“A hippie is someone who looks like Tarzan, walks like Jane and smells like Cheetah.” –Ronald Reagan
Okay, I am ashamed to admit it. I’m a David Arquette fan.
There’s something about his grating, twitching, teeth-clenching performances that remain infectious, no matter how off-putting and obnoxious. There’s a gonzo brio behind them that’s hard to resist and the same applies to his directorial debut, THE TRIPPER(read: Trip and Gipper). This is a fairly flabbergasting genre first: The Political-Satire/Slasher Film. The movie is certainly no masterpiece, but it is often wickedly pointed and straight-out funny: it’s hard to entirely dismiss a movie that features a Ronald Reagan masked hippy-slaughtering psycho, who happens to travel with a killer dog named “Nancy” and keeps a human-limb-eating pig named “George W.” in a pen.
Subtle, the satire isn’t: anyone renting this DVD expecting an INCONVENIENT TRUTH or HEARTS AND MINDS is going to be sorely disappointed; gorehounds are likely to be in seventh heaven, as the film doesn’t stint on Red or Blue State Bleeding. Arquette, a veteran of the SCRAM franchise, is well-acquainted with the genre and the works of horror auteurs like Wes Craven and Tobe Hooper, who utilized the graphic horror to make biting social commentary. The bromides aside here, this is, at its heart, a Slasher Film about a lunatic in a Ronald Reagan mask going Lizzie Borden on hippies. If you always wanted to see Ronnie take out a couple dozen members of the Flower Power persuasion – well, this is definitely up your alley.
The movie begins with a barrage of Vietnam War-atrocities, while a glowering TV commentator righteously intones “all war is undeniably evil.” The film then skips to 1967 Northern California with a Halloween-style prologue that takes aim at Reagan’s anti-conservationist views (“when you’ve seen one tree, how many more do you need?” is one choice quote). Gus (Noah Maschan) a young boy with an unhealthy fixation on Governor Reagan, accompanies his father (Redmond Gleeson) to a work-site in the local woods where tree-hugging environmentalists are trying to stop loggers from chopping down trees. When the boy wigs out and takes a chainsaw to one of the tree lovers, he is remanded to a mental institution.
Thirty years later, a sextet of (faux) hippies head for an outdoor American Free Love Festival concert put on by weaselish, grafty promoter Frank Baker (Paul Rubens), at the very site where (you guessed it) young Gus sawed the tree hugger into giblets. The group includes the straight-and-sober Samantha (an excellent Jaime King) who is fleeing her abusive, conservative ex-boyfriend, Jimmy (Balthazar Getty). En route a trio of hostile rednecks (including Arquette as knife-wielding yokel named “Muff”), harass the group, inflicting a minor head wound on Ivan (Lukas Haas), Samantha’s new boyfriend. They eventually reach the site for a weekend of chemical-, nitrous- and booze-assisted debauchery and fun, unaware that a psychopath wearing a Ronald Reagan mask is now stalking the neo flower children. Sheriff Buzz Hall (Thomas Jane), in charge of the local, inadequately manned local law, perceives the threat and tries to shut the concert down; however, Mayor Burton (Rick Overton) and Frank have their eyes on revenue, even as the casualties steadily mount.
Arquette and writer Joe Harris (DARKNESS FALLS) certainly have the Slasher Film format down to a T. There’s the Virtuous Final Girl, The Masked Killer, The Old Hermit who tries to warn the kids (of the local pot growers who don’t take kindly to trespassers), even The Killer’s Shrine (the latter is a scathingly ironic comment on one of The Gipper’s choice decisions while serving as Governor). The movie definitely doesn’t hold back on the gore quotient: “Ronnie” knifes, chops, and eviscerates pot-heads and Ecstasy-addled revelers with aplomb as he rattles off some of the former President’s sound-bytes (“No daughter of mine is going to be hooked on drugs” he tells one drugged out miss as he advances ax in hand). You can also throw in the killer’s attack dogs, some of which are named after the members of his cabinet. Given the glut of grue on hand, (courtesy of K.N.B. Effects Group), the movie’s satire fairly thins as it looks less like a send-up and more like the real thing ( FRIDAY THE 13TH and THE BURNING coming to mind). One of the movie’s horror set-pieces – a redneck paint-gun attack on some of the main characters that soon turns into a dismemberment fest – is sure to satisfy genre fans.
The movie does score some satirical points here and there: it’s as unkind to W. as it is to Reagan, and the film’s major horror set-piece of the Reagan-masked slayer tearing through a hippie drum-fest is pretty potent: the filmmakers are basically saying, “Wake Up: you are living in a fantasy while your freedoms are being trampled by conservatives.” There is a great moment in which a soon-to-be-chopped right-winger yells in protest. “But I’m a Republican!” suggesting a criticism of Reagan’s perceived departure from the Republican Party’s original principles.
The problem with Arquette and Harris’ scenario is that unless you take it as a put-down of both conservatives and the liberal naifs on display, it really doesn’t work. It’s difficult to root for the protagonists, and care if they live or die when they basically go from one dumb-ass, ill-considered action to another. Except for King (and to a lesser degree Haas), it’s hard to get behind these folks: Paz de la Huerta’s Jade, Jason Mewes’ Joey, and Stephen Heath’s Jack never Come Down: they’re willfully self-destructive and dense (if you like Mewes’ clown act you’ll probably like him here).
By the time the concert starts, you might find yourself cheering “Ronnie” on, which I doubt was the overall intent. Along with King, Jane comes off best as the uptight, embarrassed Sheriff trying to do his job, and Rubens makes the most of his foul-mouthed grifter capitalist: he doesn’t say “f-ck” as many times as Dennis Hopper in BLUE VLET, but he tries. Arquette’s wife, Courteney Cox, provides a brief, hilarious cameo as a hippy girl who tries to defend the killer’s savage dog pack from a hail of bullets, only to have one of the rovers take her down. One thing: it is ironic that the heroes are the one (effective) authoritarian figure and The Girl Who Just Says No.
TRIPPER, despite its fairly miniscule budget, does look good. Bobby Bukowski ’s camera catches the lush Northern California foliage to great effect, and Alastor Arnold’s drug-induced psychedelic visuals in the latter scenes when King (squirt-gunned with acid) is fleeing the killer. At 97 minutes, the film is tight; one quibble I had is that much of the action in the last 15 or 20 minutes is so badly lit, it was hard to tell what was happening (I have rewound several times and still don’t know what happened to one of the main characters). The soundtrack provides some nice sound cues for the lurking killer (from menacing off-synch bars of “when Johnny Comes Marching Home” to “Hail To The Chief”).
The end titles, with bytes from and posters of major conservative figures is fairly funny, but in the main, it seems like TRIPPER needed to focus on the satire and take more care in making the audience invest in the protagonists. On the other hand, Arquette and Harris definitely deserve kudos for trying to inject relevancy into a black-sheep genre that has been long in the tooth for quite some time, and, for a first film, Arquette’s movie is visually assured. He elicits good performances from King, Jane, and Haas particularly, and there’s a good dose of fun to the acid-washed atrocities. With more discipline and a bit more tightness on the writing chores, Arquette could be someone to watch.
The DVD special features include commentary by Arquette, Jane and Rubens, as
well as various cast members; Ronnie’s FX; and Rubens’ port-a-john descent to
escape the madman.
THE TRIPPER (2006). Directed by David Arquette. Written by Joe Harris and David Arquette. Cast: Jamie King, Lukas Haas, Jason Mewes, Stephen Heath, Marsha Thomason, Pazz de la Huerta, Balthazar Getty.