Merrick here…
Holy Moly Roller sent in a look at THE TRIPPER, which marks the directorial debut of David Arquette.
Didn’t evil Ronald Reagan posers appear in POINT BREAK a while back? Been a while since I’ve seen that film.
I’m wondering what makes ex presidents so damn spooky? Then again, most of them are pretty spooky in real life…so maybe it makes perfect sense.
Here’s Holy Moly Roller…
Yesterday I attended the world premiere of David Arquette's directorial debut "The Tripper". The movie opened Screamfest 2006 here in Los Angeles at the world famous Mann's Grauman's Chinese Theater.
The rights of the movie haven't been sold yet, so it's questionable if this will be released/ignored in a theater near you.
How was the movie? Not bad, but not great.
"The Tripper" is a political satire dressed up like a slasher movie by way of middle school logic. I'm guessing that David Arquette is a either a liberal or an enemy of conservatism. The villian in this movie is RONALD REAGAN. Yes, Ronnie goes around slashing and killing pussy liberals.
Here's the tiny synopsis: (Spoiler-free, but very generalized)
A boy protects his logger-father by putting a chainsaw to a (literal) tree-hugging and misinformed hippie.
The boy grows up with a deep fascination with Ronald Regan. Don't worry it's woefully explained in the movie.
In the boy's hometown (I don't remember, so let's call it Butt-Fuck Nowhere in the Swamps or BFNintheS), a music festival, headlined by Fishbone (hahaha!), is being held by promoter Paul Reubens.
The music festival brings out all the modern hippies to BFNintheS. Remember that old joke about placing a dingo farm next to a school nursery?
Well, the boy is now a crazed, fuckin' Ronald Reagan and goes hunting for hippies.
Our Scooby gang consists of Lucas Haas, Jason Mewes, Brad Hunt, Paz de la Huerta, Marsha Thomason and female lead Jamie King.
Rounding out the cast is Thomas Jane as the local Sheriff, chewing up scene after scene and having some obvious fun. And Balthazar Getty (doing his best impression of Liev Schreiber) as Jamie King's hot-headed, jealous ex-boyfriend.
Ronald kills a lot of hippies. We're talking "they should have called in the National Guard" lot. The amount of maiming and killing is through the stratosphere. Luckily KNB did the special effects.
The production value was top-notch and Arquette's direction was solid most of the time, with lapses of poor shots and strange dissolves (sometimes edited with drug induced states in mind and sometimes just by the whimsy of Arquette).
Blaming Ronald Reagan for the macho, gung-ho attitude of modern-day conservatism seemed a bit juvenile but watching the psycho talk in a near-perfect impersonation of the ex-President was admittedly fun. The killer should have been Rich Little.
The movie was a mixed bag. I wouldn't recommend it unless:
1-You love tons of male and female nudity and drugs.
2-You hate Ronald Reagan or love Ronald Reagan
3-You want to see Thomas Jane have fun at the expense of a mildly bad script.
4-Fishbone is a selling point in 2k6.
5-Jason Mewes' rant of why George W. Bush is the baddest fuckin' President ever or another scene where he finds pot nirvana.
I laughed and checked my watch a few times.
If you use this my name is Holy Moly Roller.
Thanks for the write-up, Holy. It’ll be interesting to see how/when this project gets picked up. GOTTA warrant at least a DVD release, no?
