Trip – Grief Stricken Horror
Director: Neil McCay
Writer: Neil McCay (Screenplay)
Starring: Akasha Villalobos, Major Dodge, Peggy Schott, Jill Young, Bjorgvin Arnarson
Plot: Following her daughter’s suicide, a grief-stricken mother is visited by an unconventional therapist who offers a hallucinogenic drug that will allow communion with the dead. Desperate to understand her daughter’s psyche, she accepts the offer and soon finds herself terrorized by her daughter’s identical experiences.
Runtime: 1 Hour 34 Minutes
There may be spoilers in the rest of the review
Story: Trip starts when Ally Larkin (Villalobos) must start living with the grief of losing her teenage daughter Samantha (Young) to suicide, questioning what she did wrong, leading to this happening. Ally’s husband Michael (Dodge) is grieving in his own way.
Ally is approach by a therapist Jan Rollins (Schott) who will offer Ally a chance to take a hallucinogenic drug, claiming it will help open to door to her daughter to learn the answers, only to find herself dealing with the same nightmares her daughter went through.
Thoughts on Trip
Characters & Performances – Ally Larkin is a grieving mother, not understanding the sudden suicide of her daughter, despite having the training in therapy to help others through the same situations. Her grief has left her giving up her profession, not leaving the home. She is approached by another therapist who offers a radical treatment, which will give her a chance to communicate with her daughter once again, only putting herself through a new nightmare set of visions. Michael is the husband and father who has been grieving his own way, by trying to move on with his life to continue support the couple, wanting to help Ally along the way. Jan Rollins is the therapist who offers a radical treatment for Ally to get a chance to communicate with her daughter once again, which will see the visits bringing her hope nobody or any other treat has ever offered. Trip does have strong performances with Akasha Villalobos in the leading role going through the range of emotions from fear, to grief through the movie.
Story – The story here will follow a grieving mother trying to move on with her life after her daughter’s sudden suicide, who turns to a radical treatment plan, that offers her a chance to communicate with her daughter once again, only for everything to start filling her life with fresh nightmares. Trip is a horror story that will use the grief of losing a loved one to show how even the most professional people could turn to anything in search of answers. The story will take Ally down a nightmare set of visions, ones which make little sense to her, but ones she is willing to accept, if they are to get her closer to her daughter. Trip will dive into something much more terrifying by the end, which will give us story that has plenty of twists and turns along the way.
Themes – Trip is a horror thriller that will use the pain suffered from grief to drive the characters forward, showing how this is an emotion that evil can attach itself too, to give somebody nightmare visions in life. The scares in the film aren’t jump scares, more built up moments of horror, approached in a calm way before a shock moment in the scene. The film will remain within the home, using both the single location to keep things contain and show another side effect being felt by Ally, as she has become a shut in. the effects are strong for the most part, with only one weaker moment being seen in the movie.
Final Thoughts – Trip is a horror that uses grief to bring us a shock filled horror.
