Spare Parts: The Tripper

A lot of times I have a number of images I just can't use for a full length review. After a while it just goes on so long that I feel it tends to get a little absurd. Still I wanted to do something with some of the images I have extracted from the film and thought they were neat enough to give a blog post to.

There's a cool use of a fallen tree with a hole down its center applied for a eyepopping visual effect below

Reubens might just say "Fuck" and "Fuck you" fifteen or so times in this scene within like five minutes of conversation!

you never know who might turn up at a free love festival!

A chorus of f-u's follow this command

It can get rather wild in Arquette's movie

Arquette toys with the onslaught against King by having her trying to avoid death while succumbing to an acid trip

Below is the "Reubens and his cashbox hide in the portapotty" sequence

Comment on the Reagan release of inmates due to budget cuts to institutions.

 

the fog in the forest was coolly shot.

The use of psychedelic light intimating the allure of an acid trip

Don't bring an ax to a gunfight

Nice political poke at the Reagan-mask-wearing nutcase

Again, Arquette plays with the idea of an acid trip happening to the final girl at the worst time possible

I had put together a review for the imdb last night but hadn't realized that I already had one for my user account. I didn't want to just delete it so I'll include it here at the bottom:

Director/writer/actor Arquette (starring as a mischievous hick in a supporting part) takes a stab at the slasher genre with his politically satiric 2006 slasher flick, The Tripper. Thomas Jane is a cop in a rural part of California, having to deal with drug-fueled, party-hearty, carefree, sexually charged hippies and a psychopath in a Reagan mask taking an ax to them during a free love festival hosted by Paul Reubens. Spurning from a treehugger telling his father that he preferred the life of a tree over his mom, a kid attacked the impassioned environmentalist with a nearby chainsaw! When Reagan, as California governor, cuts budgets to institutions, releasing many nutcases into society, the kid was one of them. Cut to modern day and this kid is a young man with a rage untapped and ready to be unleashed on the likes of “hippies” Jason Mewes, Jaime King, and Lukas Haas (tourists traveling in a van to the festival) in the California woods. Full of spirited camera stylistics and lighting, and lively political jabs at animal lovers, conservative Republicans, Reagan, George W, tree-hugging environmentalists, obsessive love (Balthazar Getty is King’s short-fuse former beau, and a Republican), persistent drug use (Mewes’ character pretty much is high the entire time on screen), and hippy culture, Arquette’s film never catches a breath until its conclusion. Nothing extraordinary, but the set up adds a spin to the “lunatic out of the asylum taking out the kids in his way” and the wilderness is extraordinarily shot by Bobby Bukowski (the towering trees, lit torches and bonfires, fog, moon light, and psychedelic colors mimicking acid trips are examples of his and Arquette’s exuberant visual touches that add quality to at least the look of the film) help provide The Tripper with decent production values that help lift it above the usual low budget slasher film similar to it. The Reagan mask is a unique hook for the killer’s identity, including the suit and ax, and his presence within the tall redwood trees and tripping hippies could bring this film a cult following. One of many films around the same time that provided Jaime King with “final girl” status in the slasher genre, although she isn’t recognized as such by many horror fans. Jane’s annoying grievances with the hippies around him is fun to see; his interactions with Reubens and trying to move traffic after a decapitated head drops blood on the crowd from a tree above are especially funny. Old people clash with the kids in some amusing moments, too (like the killer’s disgruntled paw who blames the hippies for not affording his wife’s cancer meds due to their treehugging ways inflicting damage to lumber cutting and some transient who warns of weed traps).