Zippers

Summary

 

Zippers takes place at a Shambala-like music festival: A meeting place for alternative and free-spirited minds to join rituals including performance, meditation and, of course, taking drugs. But not everyone is totally Zen. Piper, a 19 year-old new-age hippie girl, has just had a huge fight with her boyfriend. Upset and overwhelmed by the non-stop bombardment of stimulus at the festival, Piper retreats to her tent. All she wants is to get her stuff and leave, but as she zips open the tent’s flap she finds Teddy: A stoner in his mid-20’s who has commandeered the tent as his own personal hotbox.

 

Teddy is able to calm Piper down somewhat, convincing her to smoke a joint and join him in a meditative exercise to further relax. As the two meditate, Piper’s perception starts to shift: The “doof doof” of background music warps, and Teddy’s guided narration grows strange… he’s saying some creepy things. She opens her eyes to see fingers poking through zippers in the tent’s walls… what was in that joint..? Piper’s nightmare is just beginning…

 

“If you hate this stress, this anxiety, then why do you chase it? … It’s obvious: You love it. You pretend you don’t, but you do” - Teddy

 

Zippers is a modern day horror folktale tackling the rising incidence of spiking and date rape in youth culture. Drugs serve a dual role in the story: Both as a tool for inexcusable abuse, and as a remedy for Piper’s anxiety. As Piper descends into the meditation, her physical, emotional and spiritual barriers are “unzipped” and violated.