TRIPPIN'

"The following story is inspired by the true events of a seriously messed up weekend away".

This opening text leads to a sozzled Zed (Zed Wilson) propping up his local bar, regaling to the camera how he was accosted one evening in said drinking establishment by a female patron who was attracted to the huge scar on his leg. He tells of how she offered to keep him in beer while he told her how he got his wound. It turns out she was an aspiring film director and found his story to be one worthy of bringing to the screen. Accepting a keg of beer and a role in the movie as his reward, Zed then goes on to announce that what's about to follow is "sort of what happened" ...

And so, we shift gear to a year earlier. Zed is in a camper van with five other youths, all intent on drinking, smoking and taking photographs of roadkill as they drive to a log cabin in the middle of nowhere. Their idea is to enjoy a weekend of "getting away from it all". Among these larger than life characters are driver Joe (Ken Dusek Jr), a dopehead with a history of criminal convictions, and prudish Jizz (Nicole Buehrer) - she won't even get her tits out for the lads.

A few knob gags and drunken dare games later, and the sextet finally arrive at their remote retreat. Getting settled in, they hit the booze - and the dope - before Joe tells the rest of the group about the cabin's history. It turns out it once belonged to local hunter Eagle Eye Johnson (Bill Redding), who shot his wife in error many moons ago and was subsequently ostracized by the community. The last anybody heard of him, he'd killed three couples that had strayed into the woods and skinned them alive before eating their flesh. Fact or fiction? The group don't seem too bothered either way, aside from Jizz - she wants to go home.

Her mood changes when their evening meal of spaghetti is given a sneaky bit of chemical enhancement. Suddenly she's open to sex and booze like never before. The party is well and truly on. So much so, the group hardly question events when they discover a couple of feral children hiding in the cabin's cupboards.

As darkness draws in, things are only going to get weirder ... and gorier. But nothing's going to stop this lot from making out and getting high first - right?!

TRIPPIN' comes from Devi Snively, the acclaimed Indie director best known for her short film "Death In Charge" - made for the Directing Workshop for Women when she became one of only eight people selected by the American Film Institute to champion the workshop. TRIPPIN' marks her feature debut and, while flawed, makes for an interesting watch.

Shot on mini-DV, the film looks fairly cinematic thanks to good lighting and well framed compositions. Snively has taken great care when it comes to the look of her film and, once the horror elements come to the fore during the film's second half, this really benefits proceedings in terms of atmosphere.

Less successful is the director's script. The humour is very much of the PORKY'S variety, and soon becomes tiresome. There are only so many jokes about hard-ons and being stoned that one film can take - TRIPPIN' comes awfully close to overstepping that point. The characters are all a little too pleased with their wise-cracking personas, so it's difficult to warm to any of them. But, in terms of comedy, I suppose their broad quirks work in the sense that they are set up for running gags.

Although slow to get to the tension, when things do get going the film definitely improves. The humour takes a back seat for most of the film's latter half, and there is some decent old-school gore to be savoured. But this is very low budget fare, so remember to keep expectations in check.

A good rocking score from the likes of The Secretions and Underbelly helps the film along, as do knowing nods to the likes of THE BURNING and THE EVIL DEAD. But TRIPPIN' is uneven and a little too slow to get into gear, to qualify as a total success. The film comes to DVD uncut on Camp Motion Pictures' 2-disc release. As with all other Alternative Cinema releases (of which Camp is an offshoot), both discs are region free.

Disc one is home to the film, which looks generally good in a 16x9 presentation. Colours are natural as are flesh-tones, but some edge enhancement is noticeable in lighter scenes.

English audio is provided in 2.0 and 5.1 mixes. Both are good, clean affairs - however, the latter doesn't really utilise the additional channels to great effect.

The disc opens to a discreetly animated main menu page. There is no scene-selection menu, but you can zip through the film using your remote control handset, by way of 18 chapters, if you wish.

Extras on disc one are restricted to a 10-minute Behind-the-Scenes featurette and a 7-minute promo reel for Snively's production company Deviant Pictures. Both are delivered in a tongue-in-cheek manner.

Over on disc two, we're treated to several early shorts from Snively's enjoyable canon.

These kick off with the delightfully titled "Teenage Bikini Vampire". Alas, the title is the best thing about this 7-minute shot-on-DV spoof. Actually, I tell a lie: the opening scene of a Goth chick dancing to a B52s-type song was pretty cool. The rest of it is a mish mash of musical snippets and very, very poor comedy.

Next up is the surprisingly stylish 16-minute zomedy "Confederate Zombie Massacre". This is very accomplished-looking, with good optical gimmickry helping the viewer to overlook the video aesthetics. Add in some bawdy humour and gore too, and this one becomes highly watchable.

"Raven Gets A Life" pays homage to the Golden Age of cinema in what I suspect is a much more enjoyable way than THE ARTIST. It opens with a nice nod to Bela Lugosi, before racing up-to-date with a story of manic depression that's darker than anything else in this set. While it's only 9 minutes in length, I liked this a lot.

The aforementioned "Death In Charge" follows. This is a great, colourful sci-fi/horror hybrid brimming with style and energy - it's the best film here, and is an enormously entertaining way to kill 15 minutes.

Less so the silly 9-minute offering "Meat Is Murder".

"I Spit On Eli Roth" is a cheeky title for the next short, and one which I'm sure will earn Snively instant respect in many a hardcore horror fan's heart. This 5-minute caper paints a light-hearted account of a group of disgruntled female filmmakers who torture Roth as punishment for his crap films. Complete with silent movie-type intertitles, this is pure farce complete with a Roth lookalike who is only ever seen from behind.

Finally, we get "Last Seen on Dolores Street". This is the shortest film on offer (3 minutes) and the only one that's 16x9 enhanced (the others are windowboxed). It's weird, very stylish and demonstrative of how Snively's technique continues to come on in leaps and bounds.

A minorly animated main menu page graces disc two. The only extras are "CZM! The Making of a No-Budget Zombie Flick" (23 minutes of decent handheld on-location footage from the shoot for "Confederate Zombie Massacre") and trailers for a host of other Alternative Cinema releases: INTERPLANETARY, RED RIVER, BACTERIUM, SHOCK-O-RAMA, SHOCK FESTIVAL, SUBURBAN NIGHTMARE, FEEDING THE MASSES, ROT: REUNION OF TERROR and SINFUL.

TRIPPIN' is a fairly well-made, occasionally smart but ultimately uneven comedy-horror which shows great promise from writer-director Devi Snively. The short films on disc two are the icing on the cake, in what is an impressive 2-disc set from Camp Motion Pictures.

Review by Stuart Willis