JP Nunez
One of the best things about reviewing horror movies is that I get to see a whole bunch of films I’d probably never even hear about otherwise. Sure, I love reviewing big theatrical releases like The Northman and Morbius, but I’d still see those movies even if I wasn’t writing about them. It’s the small, indie films like Hatching and The Curse of Professor Zardonicus that really make this gig special, and I’m glad to say that I can now add another movie to that list: Trip.
Trip was written and directed by Neil McCay, and it stars Akasha Villalobos, Major Dodge, Peggy Schott, Jill Young, and Björgvin Arnarson. It’s about a woman named Ally who becomes so grief-stricken when her daughter commits suicide that she refuses to even leave the house. One day, a very unconventional therapist shows up at her door and offers her a hallucinogenic drug that will allow her to see her daughter once again. But when Ally takes it, she begins to experience the same supernatural phenomena that led to her daughter’s death.
When I first heard about this film, that premise hooked me right away. It sounded like a really interesting way to set up a haunted house story, but let me tell you, Trip is so much more than that. I’d be spoiling it if I gave away any details, but that plot description is just the tip of the iceberg. This movie takes way more twists and turns than I was expecting, and it had me guessing until the very end. I kept going back and forth in my head about what I thought was really going on, and when the film finally pulled back the curtain, I was still quite surprised.
Admittedly, the story slows down quite a bit in the second act, and there were even a few times when I thought I wasn’t going to end up liking it as much as I had initially thought I would. But when the third act hit, all those fears disappeared. The movie picked up steam once again, and it had me captivated and enthralled until the credits began to roll.
On top of the thrilling story, I also really loved the way Trip handles the theme of grief. As you might’ve guessed from the plot description, the entire story is pretty much just one big metaphor for the crippling effects of losing a loved one, and the film does a great job of showing just what that’s like. For example, the supernatural forces basically spend the entire movie trying to get Ally to do the kinds of things grief often makes people do, and the end of the film wraps that plot thread up in a really great way.
Along similar lines, Ally herself is also an excellent example of what it looks like to grieve. In particular, after her daughter dies, you can see the hopelessness and surrender that have taken hold of her. She looks and acts like someone who’s completely given up on life, and that’s all due to actress Akasha Villalobos’s great performance. She totally nails every emotion her character goes through, so I completely bought into Ally and her story.
Aside from Akasha Villalobos, the acting in Trip is a bit hit or miss, but there is one other performance I have to highlight. Peggy Schott plays Jan, the therapist who gives Ally the drug, and she does an excellent job in the role. She has to switch back and forth between sympathetic, menacing, playful, and suspiciously ambiguous, and she completely nails it every time. Other than Ally, Jan is hands down my favorite character in this movie, and that’s due almost entirely to Peggy Schott’s great performance.
Last but not least, let’s talk about the horror in Trip. This film is a bit of a slow burn, as it only has a few spooky scenes in the first two acts, but those scenes are mostly effective. Admittedly, they’re not super scary, but they’re creepy enough that I had a really good time watching them, and if you’re a fan of supernatural horror, I think you will too.
Then, in the third act, the horror really comes to the fore, and it gets a little bonkers. Granted, it never reaches Hereditary levels of craziness but it does go in some surprising directions that I was definitely not expecting. On top of that, it also fleshes out its mythology in some really interesting ways, and I quite enjoyed finding out more about the forces that had been haunting Ally throughout the film.
All that being said, I do have to acknowledge that Trip is by no means a perfect movie. I already mentioned the hit-or-miss acting and the slowness in the second act, and I’d also say that the dialogue can be a bit weak at times. It wasn’t a huge problem overall, but there were a number of lines that just didn’t feel like real, natural conversation.
In the grand scheme of things, though, those are all relatively minor problems, so when the credits rolled on Trip, I was completely satisfied with what I had just seen. I really enjoyed this movie, so if you’re a fan of supernatural horror and you’re looking for something good to watch, I’d definitely recommend that you check this one out.
Trip comes out on the Terror Films AVOD YouTube channel on May 13, and it hits VOD platforms a week later, on May 20.
