bad trip 2021

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A smoothie shop employee with butterflies in his stomach and a bleeding right hand sits next to an older gentleman on a bench. “Can I ask you something?” he prefaces. The worker then proceeds to babble about his crush, Maria. Should he follow her to New York City, and leave Florida behind? The older man offers advice—speaking from the heart—and it fills the younger man’s soul, so much that he leaps from the bench and bursts into song. It’s this young guy’s big romantic moment, and he dances away before almost getting hit by a car, and then sings at people inside a mall, in which one patron tries to side-kick him.  

This hilarious sequence, which overlaps cliché storytelling with the unassuming public, is just one of many endearing moments in “Bad Trip,” a hidden camera comedy gem starring Eric André , Lil Rel Howery , and Tiffany Haddish that’s finally coming out on Netflix. Directed by Kitao Sakurai , the previous director behind numerous episodes of “The Eric André Show,” it shows an evolution in the hidden camera subgenre, given its warming spirit about people. Unlike the films that previously defined the subgenre, it’s not so much about creating a freak show from unsuspecting extras, but in noting what one would do when confronted with someone as delusional as André’s character Chris. Natural human behavior can be extremely funny, and Sakurai and André know it’s possible to bring it out of people without being mean-spirited. Footage in the end credits of the real people excited to learn that they’re in a movie—a comfort for us as well—confirms the chaos is controlled physically and emotionally, and that allows it to be a party.    

“Bad Trip” is an excellent showcase for Eric André—it’s more mainstream than his talk-show-in-hell “The Eric André Show” and less watered down than his recent resume-boosting, commercial work like “The Lion King” and elsewhere. This role lets him scream, sprint, crash into things, and show off that he’s a sweetheart who wants to include you his absurdity. It’s no stretch to say that André is going to be a huge comedic force—I knew this when I caught his Legalize Everything stand-up tour in Chicago in 2019, when he had a sold-out Chicago Theater completely wrapped up in his FaceTime-ing with the parents of random audience members. He’s an affable anarchist with Robin Williams-like verve, and this project lets his burgeoning persona run wild alongside what the film advertises as “Real People. Real Pranks.”  

André's hilarious earnest Chris is joined in the movie by Lil Rel Howery, who would have been known enough at the time of filming from his scene-stealing turn in “ Get Out ,” but is disguised as Chris’ reserved friend Bud. They have adorable chemistry as two friends in Florida who decide to drive to New York to reunite Chris with his high school crush Maria ( Michaela Conlin ) after two disastrous brief run-ins at Eric’s jobs. They support each other, like when Chris gets extremely drunk at a cowboy bar, or Bud finds himself inside a Porta Potty. Chris is the wide-eyed dreamer, and Bud is the demure rationalist. Their chemistry is as pure as the Golden Girls, so “Thank You For Being a Friend” is featured prominently in the soundtrack, in between scenes of slapstick pranks that further their road trip.  

When Bud and Chris need a car to get to New York City, they “borrow” the bright pink Crown Vic that belongs to Bud’s sister, Trina (Tiffany Haddish), who Bud fears but is relieved when she's put in jail for breaking house arrest. And yet soon enough, Haddish crawls out from under a prison bus, having broken out and starts looking for her car. When it’s not where she stored it, she hunts Bud and Chris up the Eastern seaboard, making for some incredibly funny, abrasive scenes of her confronting people about whether they’ve seen them or her car that has “Bad Bitch” written on the window. Haddish bulldozes into every set-piece, exemplifying the film’s over-the-top spirit. When talking to progressively uncomfortable strangers, she doesn’t miss a beat and she relishes the opportunity to appear dangerous; when she steals a cop car and burns out of a donut shop parking lot, it’s one of her many triumphant moments.  

“Bad Trip” is a collision of great improvisational actors and authentically bewildered reactions from people unaware that they’re now in Chris’ story—which makes Michaela Conlin’s performance as Maria all the more an essential middle to its Venn diagram. She enters the movie also as an innocent bystander, but that’s a deceptive comic energy that plays out in very funny ways as she pushes back against Chris’ delusions. In Chris’ prank-based daydreams, Conlin matches André’s intensity; that she has to play it straight in later scenes adds to the tension she creates, like when Chris tries to profess his love to her.  

Just how funny is “Bad Trip”? After two viewings, it’s one of those comedies with a stable laughing average and high replay value, even if it doesn’t always hit you as hard. It knowingly plays a hit-and-miss game, and some scenes don’t entirely work (like a grocery store drug trip that plays out like a soft tribute to “The Eric Andre Show”), while other pranks go for discomfort more than big laughs (like when Chris gets gas springing all over a gas station). But the movie has speediness on its side, with pacing that takes the plotting from one prank to the next, often including crowds of people in the latest big dramatic confrontation that comes from Bud and Chris’ expected emotional arc. (A sudden car crash sequence is particularly well planned out, with cameras and extras ready nearby.) It’s a steady build to its ultimate destination of NYC, and every major set piece is constructed to bubble with discomfort before then skyrocketing over the top. An early scene at Chris’ smoothie shop job only begins with him making the drinks without spoons—it escalates to awkward tension with disgusted, annoyed customers, and then boom, a laugh-out-loud, gory finale that hits with impeccable, unexpected timing.  

If certain parts of “Bad Trip” aren’t as out-and-out cry-laughing as the work put into them desires, the story is still involving as it adds the dimensionality of unscripted human behavior. And it doesn’t continue the hidden camera movie’s waning intention of dunking on dummies, a factor that also makes this story more fluid than the start-and-stop traps, primed for reaction shots, in something like “Jackass”-spinoff like “Bad Grandpa.” That’s the true sweet spot, in how its pranks are engineered to get the unexpected to interact with Bud, Chris, and or Trina, and see if strangers try to help. (“You turned on us!” says Chris, after a golfer starts swinging a club at Chris and Bud while their penises are enjoined by a Chinese fingertrap.) An amazing scene comes at a tense mid-point, when Trina appears at a restaurant, spreading around fliers with Bud and Chris’ dopey faces on them, advertising her desire to kill the two. She leaves. Bud and Chris then show up at the same place minutes later, and everyone’s response, with some people trying to warn them, and others not wanting to get caught in the middle, is incredible. “Bad Trip” knows how to stir things up, and its funniest scenes often involve real people getting in the mix, tested by the brilliant skills of André, Howery, and Haddish. The ways that some people react to their pranks might shock you in some ways, and absolutely will not in others.  

Now available on Netflix.

Nick Allen is the former Senior Editor at RogerEbert.com and a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association.

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Film credits.

Bad Trip (2021)

Rated R for crude sexual content, pervasive language, some graphic nudity and drug use.

Eric André as Chris

Lil Rel Howery as Bud

Tiffany Haddish as Trina Malone

Michaela Conlin as Maria Li

• Kitao Sakurai

Writer (story)

• Andrew Barchilon

Cinematographer

• Andrew Laboy
• Sascha Stanton Craven
• Matthew Kosinski
• Caleb Swyers
• Ludwig Göransson
• Joseph Shirley

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Watch Bad Trip with a subscription on Netflix.

What to Know

With ingeniously gross hidden-camera bits that often find their unsuspecting marks at their best, Bad Trip turns out to be a surprisingly uplifting ride.

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Cast & crew.

Kitao Sakurai

Chris Carey

Lil Rel Howery

Tiffany Haddish

Trina Malone

Michaela Conlin

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‘Bad Trip’: Eric Andre, Tiffany Haddish and Lil Rel Howery Prank America

• By David Fear

It makes a certain kind of sense that Bad Trip, Eric André’s entry into the Gonzo Comedy Hall of Fame (see: Jackass, Borat, Bad Grandpa ), starts in Florida. Not that the other 49 states of this fine U.S. of A. don’t have their share of goofballs, chowderheads, numbskulls, fuck-ups and jag-offs; it’s just that this particular Southeastern one has a reputation for American eccentricity that results in eyes bugging out, jaws dropping and shit going very wrong. Those “Florida Man” headlines are well-earned.

And the “Florida Man” energy is strong in this one, right from the get-go: No sooner has the comedian appeared onscreen, rocking a mechanic’s jumpsuit and washing a BMW in a West Grove car wash, then something genuinely WTF happens. If you’ve seen the trailer, you know it involves a vacuum hose and full frontal nudity. It also involves a customer who has no idea that he’s part of an elaborate prank that’s been set up for several rolling cameras, someone who is neither in on the joke nor the butt of it. The guy is just an innocent bystander who suddenly finds himself in the middle of a situation he hadn’t planned for or even possibly imagined, while a naked man tries desperately not to show his dick and balls to the world. “Florida Man Loses Clothes, Flashes Customers in Bizarre Car Detailing Accident.” Normally, you can’t make this stuff up. André engineers it like he’s in charge of a NASA launch.

The scene is over way, way too soon — a problem that plagues a lot of Bad Trip ‘s gotcha scenarios, but that’s the risk you take when you’re literally putting your ass out there when making variable-heavy comedy — but it still does what it needs to do, i.e. set the tone and set up the “story.” Note the scare quotes; abandon all hope, ye who want a narrative here, which is frankly missing the point. This is no more a movie than The Eric André Show is a talk show. (Though the director, Kitao Sakurai, has also worked on that Adult Swim gem.) It’s a delivery system for strung-together Situationist happenings and performance art, a fancy way of saying that everyday people get co-opted into sometime highly elaborate, often hilarious, remarkably effective smart-comics-doing-really-dumb-and-gross shit. Including, in one case, a bit that may or may not have involved being covered in actual fecal matter. We don’t know just how Jackass things got here.

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Right, sorry, the story: So when Chris (André) is cleaning the unsuspecting gent’s car, a second customer drives up. Her name is Maria (Michaela Conlin), and she was Chris’s high school crush. He was going to ask her out, but then whoosh go his clothes. Later, he finds out she lives in New York and runs an art gallery. If he’s ever town, drop by and see her. So Chris grabs his best friend Bud (Lil Rel Howery), they take the pink Crown Victoria that belongs to Bud’s sister, Trina ( Tiffany Haddish ) — she’s in prison, it’s all good — and plan a road trip to visit Chris’s soulmate. When Trina “releases” herself from the clink, she finds out that her car’s been stolen and decides to track these guys down across the Eastern seaboard.

There’s a version of Bad Trip in which you pay attention to this tender story of best friends who’ll do anything for each other, who have their ups and downs but still have each other’s backs, rednecks and psycho siblings and cops be damned. The version you’ll probably want to push to the forefront, however, is the one where these three comedians, respectively and together, stage the kind of truly outrageous shenanigans that make you wonder how the hell they got out of these scenes alive. Looking at my notes, I see nothing but a series of phrases: “Chinese Finger Trap,” “Smoothie Shop Blender,” “Cowboy Bar,” “Projectile Vomiting,” “A Priest,” “The Hamptons,” “Gorilla Selfie.” (That last one is genuinely above and beyond the call of duty.) To try and explain what they mean wouldn’t do the gags justice, though I will say that a sequence involving a a movie-musical number in a mall — which includes singing, dancing, a giant wedding cake and the threat of actual violence — is a work of genius.

In other, the sheer hilariousness of a number of individual bits here are enough to get you past slow spots and a few D.O.A. duds, and you come out of Bad Trip with a serious appreciation for this trio’s chops and ability to go with the flow. (Four, actually: Conlin can more than hold her own when she needs to.) And unlike the Jackass crew’s how-low-can-you-go competitions and Borat ‘s politicized exposés, there’s almost a sweetness to the way these folks prank the public. The everyday folks who find themselves having to deal with angry ex-cons or exchanges spiraling out of control aren’t marks; they’re more like collaborators in the movie’s “what if” set-ups. For every encounter in which you fear that André or Howery or Haddish are actually going to get the snot beat of out of them for antagonizing folks, there are a half dozen examples of people stepping in and defusing things, offering help, trying to de-escalate a blow-up. The end credits roll feature a bunch of “smile, you’re on Candid Camera” reveals that lead to smiles and yelps of “oh my god, that was crazy!” The joke’s not on them. They were just a key part of the trip.

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Bad Trip: A must-see outrageous hidden-camera Netflix movie

By deborah duncan | mar 26, 2021.

Bad Trip is a buddy comedy prank show that follows Chris Carey (Eric Andre) on his path to finding his high school crush, Maria (Michaela Conlin), in New York City. Chris and his best friend, Bud Malone (Lil Rel Howery), leave on an epic road trip from Florida to New York while Bud’s violent sister, Trina Malone (Tiffany Haddish), is infuriated that they stole her car.

Bad Trip is a hidden camera prank movie mixed with a typical scripted plot. Chris, Bud, and Trina have a scripted story, but their experiences are in front of the unknowing public. Instead of having movie extras, the public stumbles upon the hidden cameras and becomes part of the story. The film style is a unique mixture of What Would You Do? and Punk’d .

Chris is a hopeless romantic who sees Maria while detailing someone’s car and then working at a smoothie shop. Maria is friendly with Chris at the smoothie shop, and they have many onlookers during their brief conversation. A customer scolds Chris for using his hands in the fruit container instead of the spoon, and another patron even asks if she can finally order once Maria left.

Tiffany Haddish is great in Bad Trip

Bud is mainly the sidekick in this story. His sister, Trina, is the biggest flaw in their plan because they took her car, and that’s all she wants back. Trina went from person to person with pictures of Chris, Bud, and her car, hoping that someone had seen them. After asking many people, she decides to steal a cop car and find them herself.

Trina has several great prank moments in the Netflix movie , including when she appears as an escaped convict, and a guy cleaning off spray paint from a wall encourages her to run away fast. Haddish does a fantastic job as Trina. She alarms everyone with who she comes into contact.

Chris and Bud find themselves in many absurd situations, including a truly unique problem with a Chinese finger trap. The reactions from the random people are hilarious. Most people don’t know how to react or respond to the situations the move puts them in.

One of Bad Trip ‘s funniest aspects is that no one seems to recognize Andre even though he’s not wearing any form of a disguise. The Eric Andre Show recently finished after airing five seasons on Adult Swim, so you would think at least one person would recognize Andre. Bad Trip is one of those movies that would be funnier to watch with friends, but I still found myself laughing so hard that I stopped making noise at one point.

Bad Trip feels similar to Borat Subsequent Moviefilm because it’s a long road trip featuring many real-life people who don’t know they are in a movie. But unlike Borat , there isn’t a political message or social purpose to Bad Trip . It’s purely about putting people in awkward situations and seeing how they respond naturally. Most of the accidentally filmed people come across quite well, which is reassuring to America’s character.

This woman’s response to the situation — which she does not know is a set-up for the hidden camera movie Bad Trip — is truly iconic pic.twitter.com/N58gzo16BL — Netflix (@netflix) March 26, 2021

Bad Trip is streaming on Netflix now.

Next. 50 best Netflix movies to watch right now. dark

‘Bad Trip’ Review: Eric Andre’s Raunchy, Riotous Prank Terrorizes America

A shock-and-awe prank film that transplants rom-com hijinks into reality.

By Amy Nicholson

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It’s a romantic comedy cliché: Boy goes on outrageous quest to win back the girl of his dreams, an adventure fueled by derring-do and impassioned speeches that gain urgency as the violins swell. Onscreen, those manic you-complete-me moments make audiences swoon. But in reality, they’d look like “Bad Trip,” a squirm-worthy exercise in vicarious humiliation that welds the rom-com formula to a gross-out prank show. Directed by Kitao Sakurai and produced by “Jackass” co-creator Jeff Tremaine, “Bad Trip” hands lovelorn loser Chris ( Eric Andre , who co-wrote the film with Sakurai and Dan Curry) a safe word (“popcorn”) and the keys to a hot pink Crown Victoria, and sets the comedian loose to terrorize unsuspecting bystanders along a northbound interstate from Florida to Manhattan, where he intends to profess his love to his middle school crush Maria (Michaela Conlin of “Bones”).

Riding shotgun is Lil Rey Howery as Chris’ best friend Bud, and on their trail storms a terrifyingly incognito Tiffany Haddish , tatted and volatile, posing as Bud’s older sister Trina, a sociopathic prison escapee who barges into restaurants brandishing Chris and Bud’s picture and convinces strangers they might have to testify in a murder trial. Will these good citizens rat out Andre’s besotted Chris, who drips pathos like a leaking hose, and the charmingly sincere Howery? Alas, the average civilian lacks the courage of a movie hero. Groans one man, “I wasn’t ready to be Samuel L. Jackson in ‘The Negotiator.’”

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The result is sniggering slapstick that’s two-parts biological fluids and one-part salute to the innate empathy of mankind, often in the same scene. Take the zoo tour where Chris attempts to impress Maria by sneaking into the cage of an amorous gorilla for a selfie. The scene quickly becomes repellant for reasons better left to the imagination. Yet his fellow tourists’ concern adds a dash of sugar, even if their advice is merely untested hunches (“Don’t look him in the eye!”) or relationship insights (“Would she go out there for you?”) that could wait until Chris has pulled up his pants. Not everyone is so kind. When Andre and Howery barge into a barbershop with their unmentionables conjoined in a Chinese finger trap, a knife-wielding man chases them down the street. (Afterwards, Howery nearly quit.)

“Bad Trip” is an extension of Andre and Sakurai’s eight-year creative partnership on Adult Swim’s “The Eric Andre Show,” five seasons of aggressive performance art disguised as a talk show. Andre disables the part of his amygdala that restrains him from holding strangers’ babies until they cry or unnerving guests with cockroaches and jump scares. The goal of his stunts isn’t to make his patsies angry. It’s to make them feel as though reality has cracked open under their feet, to tectonically upend normal codes of behavior so that even the audience is unsettled by their own laughter. Is it funny when Haddish pretends to break out of a police van and pressures a witness to lie to the cops? Yes and no. But while it’s possible to have empathy for an individual, in the aggregate, the movie’s marks become hilarious carnage.

Sakurai’s favorite hidden camera closeups aren’t of people snarling in anger (though there’s plenty of that). It’s of someone slack-jawed that they’d entered someplace benign — a juice bar, a car wash, a grocery store — only to suddenly bear witness to Andre’s extreme joy or shame. His Chris suffers the emotional equivalent of Johnny Knoxville shooting himself out of a cannon. When Chris asks a random guy on a bench if he should surprise Maria in New York, the man advises him to go for it. When Chris leaps up and starts to sing, the now-invested stranger grins, “He’s in love!” But when Chris jazz-dances into a mall food court, a shopper kicks in panic. Someone that happy has got to be dangerous.

However, Andre’s social experiments prove that the majority of Americans truly want to be helpful. This makes the film oddly heartening, whether from an Army recruitment officer who gives Chris a needed boost, or from a diner waitress who edits the sex out of a draft of Chris’ climactic profession of love. “Be more romantic,” she advises. How long? At least “30 minutes to an hour.” As the end credits roll, “Bad Trip” plays a montage of people learning they’ve been pranked, which eases the psychic damage. That the pranksters are the most imperiled by their hoaxes offers a bruising absolution. Still, as Haddish barges up to a policeman to ask him for a kiss, it’s hard not to pray: It’s only a movie, it’s only a movie.

Reviewed online, Los Angeles, March 24, 2021. MPAA Rating: R. Running time: 84 MIN.

• Production: A Netflix release of an Orion Pictures production. Producers: Jeff Tremaine, Eric Andre, David Bernard, Ruben Fleischer. Co-producers: Dan Curry, Kevin Costello. Executive producers: Aaron L. Gilbert, Shanna Zablow Newton, Jason Cloth.
• Crew: Director: Kitao Sakurai. Screenplay: Sakurai, Eric Andre, Dan Curry. Camera: Andrew Laboy. Editors: Sascha Stanton Craven, Matthew Kosinski, Caleb Swyers. Music: Ludwig Göransson, Joseph Shirley.
• With: Eric Andre, Lil Rel Howery, Tiffany Haddish, Michaela Conlin.

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Where to Watch

Eric André (Chris Carey) Michaela Conlin (Maria Li) Lil Rel Howery (Bud Malone) Tiffany Haddish (Trina Malone) Gerald Espinoza (Dancer) Kaleila Johnson (Dancer) Michael Starr (Dancer) Yvette Tucker (Dancer) Allan Graf (Bus Driver) Kevin Cassidy (Hunky Guy)

Kitao Sakurai

This mix of a scripted buddy comedy road movie and a real hidden camera prank show follows the outrageous misadventures of two buds stuck in a rut who embark on a cross-country road trip to NYC. The storyline sets up shocking real pranks.

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More about Bad Trip

Eric André brought back his talk show partially because he made no money on Bad Trip

Everything seems to have worked out alright for Eric André, though

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Eric André brings his pranks to the movies with the funny, warmhearted Bad Trip

In the specialized subgenre of movies blending fictional characters with hidden-camera pranks and stunts in the …

Eric Andre and Lil Rel Howery are on a prank-filled journey in this trailer for Bad Trip

If there’s one problem that most movies share, it’s that there aren’t nearly enough shots of regular people reacting …

Summary This hidden camera comedy follows two best friends go on a cross-country road trip full of hilarious, inventive pranks, pulling its real-life audience into the mayhem.

Directed By : Kitao Sakurai

Written By : Eric André, Andrew Barchilon, Dan Curry, Derrick Beckles, Jenna Park, Kathryn Borel, Kitao Sakurai

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Movie Review: Bad Trip (2021)

• Maxance Vincent
• Movie Reviews
• --> March 28, 2021

2021 has been an incredible year for absurdist comedies that push the boundaries of socially acceptable humor to the extremes. Josh Greenbaum’s “Barb and Star Go to Vista Del Mar” is still the funniest (and best) film of the year (so far), but there’s a new competitor in town that dares to go back to the hidden camera pranks of MTV’s “Jackass” era: Bad Trip . Co-produced by “Jackass” filmmaker Jeff Tremaine and directed by “The Eric Andre Show” helmer Kitao Sakurai, Bad Trip contains some of the funniest hidden camera pranks since 2002’s “Jackass: The Movie,” with an extra level of authenticity that’s never been truly reached before.

The film’s framing device is rather simple: Chris (Eric André, “ Rough Night ”) rekindles with the high-school love of his life, Maria Li (Michaela Conlin, “ Enchanted ”) while working at a smoothie shop, which prompts him to go on a road trip to New York City with his best friend, Bud (Lil Rel Howery, “ Get Out ”), to go after Maria. They embark in Bud’s sister Trina’s (Tiffany Haddish, “ Nobody’s Fool ”) stolen car without knowing that she recently broke out of prison and is currently on the lookout for them.

The “road trip” device serves as a quasi-excuse for André, Howery, and Haddish to prank real people without ever being afraid of pushing it to the extremes. And this is what makes Bad Trip particularly funny: Seeing Eric André and others perform exuberant acts of total “shock-slapstick” comedy for a completely impervious public and always going the extra mile to make every situation as uncomfortable as possible. For example, Chris works at a smoothie shop, with a total disregard of basic hygiene protocols (this is particularly timely in the COVID era we currently live in) and, after seeing “the love of his life” for the first time in a year, accidentally puts his hand in a blender which begins to splatter out *lots* of blood. The timing is impeccable, especially when the hidden cameras brilliantly capture the customers’ natural reactions of pure disgust and, finally, shock. And this bit only gives a taste of what’s to come, with the pranks becoming more elaborate (and sometimes reaching downright terrifying levels of comedy) as the film moves along.

Eric André is, in my opinion, one of the funniest comedians living today — and continues to prove his dynamite timing with this film. This feels like a movie especially crafted for him (and his friends) to showcase just how talented he is at not only physical comedy, but also improvisation. Many of the sequences with real people aren’t scripted, and André’s quick-thinking makes him shine in almost every single one of these scenes. This is most evident because the film’s scripted scenes that supposedly “move the plot forward” are incredibly dull and uninspired to watch. Of course, you’re not going to watch Bad Trip for the plot — chances are you’re watching the movie for André and Sakurai’s skills at revitalizing a (seemingly) long-dead sub-genre of comedy, which is fine, but the plot should’ve still been more polished and feel less rushed.

Also, running at almost 79-minutes without credits, the movie doesn’t have enough time to properly develop character depth or the relationships between Chris, Bud, and Trina effectively, forgoing that to go to the “good stuff” quickly. It’s safe to say, if you want your audience to truly immerse themselves to not only the insane hidden-camera sequences Sakurai and André put on display, it helps to have compelling characters. Without them, the hidden-camera sequences feel completely detached from the alleged story piecing it all together.

Still, Bad Trip begs to be experienced. It brilliantly recaptures the unflinching insanity of Jeff Tremaine’s “Jackass” triptych whilst reaching new levels of stranger participation and authenticity Tremaine’s films were never able to achieve. Put the poorly-developed story aside and have fun with Kitao Sakurai’s boundary-pushing comedy that’s sure to elicit an insane amount of laughter . . . though be warned of its audacity to shock with many gross-out sequences. If you loved “Jackass,” you will absolutely adore Bad Trip . Take the plunge on Netflix — you will most certainly not regret it.

Tagged: friends , New York City , pranksters , road trip , sister

Freelance film critic based in Montreal, Québec, with an interest in everything genre cinema has to offer. Follow me on twitter @MaxFromQuebec.

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Please support us by disabling your ad blocker on our site., netflix's 'bad trip' packs a whole lot of chaos in 90 minutes, this hidden–camera prank comedy will have you at the edge of your seat—and then falling off of it from laughter..

Watch one episode of The Eric Andre Show , and you’ll see just how much comedic chaos one man can bring into the world. A master of jokes and pranks, Eric Andre spends his screen time interviewing celebrities and celebrity impersonators, shocking innocent civilians, partaking in what producers describe as “deranged” man–on–the–street segments, and wreaking havoc in the studio. 

Bad Trip , a recent Netflix release starring Andre, as well as actors and comics Lil Rel Howery , Michaela Conlin , and Tiffany Haddish , challenged Andre to produce and stick to a narrative storyline—rather than just unrelated jokes. The film follows best friends Chris Carey, played by Andre, and Bud Malone, played by Howery, as they travel from Florida to New York in order to meet up with Carey’s high school crush Maria Li, played by Conlin. Along the way, hidden cameras capture increasingly absurd pranks the cast plays on the public. The result is an adrenaline–inducing, entirely unpredictable comedy.

In line with his on–screen persona, which likely reflects his real–life demeanor, Andre is known to be anything but cooperative in real–life interviews . However, Street had the opportunity to interview him, Howery, and Conlin in a Zoom roundtable event, where he provided some insight into what happened behind the scenes. In true Andre fashion, he still brought some mischief to the event: At one point he changed his Zoom background to a screenshot of another interviewer, and later to a photo of Carole Baskin .

Andre cited Johnny Knoxville , Jeff Tremain e , and Sacha Baron Cohen as his “comedy forefathers,” with some of these comics even helping brainstorm on set. His own brand of absurd humor differentiates him from his inspirations, however. Andre stated that he's excited that Bad Trip is the first hidden–camera prank movie with a cast that consists entirely of people of color—making it a significant milestone in the comedy world.

Andre also touched on the process of getting comfortable doing hidden–camera pranks. “My organs used to sweat from nerves,” he says. 

However, Andre’s been doing this kind of thing for years. He spoke on how Howery and Conlin were the ones truly “thrown into the fire pit,” quite literally going “from zero to a hundred." 

According to the cast, Howery’s first hidden camera prank was a scene involving a Chinese finger trap. Let’s just say that fingers were not the objects stuck in the bamboo tube. He and Andre entered a barbershop to ask for help, and the shop owner pulled a knife on them. “He almost got murdered on his first day,” Andre says while chuckling. 

As for Conlin, Andre and his fellow producers dragged her to a mall for her audition. They had her pretend to beat up director Kitao Sakurai in front of several clothing store clerks. Conlin and Andre cracked up while reminiscing. They didn’t even film said audition—they just wanted her to see what it felt like. She did so well that she got the part immediately.

Producing Bad Trip further pushed Andre to expand his skills beyond his usual comfort zone of off–the–cuff comedy. In order to understand and utilize storytelling principles for the first time, he had to go back to school: He and his writers attended Robert McKee seminars and read Blake Snyder’s Save the Cat! , as well as Syd Field’s Screenplay . 

With the narrative underway, it was time to focus on the main event—the pranks. When asked about balancing shock factor with the morality of pranking unsuspecting bystanders, Andre pinpointed the fine line between “good bad taste” and “bad bad taste.” Of course you want to be provocative, but dancing on the edge can often lead to being unethical. 

“Comedy is a game of millimeters,” he says, “so you’re always checking in with your barometer—but there’s never malicious intent.” Conlin chimed in to say that the prankees were typically kind and helpful, both during and after the pranks. Giggling, she shared that one woman whispered calmly in her ear that “everything will be okay.”

Even more hilariously, a diner scene that made it into the final cut depicts Andre and Howery sitting at a table and chatting up their waitress. She ends up giving them relationship advice, saying that she’s “slept with all different genders and genres,” and essentially recounting her entire sexual history. 

Though the majority of the prankees you see in the movie are randomly selected, unsuspecting strangers, there were a few willing participants on set. Conlin, Andre, and Howery made it very clear that in a scene where Conlin’s character, Maria, beats up a blind man, he’s not actually blind. 

“He was a very strange stuntman who was blessed with his own special set of skills," Andre says.

If this famous cast was constantly interacting with new people, how did they not get recognized? Howery says it was rarely an issue, especially since Andre tends to pick the right parks. He avoided his demographic of college kids and skateboarders, and instead opted for “40–and–up moms who had a long day.” He also mentioned that they changed their looks, which helped a lot. Howery’s “mustache and civil–rights–attorney hair” as his character, Bud Malone, strayed far from his everyday drip. 

Even when they did get recognized, the cast played it cool. Howery shared that during a prank at the zoo, a woman approached him to say that he looked a bit like Lil Rel Howery. “Yeah, I get that all the time,” he replied. “Anyway, what’s going on with that gorilla?” It totally worked.

Staying in character is absolutely crucial for these kinds of pranks. If you waver for even a second, the prank fails, because you’re relying on the prankees to be utterly shocked. If they suspect that something is up, their reactions won’t be raw. 

Andre says that the sheer pressure forced him and the cast to commit to the act, and they hyped one another up throughout filming. Without giving too much away, there’s a scene wherein a gorilla does unspeakable things to Andre’s character. According to Andre, Howery stood with the onlookers, saying things like “Oh my god—my friend’s in peril! Please help him!” The two would “ping pong emotions back and forth” to really convince the audience.

As with any comedy, the funniest scenes are the bloopers; the closing credits showcase several of them. Because the crew did have to stick to a storyline, some of the pranks just didn’t fit into the narrative. Fortunately, they plan to release some of these extra scenes later on, giving us even more to look forward to. As a bit of a spoiler, Howery explained his favorite scene that didn't make the final cut: Andre’s character pretended to be possessed by the devil, and they brought in a real priest to exorcise the demon out of him. Howery kept cursing every time the priest gave him Bible verses to say, and the priest grew increasingly frustrated with him. Howery says, “It was insane. The guy really thought he was doing it. He probably saw it on T.V. and said, ‘I’m gonna become a priest.’”

Bad Trip was released on Netflix March 26, so be sure to catch a glimpse of the hysterically out–of–control journey. Buckle your seat belts and hold on tight, because it’s going to be a wild ride.

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Looking to watch ' Bad Trip ' on your TV or mobile device at home? Searching for a streaming service to buy, rent, download, or watch the Kitao Sakurai-directed movie via subscription can be a huge pain, so we here at Moviefone want to help you out. Read on for a listing of streaming and cable services - including rental, purchase, and subscription choices - along with the availability of 'Bad Trip' on each platform when they are available. Now, before we get into the various whats and wheres of how you can watch 'Bad Trip' right now, here are some finer points about the Orion Pictures Bron Studios Creative Wealth Media Finance The District Gorilla Flicks comedy flick. Released March 26th, 2021, 'Bad Trip' stars Eric André , Lil Rel Howery , Tiffany Haddish , Michaela Conlin The NR movie has a runtime of about 1 hr 27 min, and received a user score of 60 (out of 100) on TMDb, which collated reviews from 490 experienced users. Want to know what the movie's about? Here's the plot: "This hidden camera comedy follows two best friends as they go on a cross-country road trip full of hilarious, inventive pranks, pulling its real-life audience into the mayhem." 'Bad Trip' is currently available to rent, purchase, or stream via subscription on Netflix .

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Eww, That’s Gross. And We Like It That Way.

Why the tasteless humor of “Bad Trip,” starring Eric Andre, is a feat to be celebrated. Few can pull off transgression so skillfully.

By Jason Zinoman

If the comedy “Bad Trip” had premiered in theaters as intended until it moved to Netflix because of the pandemic, one already notorious scene would have surely sent crowds into a frenzy of groans and laughter. It involves an encounter between Eric Andre and a gorilla best not described in a family newspaper. Skillfully paced, preposterously tasteless, it’s a sequence that will alienate a portion of its audience, while cementing a cult reputation with another.

Whatever your reaction (I loved it), it’s as clarifying as any mission statement, showing that the makers of this movie are less interested in glowing reviews than visceral, raucous responses. It also signals the comeback of the gross-out comedy, a genre in decline, struggling with nerves about social censure and competition from the shock value of real life.

In a 2019 interview, no less an authority than John Waters, whose well-earned nicknames include the Pope of Trash and the Duke of Dirty, declared the death of the gross-out comedy. Last week, on Marc Maron’s podcast, he provided one explanation with this unassailable point. “It’s easy to be disgusting. It’s easy to be obscene,” he said. “But it’s not easy to be witty about it.”

This is what makes “Bad Trip” such a welcome feat, and why its impact may well eclipse that of all the movies that took home Oscars over the weekend. It’s cleverly crass, finding new ways to disgust with old-fashioned finesse.

The roots of the modern gross-out comedy can be traced to EC Comics and Mad Magazine, giddily demented publications devoured by kids in the middle of the last century, some of whom went on to create movies like “Animal House” and “American Pie.” This led to an arms race of vulgarity with increasingly rote bursts of taboo-busting along with hilarious landmarks: the contagious vomiting in “Stand By Me,” the hair gel in “There’s Something About Mary,” and the wildly influential “Jackass” franchise. (One of its creators, Jeff Tremaine, is a producer of “Bad Trip.”)

“Bad Trip” is firmly in this tradition, but updated for an era in which reality and fiction increasingly blur. It’s no surprise that Nathan Fielder and Sacha Baron Cohen, who have used the tools of documentary features to expand the palette of comedy, helped consult . “Bad Trip,” which has elements of a buddy movie, a romance and a prank show, spills every imaginable bodily fluid and stomps on delicate sensibilities, but manages to do this with warmth and earned sentiment.

Key to its success is the benevolently mischievous charisma of Eric Andre , an anarchic performer who always seems on the verge of accidental destruction, whether in his standup or his brilliantly experimental talk show . He moves through “Bad Trip” like a giant pane of glass in a silent movie. His fragility earns your sympathy right from the start.

In the first scene, his character, Chris, working at a Florida carwash, chats with a customer when he spots in the distance a woman who was his high school crush. Mouth agape, soupy music in the background, he explains how nervous he feels seeing her, before accidentally stepping toward a vacuum that suddenly sucks off his jump suit. He’s left naked as the girl approaches. He and the woman are actors, but the stranger watching this unfold is not, and this entire stunt is engineered to find comedy in his reaction while setting the gears of the plot in motion. It’s secondhand cringe comedy.

“Bad Trip” is organized around a series of increasingly elaborate set pieces that incorporate the response of real people not in on the joke. They are deftly integrated into a fictional story rooted in relationships that are given room to develop and fill out. Andre has superb chemistry with Lil Rel Howery, who plays his frustrated, sensible friend, Bud Malone, dragooned along for a road trip to find his lost love. They begin by stealing the car of Bud’s sister, performed brilliantly with an unhinged gusto by Tiffany Haddish, who plays off real people just as well as she does professionals.

These are some of the funniest comic actors working today, but what gets the biggest laughs here are their interactions with ordinary people. The director Kitao Sakurai (who has staged many episodes of “The Eric Andre Show”) alternates between slick action moviemaking and vérité shots that draw attention to the unscripted element. Just as prank comedy helped “Borat” add a spontaneity and danger to anti-Trump political humor, it does the same for gross-out humor. “Jackass” did this too, but it didn’t have the same narrative conviction.

There are some moments when you really worry for Andre, like when he gets drunk and causes havoc in a country bar . Whereas “Borat” takes a cutting satirical eye to many of the real people the character meets, “Bad Trip” aims for a much more endearing tone, even in its most confrontational scenes. It’s a movie that pingpongs between gross-out and feel-good.

The butt of the joke is usually Andre, and yet the movie is careful to keep the audience on his side. There’s an unexpected innocence here that makes the chaos more palatable. The way the sequences escalate demonstrates an alertness to structure and rhythm. There’s one scene where Haddish, in an orange jumpsuit, sneaks out from under a prison bus and asks a guy on the street for help escaping the police, who ultimately arrive. What follows is a series of chases, a farce that may remind some of classic Charlie Chaplin. But luckily, not too much. “Bad Trip” never wants to be too respectable. After all, who cracks up at good taste?

No mainstream film genre gets less respect than the gross-out comedy — not even its artistic cousin, gory horror, which also traffics in gushing bodily fluids, icky ids and gleeful transgression. There’s no comedy equivalent of the auteur David Cronenberg, who is often hailed for his intellectually challenging blood baths. Critics regularly dismiss gross-out movies as gratuitous and juvenile. Well, duh.

Kids understand some things better than adults, and that includes the comic potential of vomit. Gross-out comedy provokes explosive laughs, in part, because it exercises parts of the sense of humor that were abandoned when we grew up. It evokes the laughter we experienced before learning the proper ways to act. So while transgression is built into these movies, their pleasures are fundamentally nostalgic, which is why they can age poorly, trafficking in retrograde attitudes and tired stereotypes. But they don’t have to.

The best provocateurs pay close attention to shifts in sensitivities. And gross-out connoisseurs can be snobs, too. That’s why for a certain kind of fan, that gorilla scene signals a twisted kind of integrity, a commitment to those with a taste for demented moments of provocation above all else. You need high standards to be that lowbrow.

Inside the World of Comedy

Kevin Hart became the 25th comic  to receive the Mark Twain Prize for American Humor from the Kennedy Center.

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Delivering a deluge of hard jokes, Tina Fey and Amy Poehler tried stand-up for the first time as a double act, aiming directly for the nostalgic pleasure centers of their fans .

Dave Chappelle assumes we’re already offended in his new Netflix special , “The Dreamer,” which predictably includes trans and disabled jokes.

Was a scandal the best thing to happen to Hasan Minhaj ? It repositions him less as a righteous political comic than a more self-questioning, personal comic.

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2021 Directed by Kitao Sakurai

Friendships run deep.

Two pals embark on a road trip full of funny pranks that pull real people into mayhem.

Eric André Lil Rel Howery Tiffany Haddish Michaela Conlin Gerald Espinoza Kaleila Johnson Michael Starr Yvette Tucker Allan Graf Kevin Cassidy Cory DeMeyers Henry Wang Charles Green Greg SmithAldridge Adam Meir Peter A. Chevako Dimitry Elyashkevich Guillermo Dionisio Insfran De Fazio Giovanna Dan Murisa Harba Forrest Walsh Anthony J. James Rebecca Rose Goodman

Director Director

Kitao Sakurai

Producers Producers

Jeff Tremaine Ruben Fleischer Eric André David Bernad Jenna Park David Siev Mina Farman

Writers Writers

Kitao Sakurai Eric André Andrew Barchilon Dan Curry

Casting Casting

Wendy O'Brien

Editors Editors

Sascha Stanton Craven Matthew Kosinski Caleb Swyers

Cinematography Cinematography

Andrew Laboy

Assistant Directors Asst. Directors

Ibrahim Yilla Knia Bonds

Executive Producers Exec. Producers

Aaron L. Gilbert Jason Cloth

Set Decoration Set Decoration

Mark Graffenius Jennifer Chandler Barbara Pita Riley Faist

Visual Effects Visual Effects

Nicolaus Waetjen

Composers Composers

Ludwig Göransson Joseph Shirley

Sound Sound

Trip Brock Kelly Vandever Lorita de la Cerna Raymond Park K. Joshua Fernberg Alexander Jongbloed Joshua Crisci Xiang Li

Costume Design Costume Design

Ryan Martin

Makeup Makeup

Dionne Wynn

Orion Pictures Bron Studios Creative Wealth Media Finance The District Gorilla Flicks

Releases by Date

26 mar 2021, releases by country.

• Digital 16+
• Digital 18 Netflix
• Digital Netflix
• Digital 16+ Netflix
• Digital M18 Netflix

South Korea

• Digital 15 Netflix
• Digital NR Netflix

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Popular reviews

Review by Karst ★★★★

first 10 minutes were not clicking at all but it got so good....so fast. like as soon as the musical number parody happened it got extremely fun. this is pretty much all my favorite parts of the eric andre show in one movie with the added bonus of being suchhh a clever way of using hidden camera pranks in film. probably the best hidden camera prank movie if we’re being honest? 

just so glad that this makes up for eric andre’s extremely disappointing standup special from last year (that i’m still not over, apparently)

Review by Josh Lewis ★★★★ 9

Has exactly one joke but that joke is fucking genius and incredibly well-realized in the filmmaking. Obviously the Jackass movies and other comedy shows like Nathan For You have done hidden camera pranks while playing characters but there's a unique energy that comes with this almost front-to-back being completely indistinguishable from a cliché scripted studio comedy; the formal structure, pacing, and rhythm of scenes, even specific dramatic shot choices. Capturing these heightened tropes we buy into when we watch movies and then populating them with real people on the periphery to introduce spontaneity (that frequently doesn't play much differently than say improv) and get the most incredible reaction shots imaginable. There are some amazing set pieces conceived and I haven't…

Review by demi adejuyigbe 5

This is outstanding. Takes the beats of a by-the-numbers studio comedy and plays it out with unwitting participants in a way that reveals just how much true human nature is reflected in even the least believable parts of those movies (which is a real chicken-egg scenario, because who knows if that's a reflection of how much we all wanna be the people in those movies!) If aliens came to Earth and needed proof that humans were good, I think I'd show them this movie!

Love love loved it. Already feel like I wanna rewatch it, which is the mark of a special movie to me. I think the psychology of hidden camera prank movies like this is so interesting that…

Review by demi adejuyigbe 9

“Jackie, you talk too much!”

Review by Joe ★★★★★ 6

Genders and genres

Review by Matthew Christman ★★★½ 49

Okay, is having a dude who looks and sounds like Hannibal Burress but isn't Hannibal Burress play the part that was clearly written for Hannibal Burress a bit?

Review by Jay ★★½ 12

spielberg better hold off releasing his west side story remake because this is the only love story about a guy chasing a girl called maria i need this year

Review by Ayo Edebiri ★★★★½ 6

Such a fun idea executed really creatively! I think it’s fun when a movie is fun and that’s it!!!

Also tbh so much more fun than B*rat 2, where SBC clearly thinks he’s like Jesus and then tries to show people’s like (??) inner prejudices (which I’ve always hated bc like...girl, I’m black lol...I know) and (frankly) then does nothing about them.

The blooper reel especially made me love this movie. A lot of people’s first instincts are to either mind their business or to help. Nothing really sinister about it...just trying to have fun.....ok.....I laughed so much....

Review by SilentDawn ★★★★½ 2

Such a thrilling comedy. Real life taking shape as a movie. Best laugh: the random dude who brought up Samuel L. Jackson in The Negotiator .

Review by Eli Hayes ★★★★½ 9

One of the best comedic satires of the century, in my book. Kitao Sakurai and Eric André's Cabin Boy. An absurdly hysterical social and filmic commentary created through inconceivable but perfect methods of cinematic magic. Structure and form as spy cameras capturing reactions and moving the characters, or personas, forward. Security images as propellers which drive the roles to their ridiculous "finish." Really though, the film has no beginning or end (in the same sense of the slick transitions between the cameras, tones, etc. used to distinguish multiple aesthetic realities). It amalgamates flawlessly, ultimately existing in the faction of our subconscious aching to see an amusing interruption or disturbance from the colorless status quo.

Review by Matt Singer ★★★★½

This review may contain spoilers. I can handle the truth.

A magnificent tribute to the power of motion pictures in general, and specifically to the power of the motion picture White Chicks . If you don’t laugh at this movie, consult a physician immediately. The only problem with Bad Trip  is I didn’t get to see it in a theater — because it would have been even funnier with a crowd.

Review by esther ★★★★ 1

a beautiful ode to the human ability to be cool and generous with strangers even in bizarre and uncomfortable circumstances

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James and Jennifer Crumbley, a school shooter's parents, are sentenced to 10-15 years

Quinn Klinefelter

(From left) James Crumbley, his attorney Mariell Lehman, Jennifer Crumbley and her attorney Shannon Smith sit in court in Pontiac, Mich., for Tuesday's sentencing on four counts of involuntary manslaughter for the deaths of four Oxford High School students who were shot and killed by the Crumbleys' son. Bill Pugliano/Getty Images hide caption

(From left) James Crumbley, his attorney Mariell Lehman, Jennifer Crumbley and her attorney Shannon Smith sit in court in Pontiac, Mich., for Tuesday's sentencing on four counts of involuntary manslaughter for the deaths of four Oxford High School students who were shot and killed by the Crumbleys' son.

James and Jennifer Crumbley, whose son murdered four classmates and shot seven other people at Oxford High School in 2021, were each sentenced Tuesday in a Pontiac, Mich. courtroom to between 10 and 15 years in prison.

Both Crumbleys were found guilty in separate trials on four counts of involuntary manslaughter. Each of those charges carried a maximum penalty of 15 years, and the sentences are to be served concurrently.

In court, the Crumbleys looked visibly shaken, breathing heavily as they read from prepared statements prior to learning their fate.

James Crumbley spoke directly to the parents of the students his son had murdered. Several family members attended the sentencing.

"I am sorry for your loss as a result of what my son did," he said. "I cannot express how much I wish that I had known what was going on with him or what was going to happen. Because I absolutely would have done a lot of things differently."

James Crumbley, father of school shooter, found guilty of involuntary manslaughter

In her statement, Jennifer Crumbley said she, her husband and her son, Ethan, were an average family.

"We weren't perfect but we loved our son and each other tremendously," Crumbley said. "This could be any parent up here in my shoes. Ethan could be your child, could be your grandchild, your niece, your nephew, your brother, your sister. Your child could make the fatal decision not just with a gun but a knife, a vehicle, intentionally or unintentionally."

The teenagers who lost their lives during the shooting rampage were Justin Shilling and Madisyn Baldwin, both 17, Tate Myre, 16, and 14-year-old Hana St. Juliana. Six other students and a teacher were injured.

When it was time for their families to speak, several members described how the murders still haunted them.

Nicole Beausoleil, whose daughter Madisyn Baldwin was shot at point blank range, told the Crumbleys buying their son a gun when he was already spiraling into despair made them just as responsible as the shooter.

"Not only did your son kill my daughter but you both did as well. The words 'involuntary' should not be a part of your offense. Everything you did that day, months prior and days after were voluntary acts (helping) your son to commit a murder. Not just one, but multiple," Beausoleil said.

A rare prosecution

The Crumbleys are believed to be the first parents of a mass school shooter to have been charged and convicted of such crimes. Many legal experts say it could set a precedent for charging parents with serious crimes because of actions taken by their child.

Their son, Ethan Crumbley, pleaded guilty to murder and previously was sentenced to life without parole for the school shooting he carried out when he was 15.

Prosecutors never claimed the parents knew about their son's plans to go on a killing spree at Michigan's Oxford High School. However, they argued the Crumbleys ignored signs their son was seriously troubled and bought him a powerful Sig Sauer 9mm handgun as an early Christmas present.

They never told counselors about the gun they gifted their child when they were called to a meeting at the school the day of the shooting, not even when they were shown drawings the teen made. The images featured a pistol resembling the Sig Sauer alongside a figure with bullet wounds and phrases like "blood everywhere" and "help me, the thoughts won't stop."

Jennifer Crumbley convicted of involuntary manslaughter over son's school shooting

Instead, the Crumbleys left their son at school and returned to work. A few hours later, Ethan emerged from a school bathroom with the gun and began firing his first of 32 shots.

Prosecutors told the jury if the Crumbleys had taken a "tragically few steps," four Oxford students would likely still be alive.

They showed evidence that the murder weapon was never properly secured away from their troubled son.

In court, Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald used the murder weapon to demonstrate how to use a cable lock to keep the gun from being fired.

The process took about 10 seconds.

A 'chilling' lack of remorse

The prosecution had asked for the Crumbleys to serve 10 to 15 years in prison, citing what they called a "chilling lack of remorse" on the part of both parents after the shooting.

Prosecutors noted that Jennifer Crumbley testified during her trial that "I've asked myself if I would've done anything differently. And I wouldn't have."

And they pointed to repeated profanity-laced threats James Crumbley made against Oakland County Prosecutor Karen McDonald on jailhouse phone calls he knew were being recorded, as well as in an electronic message.

'Mistakes any parent could make'

James Crumbley's attorney countered that his client had not physically threatened the prosecutor, he merely "vented" his anger over what he saw as an unjust incarceration.

The Crumbleys said they, too, were victims of their son, who they claimed had "manipulated" them into the purchase of a gun they had no idea he would use to kill.

They argued they made "mistakes any parent could make," given the information they had.

Defense attorneys for the couple noted an Oxford High counselor determined Ethan could remain in school the day of the shooting because he did not seem to pose a danger to himself or anyone else.

The couple maintained they thought their son was a normal teenager simply depressed over the loss of his grandmother, a pet dog and a friend who had moved away.

In a pre-sentencing interview with state officials, Jennifer Crumbley said that with the benefit of hindsight, "There are so many things I would change if I could go back in time."

Defense claims extra prison time unnecessary

The Crumbleys had asked to be sentenced to time served.

Defense attorneys argued the parents had already spent more than two and a half years in prison locked in a cell for 23 hours a day, and that further prison time was not necessary because the Crumbleys were not a threat to the public.

Defense attorney Shannon Smith also said more time would not deter others from committing a similar offense because "there is no person who would want the events of Nov. 30, 2021, to repeat themselves."

Smith added that, far from being the uncaring, remorseless mother prosecutors had portrayed to the public and the media, Jennifer Crumbley was focused on her son and distraught over the devastation her son caused.

In a sentencing memo, Jennifer Crumbley's parents and others pleaded with the court for leniency. A young woman, who said she was 18 when she became Crumbley's cellmate for a year and a half, also wrote to the judge.

She said Crumbley had greeted her with a basket of snacks and served as a mother figure to her.

The woman also wrote that inmates screamed threats at Crumbley, who tearfully told them she was sorry and "wished she could change everything her son had done."

Though Judge Cheryl Matthews sentenced the Crumbleys to the stiffest penalty possible, she said that the sentences were not designed to send a message to other parents or prosecutors that they should hold families responsible for children's crimes.

"These convictions are not about poor parenting. These convictions confirm repeated acts, or lack of acts, that could have halted an oncoming runaway train. About repeatedly ignoring things that would make a reasonable person feel the hair on the back of their neck stand up," Matthews said.

Moments after they were sentenced, the Crumbleys began filling out paperwork in the courtroom for an appeal.

Their son, Ethan, who pleaded guilty in October 2022 to murder and terrorism charges, is also likely to appeal his sentence of life without the possibility of parole.

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