The Tripper
2006Dir. David Arquette
A group of friends attend a music festival, only to find themselves stalked and brutally butchered by an axe-wielding psychotic killer wearing a Ronald Reagan mask.
David Arquette’s wacked-out, utterly gonzo directorial feature debut is a loving throwback to gritty backwoods slashers from the Eighties. Arquette actually sticks fairly rigidly to the preconceived slasher tropes. A pre-credits-like ‘flashback’ to the 80's depicts a young boy who, after seeing his father, a lumberjack foreman, being attacked by a deforesting protestor and subsequently arrested by the police, goes on a killing spree with a chainsaw.
Cut to present day and Samantha (Jaime King) who, still reeling from the breakup with her abusive boyfriend, joins her friends and heads to the American Free Love Festival in woody Northern California. Arquette has gathered together a pretty cool bunch actors including Jason Mewes, Lukas Haas, Balthazar Getty and Marsha Thomason who delve into their characters with dark relish.
The Tripper is a mixed bag really, for whilst Arquette displays an undeniable talent for creating and sustaining a creepy atmosphere with bizarre and off kilter humour thrown in for good measure, he isn’t able to muster any real sense of tension or suspense. The story is at times a jumbled mess, but it still exudes a cheeky wit and shamelessness that is still perfectly entertaining and manages to exhibit more than a hint of old school slasher movie ethos. However, what began as mildly ridiculous schlock-homage, soon degenerates and plummets face first into outright absurdity, with the discovery of a backwoods shack decked out in candles and Ronald Reagan memorabilia. The film also has a strong political slant – though this is played for laughs and highlights criticism of previous slasher movies for being morally conservative in their outlook. That the killer wears a Ronald Reagan mask and stalks and attacks a group of young, politically left-leaning festival-goers is darkly humorous, but also laced with political subtext. Arquette makes scathing jabs at the right-wing Republican agenda of not only 80s America, but America under the current presidency of George Bush.
Arquette obviously has a keen eye for striking visuals – the scenes in the forest at night are particularly effective: all fog-shrouded with moonlight streaming through trees to silhouette the figures moving within them. The visuals completely overwhelm during the film’s climactic chase scene, as Samantha is pursued through the forest after she’s been spiked with drugs and is hallucinating. Psychedelic colours and shapes swirl around onscreen and characters are framed through a kaleidoscopic lens. The onslaught of wild visuals never bores and easily conveys the drug-induced, warped perspective of the characters. The editing is also designed to purposely disorientate, particularly in conjunction with the psychedelic visuals that convey character’s tripping perspectives.
The Woodstock-type festival populated with randomly naked, free-loving pot-smokers is also effectively realised, highlighting another troupe of Arquette’s in his canny knack for recreating the look and tone of a bygone era and creating recognisable characters to inhabit it. His love for old slasher films is also evident in the score, courtesy of Jimmy Haun and David Wittman, boasting wizened synth drones. The music also features militant, distorted patriotic drums and a warped rendition of the Star Spangled Banner (!).
Thomas Jane is particularly good as the gruff town sheriff and Courtney Cox-Arquette also makes a darkly humorous cameo as an animal rights activist who has a nasty encounter with the killer’s rabid dog, Nancy. The rest of the cast do fine jobs with the often deliberately trashy material - David Arquette even cameos as lovable redneck Muff. While silly and overly jokey, the film is also immensely violent – hell, ridiculously violent. The story unravels in the most chaotic and frenzied way possible, and the bursts of brutal violence and gory effects are often ill at ease with the fart gags and boob jokes. A particularly memorable and very violent scene that is essentially played for laughs involves the killer bursting into a rave party and hacking up the revellers. This is a frenzy of a scene with psychotic editing and calamitous music.
A bewildering blend of inappropriate humour, brutal violence and loving homage to old slasher movies, The Tripper is a messy good time. Just. Perhaps for hardcore slasher fans only. Or hardcore David Arquette fans only. Or your Mom!
