film fan finding (review):trippin'

I'd planned on skipping the 10:30 p.m. screening of Trippin' at the Gasparilla International Film Festival this past weekend, because now that I'm in my dotage, that's just too darn late for me. But thankfully, on my way out of the theater (after catching another GIFF screening) I ran into local horror authors Jeff Strand and Lynne Hansen, who talked up Trippin' director Devi Snively and her previous films Teenage Bikini Vampire and Confederate Zombie Massacre. I mean, c'mon -- how could I not go see a horror/comedy movie made by someone that obviously crazy and creative?

I'm so glad that I stayed. (Thanks Jeff and Lynne!) Trippin' was ... well, a real trip. "Inspired by true accounts of a really messed-up weekend getaway," Trippin' opens documentary style, with closeups of newspaper clippings and then an interview with a musician named Zed. Zed explains that he's been asked about the scars on his face and leg so often that he decided to make this movie to tell the story of what happened to him. Or "mostly what happened," he explains, because they "don't have much money."

Zed -- wearing a T-shirt that says "Better Zed than dead" -- and his five friends are on a road trip headed to a country cabin for the weekend. But as any horror fan knows, they will encounter car trouble, mysterious dead bodies, urban legends about the psycho murderer who used to own the cabin, creepy hillbillies, and sex, drugs and rock-n-roll along the way. But with a twist. Writer/director Snively turns the horror stereotypes upside down in Trippin'. Things happen in the movie for a reason -- a sensible reason, oftentimes an unexpected reason -- and the plot entertains and occasionally startles while making sense at the same time. I'd forgotten how rare that is these days.

Trippin' is clever, funny, slightly scary at times, entertaining, fun, and weird and wacky as hell. Snively's love and appreciation for the horror genre are evident throughout the film (the Troma poster in the van, one of the characters using the classic Night of the Living Dead line "We're coming to get you, Barbara") and by the film itself. The film doesn't insult viewers' intelligence by offering up blood and guts without a story. (In fact, there's actually very little blood and guts in the film.) The actors -- who all give strong performances -- had witty-yet-believable dialogue, and all the pieces of the plot connected nicely in the end without being forced or forgotten.

Trippin' is a playfully ironic comedy horror delight.

Film Fan Finding: A

(screened at the Gasparilla International Film Festival)