have a few laughs, it's got some sauce for the gorehounds, and how can you go wrong with a movie that features Fishbone? All departments just seemed a bit halfassed though. It also doesn't help much that I can't stand Jason Mewes, who's basically playing a slight variation on his Jay character(he'll be stuck in that mode for the rest of his film career I guarantee). The Tripper isn't the worst horror/slasher spoof out there by any means, but Student Bodies it ain't. March 9, 2008

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