The Tripper Unrated

Product Description Directed by, co-written by and starring David Arquette, this classic horror movie revolves around a group of friends who escape to a modern-day Woodstock concert for a weekend of debauchery, only to be stalked by a homicidal maniac determined to finish what he started years earlier. Amazon.com A crazed homage to 1960s and '70s drug and slasher exploitation flicks, The Tripper has "future cult movie" written all over it. A van full of neo-hippies (including Lukas Haas, Brick, Jason Mewes, Clerks, and Jaime King, Sin City) head into the California woods to attend a retro-60s rock concert (featuring the not-very-60s sounds of Fishbone)--only to find themselves harassed by backwoods rednecks and hunted by a Ronald-Reagan-infatuated serial killer. Along for the ride are a blunt but fair sheriff (Thomas Jane, The Punisher, sporting a seriously 70s 'stache), a jealous young Republican (Balthazar Getty, Lost Highway, and a venal music promoter (Paul Reubens, better known as Pee Wee Herman). The Tripper vacillates wildly between trippy visual effects and spewing gore, reflecting writer/director David Arquette's clear appreciation of such lurid b-movies as The Trip, Psych-Out, Deranged, and Three on a Meathook. Thrown into the mix is political lampoonery far too broad and scattershot to be called 'satire,' but it's clear that Arquette (better known as an actor, Eight Legged Freaks) has no particular agenda--he's just making fun of everything he can think of, and the results are preposterous, gruesome, and sure to hit the sweet spot for a certain brand of cineaste. You know who you are; check this out. --Bret Fetzer