After nearly a decade of filming, rewrites, reshoots, delays, pandemics, and one thwarted South by Southwest premiere, Eric Andre’s Bad Trip finally landed—and somehow stuck the landing in a way that’s both wildly inappropriate and kind of hopeful.
“It was almost eight years from idea to release,” Andre tells me. “From the time Bad Grandpa made a quadrillion dollars, my agent goes, ‘You should do a prank movie.’ And I go, ‘Sure, how hard can it be?’ Turns out, very.”
The result? A prank-filled road trip comedy that blends Jackass stunts, Tommy Boy heart, and just enough rom-com structure to trick you into caring. “We watched When Harry Met Sally. We watched Dumb and Dumber, Wayne’s World, even Meg Ryan movies,” Andre says. “A buddy movie is a love story. We wanted to Trojan Horse that structure into the most chaotic film possible.”
That chaos took effort. “It’s the most tedious filmmaking process imaginable,” he admits. “You have to write the movie like a Curb Your Enthusiasm outline. You go into every prank with a story beat you need the person to deliver—but you can’t script it. They have to say it organically. And if they don’t, you keep trying. I talked to seven people on a park bench for hours just to get one guy to say, ‘You should go for it.’”
Despite the absurdity—Andre being violated by a gorilla, genital finger-trapped with a friend, vomiting blood in front of strangers—there’s a strange humanity that comes through. “That was intentional,” he says. “We couldn’t be destructive. My character had to be sympathetic. The movie only works if people care about us.”
Even more surprising: a real message hides behind the pranks. “Americans aren’t as divided as we’re told we are,” Andre says. “People were trying to help us. People tried to save our lives. Even in a redneck bar, I got sympathy. We’re being pitted against each other by the billionaire class, but on the ground, we look out for each other.”
Still, the film doesn’t shy away from the grotesque—Andre’s encounter with the gorilla (inspired by the Harambe incident) ends with something… let’s say viscous. “We thought no one would buy that scene,” he laughs. “It’s a guy in a gorilla suit. But when we pulled it off? Theater lost its mind. The jizz in the face—just blew the roof off.”
Cut scenes? Oh, there’s more. “There’s an exorcism prank we had to cut because it made the rest of the movie feel like none of it mattered,” he says. “And a failed bit with Chris Rock that still breaks my heart. He flew himself to Atlanta, disguised himself as a cop, but the guy we pranked goes, ‘Wait—Chris Rock?’ Didn’t matter what costume he had on. That voice gave it away.”
What’s next for Andre? He’s vague. “Some hidden camera, some scripted stuff. I’ll prank until the day I die,” he promises. “But right now, I just want to get vaccinated and travel.”
Until then, he’s content to be the filthy, chaotic, occasionally jizz-covered mirror reflecting America back at itself. And if you laugh so hard it hurts? Mission accomplished.
“Sometimes,” Andre says, “you’ve got to crawl through the Shawshank sewer to get to paradise.”
Watch the interview above and then check out the videos below.
