Bad Trip (2021)

Eric Andre’s new prank comedy film, Bad Trip, has me daydreaming about experiencing this level of performance art and comedy in my daily life and wishing more than anything that I could have been one of the extras in this film. Eric Andre created a mixture of scripted buddy comedy and hidden camera prank comedy to create, what I believe was a comedic masterpiece.

Partners in crime, Eric Andre and Lil Rel Howery as Chris Carey and Bud Malone respectively are matched up against Tiffany Haddish’s Trina Malone on their road trip journey from Florida to NYC. After stealing Trina’s car, Chris and Bud start to make their way across the country in Trina’s pink sedan clad with “Bad Bitch” license plates and detailing. Stopping in cities along the way to wreak havoc, the production of this film was nothing short of well-rehearsed and beautifully organized.

The pranks performed in each location were insanely well planned and received spectacularly by a range of unknowing audience members. I pictured this form of audience participation in the film as a form of theatre where the lines between performer and audience are blurred. Each onlooker became a performer in their own right unintentionally. While the narrative is great, the novelty of this film really does lie in the audience’s reactions throughout each delicately planned prank.