Terror Trips was one of a few movies that had SAG provisions and filmed during the Covid-19 pandemic, hence director and writer Jeff Seemann altered the script to allow for more exterior shots; thereby lowered the infection possibilities all for his debut feature movie. In fact, the filmmakers took the safety of both the cast and crew seriously as they incurred the cost and responsibility to administrate 257 covid-tests, and thankful all returned negative. This film incorporates a 1970s urban legend possibly from Hungry, Poland, Romania, and the Ukraine which showed supposed clips of this movie known as Black Volga from 1973, two aspects to note, first the basis for the legend is mixed with political fears and distrust issues about the KGB who kidnapped children and secondly, that film is likely not true, more on this aspect in a bit…
Roni Locke, L.C. Holt. Hannah Fierman, Mike Blaney, Abigail Esmena, and Chaney Morrow
The film starts with Dan (Mike Blaney) and his partner George (Abigail Esmena (Ruin [2009])), creating a new biz which they would travel to various famous locations that had a horror movie filmed in them, and joining them on this adventure would be their horror fanatic friends Ginny, Eli (Chaney Morrow (Wrong Turn [2021])), Ed (L.C. Holt), and Molly (Roni Locke) to help scout locations. Hence the audience is treated to a montage of clips of the gang who visited just one location every October; not a very profitable business model, among the sites “Friday the 13,th” “Hell House LLC,” “Dawn of the Dead” with a bust of George A. Romero and “The Blair Witch Project,” it all lasts about 3-minutes. Nevertheless, the big expedition is to send overseas thanks to a new wine sponsor, after they watched a disturbing and infamous movie called Black Volga which was about unsolved kidnappings in the small Polish town and investigating the legend that inspired the actual film. One sees a quick clip of the supposed 50-year-old film though it looks very good for its age. As they arrive to a smallish town, the structures look quite American, in fact most of rural Ohio or western Pennsylvania could pass for the area’s scenic beauty. While most of the cast acts slightly intelligently which is refreshing, the villainous element is highly exaggerated and appears a tad too wooden and even a caricature of the animated Boris and Nastasha design. Most viewers will likely notice some horror film and character connections, such as Alexandra gives a Crazy Ralph warning of gloom, and Ginny (Hannah Fierman (St. Agatha [2018])) noted for quoting a line reference another notes a Zombieland: Double Tap rule. There’s no way to tell of the storyline without giving the whole thing away therefore, stop now and skip down the third-paragraph to avoid any spoilers; it involves organ harvesting, black market, which done in other flicks such as Train [2008] and Bodies [2016] and part of the urban legend landscape. Once the group arrived, they are warned by Aleksandra (Kate Kiddo (Time’s Up [2022])) not speak of the reason why they are there as the horrid truth still haunts, but instead of taking heed of the ominous warning they willing have their car locked in a garage as they venture off for a dreaded trip to camp overnight. Soon enough, they forgot their own horror film rules and split up and venture off in pairs, and we all know how that is going to end up for our travelers, especially when they encounter Jaromir (Bryan Kruse (The Red Mask of Death [2019])) and Katarina (Iryna Scarola (Last Straw [2023])) as well as other individuals with killer intentions. Oh, the tack on scene of the newscasters is beyond horrible and thoroughly wretched.
Nastasha and Boris
First, to address that many critics had a problem with concerning visiting locations of horror films, which I agree one place a year would sustain a working enterprise, the strategy deployed by the real-life The Myers House NC does this often and successful for such flick as The Prowler [1981], film in Cape May, NJ. Another major complaint was the off-camera killing, and while it was done in Friday the 13th [1980] the result of seeing the bodies pays dividends, here that is not quite achieved. Now for the major point concerning the base film Black Volga, here is my theory:
The director searched out urban legends for perhaps eastern Europe stumble upon this story, and then worked on a backstory, making a trailer for it layered in effects to age it appropriately and then uploaded to YouTube on July 4, 2019. However, some likely point to the IMDb page which states 1973, and if you do a source code of the film’s page https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10369770/ you’ll find an upload date for the film, states 2019-07-17 – 13 days later it appears. I also checked our Master Index of Horror films which was created several years ago, that used the IMDb advanced search engine and it is not shown, hence it is to some possible I missed one, although 1973 is my birth year and I have taken the painstaking time to note all films from that year cross-referenced in other periodicals and source genre books. The doubts kept piling up; let’s move onto the backstory found through the trivia page, a quick check the film was never listed on the banned film list for Poland, and the story of townsfolk coming to the set and not leaving until this infamous car was removed, understand there would only be word of mouth and shaking land lines to spread the word, furthermore that in the 1970s this car GAZ-21 (Black Vogla) was expensive, sometimes requiring special permits to acquire it. Internet friends and other filmmakers/critics in Poland also state the film as nonexistent. One might ask was opinionated theory necessary, yes, I thought a bit of history on the car, one of the stories involving this infamous car and the urban legend is the suggestion that Satan drove the car, can anyone recall The Car [1977]. I believe this backstory comes out, as the filmmaker was using it to gather resources for an upcoming film to start in early 2020; however, Covid halted the film, and delays mounted, therefore limited resources but knowing the entertainment market craved new content they film from September to October 2020 and a hurry a released by 2021. A side note in Czechoslovakia, in the late 1970s but the car was now a black ambulance and Romania change it to a Dacia 1301 not available to the public, with once more all echoing the same urban legend.
One additional aspect, there were many technical issues to contend with when watching the film from white balance color saturation and audio variations that cause the remote to be held for sudden pitch changes.
Therefore, let’s be sure to note that the cover art for the most part does not appear in this film, while the film had the opportunity to create a refreshing angle it titters on dullness through most of it, there’re no jumps scare, and overall lacks real horror. One needs to stay focused for the creep factor to briefly emerge nearly 40-minutes into the flick, and the ending is a tad predictable for the seasoned fan. Nevertheless, there is the potential for a script story like this to emerge and generate a scary thrill ride with tighter woven script, better locations, and a hint of Kalifornia [1993] that one hopes to see on the screen eventually until don’t book a sightseeing tour with Terror Trips.
TAGLINE: Your nightmare is our business
https://www.imdb.com/title/tt10384456/
IMDb Rating: 3.5/10
Baron’s Rating: 3.0/10