Studio: Mutiny Pictures
Director: Jeff Seemann
Writer: Jeff Seemann
Producer: Marcus Bradford, Gareth Morgan, Steven Hugh Nelson, Jace Smethurst, Charles Solomon Jr.
Stars: Hannah Fierman, Chaney Morrow, L.C. Holt, Abigail Esmena, Mike Blaney, Roni Locke, Carol Ann Van Natten, Kate Kiddo, Damian Maffei
Review Score:
Summary:
Six friends who scout horror movie locations for a tour business travel to Poland where they become part of the terrifying true story behind an infamous old film.
Review:
Ten years of reviewing indie horror and I still haven’t settled on a definitive way of dealing fairly with microbudget movies in the DIY realm. I’ve discussed this before, but indulge me in elaborating again.
Two extremes exist at opposite ends of DTV horror criticism. At one end are the cheerleaders who gush like geysers all over anything and everything. These people prioritize courting favor with PR contacts and forging friendships with filmmakers. “Let’s be mutual social media follows and we’ll create a virtual community where we constantly congratulate everyone else living in our shared delusion that we’re all doing good, honest work!”
At the other end are the outright a-holes, some have certainly accused me of being one, who conflate entertaining sarcasm with mean-spirited viciousness. These people prioritize themselves as they’re only interested in building a brand based on gimmicky edginess because controversy drives clicks and deliberately ruffling feathers is the fastest way to be noticed.
I like to think I prioritize you, dear reader, and simply offer an unbiased opinion from the perspective of an ordinary viewer with reasonable tastes. Yet I’m still challenged to find an appropriate line where I can tell you how awful something is without inciting an angry filmmaker to send me an irrational email supposedly written by someone without a retaliatory agenda. Because it’s common for an average person, definitely not a producer or a director, to get so riled up by what I might say about a bargain basement B-movie that they have to fire off a hateful personal attack, you know? Anyway, that’s the situation I find myself in, yet again, with “Terror Trips.”
Some might see it as a weird waste of time, but visiting fictional locations is one of my favorite things to do. When I have a few minutes to kill on a Sunset Boulevard drive in Hollywood, I’ll occasionally take a quick turn up Orange Grove and then down Genesee for a two-fer of gawking at iconic houses from “Halloween” and “A Nightmare on Elm Street.” So when I heard the premise for “Terror Trips,” which follows a sextet of friends touring infamous horror film locations until they stumble upon true terror, it sounded right up my alley. Since I’m also from Ohio, the film being shot in Cincinnati seemed like a plus too.
But the film’s first minute gave me a clear clue that what “Terror Trips” appeared to promise and what it actually delivers would be two different things. The movie opens on insert shots where gloved hands use a shovel to dig into rocky dirt in broad daylight. Uh, okay. I guess this is possibly someone digging a hole for a body and therefore it’s supposed to be chilling? Maybe this foreshadowing would be more ominous if it wasn’t equally likely that we’re looking at a grandmother planting petunias. At least these shots make mildly more sense than a stalking montage or dream sequence, not sure which it’s meant to be, that quizzically cuts to a campfire with every other shot later on.
“Terror Trips” starts in 2016 when Dan summons four of his friends to announce his new business venture. He and his partner George are starting a tour company that takes people to famous places from horror films, and he wants Ginny, Eli, Ed, and Molly to help scout locations.
Either the movie never provides an explanation or I completely missed Dan’s logic, but for whatever reason, they only visit one location every October over the course of four years. The group goes to New Jersey for “Friday the 13th” in October of 2016 and Maryland for “The Blair Witch Project” in 2019, with stops for “Hell House LLC” and “Dawn of the Dead” during the years in between. Now, I have no idea how anyone can build a booming business with such a strategy, but this brings new meaning to the phrase “long-term planning.”
If, like me, you’re hoping for a cool “Where Are They Now?” showcase of sites from those four movies, you’d better dash an ice cold bucket of water on your expectations. The montage of Monroeville, Burkittsville, and the other locations lasts less than two and a half minutes during opening credits. Blink at the wrong moment and you’ll completely miss the bust of George A. Romero or the outer façade of the “Hell House” hotel. Who knew the “s” in “Terror Trips” could do so much heavy lifting?
For their 2020 trip, because once again I don’t understand why this whole plot can’t take place within the same month let alone year, the crew plans for their first overseas trek. “Black Volga” is an infamous foreign film about unsolved kidnappings in a small Polish town, and Dan’s friends are interested in investigating the urban legend that inspired the movie. What they really should investigate is how a film from the 1970s managed to shoot in a digital format since “Terror Trips” barely bothers to make “Black Volga’s” quick clips look like footage that’s supposed to be 50 years old.
At this point, 15 full minutes have elapsed and the appetizing hook of visiting fun fright film locations is long gone. It’s replaced by the six friends milling about a big garage and some indistinct countryside that’s supposed to be Poland but could very well be Allentown, Pennsylvania since it looks like no place in particular.
Also long gone is any suspense from the mystery of what’s going on in the area. The kidnappings aren’t the work of a monster, a supernatural entity, or even a masked killer lurking in the woods. It’s a KGB-connected organ-harvesting ring consisting of plainclothes Russian thugs jogging around with guns and bad ponytails. If you want vanilla villains on par with an old “Law & Order” rerun, “Terror Trips” has ‘em.
Not only is “Terror Trips” devoid of anything that can be remotely considered scary, it’s visually dull too. Every exterior angle appears to have been shot in a snowstorm because the camera’s white balance is set to “Atomic Explosion.” Deaths either occur offscreen or are the result of a small scalpel silently slicing across some skin. Unmotivated acting never rises above the level of adults playing make-believe. Even when one of the friends pretends to be unconscious to fool a captor, her performance of simply lying still is laughably phony.
Audio isn’t any better. In one outside scene, insects chitter all over dialogue while one person talks, then ambient silence takes over whenever the camera cuts to the person they’re talking to. I’m not even sure what to make of the brownnosing shout-outs to Joe Lynch and the Soska Sisters. And oh yeah, didn’t the movie start with someone digging a hole? What was that all about? No one in “Terror Trips” ever does anything with a shovel, unless you count the movie digging its own grave by being across-the-board bad.
See what I mean about not knowing what to do with movies like this? How can I not come off sounding like a crank? I suppose not screening them at all is always an option. Wish I’d thought of that before pressing Play on “Terror Trips.”
NOTE: There is a mid-credits scene and a post-credits scene.
Review Score: 30
If you want to see impossible amounts of blood explode crimson colors like the world’s worst version of a gender reveal, well, “Abigail” at least has that.