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‘The Ranger’ Is The Punk Slasher Movie We Needed

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The slasher movie, for all its fun, has often been noted for carrying conservative overtones, especially prominent in the heat of the sub-genre in the 1980’s. The victims usually being rebellious teens who smoke, drink, have pre-marital sex and disregard authority and the rules, leading them to an untimely and often gruesome demise with the ‘final’ girl usually being the pure member of the group. Now comes a slasher movie where the entire cast are delinquents fighting a psychotic authority figure in Jenn Wexler’s The Ranger!

The crew. From Left To Right: Abe (Bubba Weiler), Jerk (Jeremy Pope), Garth (Granit Lahu), and Amber (Amanda Grace Benitez)

The story follows Chelsea (Chloe Levine) as she takes her punk friends to her family’s old cabin in the woods so they can evade the police after her boyfriend Garth (Granit Lahu) stabs a cop. The gang has a bag of drugs, punk music, shop-lifted food, and enough beer to last. But they couldn’t foresee their biggest obstacle being one psychotically overzealous Park Ranger (Jeremy Holm) who doesn’t take kindly to miscreants running amok in his woods…

 

At its core, The Ranger is a traditional slasher film. You got teens going out into the forest only to encounter a crazed killer who starts picking them off one-by-one for their perceived misdeeds. But it is in fact more than that. It’s the 80’s-set slasher Green Room evocative of Return Of The Living Dead (with a few homages) with a full-on cast of punk rockers in a life or death battle with an insane authority figure. On that note, Jeremy Holm really stands out as the titular Ranger.

THE RANGER poster. Image via IMDB

Affable, kindly, and dead serious about the rules and regulations of ‘his’ mountain. He’s in total contrast to our group of punks, appearing in the beginning prologue set to Charlie Rich’s pop-country hit “The Most Beautiful Girl” in opposition to the hardcore punk soundtrack and themes of the main cast. But he meets all the staples of slasher villains that have come before him. Slaughtering delinquents for minor transgressions while spouting one-liners and using his ranger theme and gear to deadly and brutal ends. Every scene he emerges from the woods like the forest’s ghoulish guardian is always a memorable one. More Psycho Cop than Freddy Krueger, but with the outdoors themes of Jason Voorhees and the killer of The Final Terror. An unhinged naturalist who seems obsessed with ‘survival of the fittest’, and Chelsea in particular.

Chelsea (Chloe Levine)

Chelsea herself stands out as our lead. She shares the same rebellious nature of her friends, but even she is disgusted by their shallow disdain for the nature around her family’s cabin. Deriding them for spray painting trees and setting unsafe bonfires, she shares more qualities with the ranger than she’d care to admit. She’s not afraid to speak her mind, even when she comes into conflict with her friends. Questioning Garth’s plans and how they’re going to outrun the law. She’s resourceful and knows her way in the wilderness with secrets about her past to the cabin and The Ranger to be seen.

Jerk (Jeremy Pope)

The rest of the punk crew are interesting in their own ways. Jerk (Jeremy Pope) and Abe (Bubba Weiler) are a gay couple who genuinely love and care for one another, in stark contrast to Chelsea and Garth’s often tense relationship. Amber (Amanda Grace Benitez) is the more laid back punk, contrasting Chelsea in both hair and attitude. The cast does well in displaying their friendship through the movie as they go from the raided punk show to the van and into the woods. Which makes it genuinely heartfelt when tragedy and horror befalls them. The cast of characters are actual characters with relationships with one another that shows they do truly care about one another, a lynchpin that is sadly absent from many films of the genre. Director Jenn Wexler has made a slasher movie that absolutely feels genuine in everything from story to tone. Though genre throwback movies are a dime-a-dozen nowadays, The Ranger treats the slasher themes and punk aesthetic respectfully, with comedy mainly coming from it, instead of at it.

 

Overall, if you’re looking for something that feels like it came from the horror heydays of the eighties, The Ranger comes recommended. The Ranger is in select theaters in New York and will be hitting VOD and Digital in September.

 

Image via IMDB

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‘Blink Twice’ Trailer Presents a Thrilling Mystery in Paradise

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A new trailer for the movie formerly known as Pussy Island just dropped and it has us intrigued. Now with the more restrained title, Blink Twice, this  Zoë Kravitz-directed black comedy is set to land in theaters on August 23.

The film is packed with stars including Channing Tatum, Naomi Ackie, Alia Shawkat, Simon Rex, Adria Arjona, Haley Joel Osment, Christian Slater, Kyle MacLachlan, and Geena Davis.

The trailer feels like a Benoit Blanc mystery; people are invited to a secluded location and disappear one by one, leaving one guest to figure out what is going on.

In the film, a billionaire named Slater King (Channing Tatum) invites a waitress named Frida (Naomi Ackie) to his private island, “It’s paradise. Wild nights blend into sun-soaked days and everyone’s having a great time. No one wants this trip to end, but as strange things start to happen, Frida begins to question her reality. There is something wrong with this place. She’ll have to uncover the truth if she wants to make it out of this party alive.”

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Melissa Barrera Says ‘Scary Movie VI’ Would Be “Fun To Do”

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Melissa Barrera might literally get the last laugh on Spyglass thanks to a possible Scary Movie sequel. Paramount and Miramax are seeing the right opportunity to bring the satirical franchise back into the fold and announced last week one might be in production as early as this fall.

The last chapter of the Scary Movie franchise was almost a decade ago and since the series lampoons thematic horror movies and pop culture trends, it would seem they have a lot of content to draw ideas from, including the recent reboot of slasher series Scream.

Barerra, who starred as final girl Samantha in those movies was abruptly fired from the latest chapter, Scream VII, for expressing what Spyglass interpreted as “antisemitism,” after the actress came out in support of Palestine on social media.

Even though the drama wasn’t a laughing matter, Barrera might get her chance to parody Sam in Scary Movie VI. That is if the opportunity arises. In an interview with Inverse, the 33-year-old actress was asked about Scary Movie VI, and her reply was intriguing.

“I always loved those movies,” the actress told Inverse. “When I saw it announced, I was like, ‘Oh, that would be fun. That would be so fun to do.’”

That “fun to do” part could be construed as a passive pitch to Paramount, but that’s open to interpretation.

Just like in her franchise, Scary Movie also has a legacy cast including Anna Faris and Regina Hall. There is no word yet on if either of those actors will appear in the reboot. With or without them, Barrera is still a fan of the comedies. “They have the iconic cast that did it, so we’ll see what goes on with that. I’m just excited to see a new one,” she told the publication.

Barrera is currently celebrating the box office success of her latest horror movie Abigail.

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Lists

Thrills and Chills: Ranking ‘Radio Silence’ Films from Bloody Brilliant to Just Bloody

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Radio Silence Films

Matt Bettinelli-Olpin, Tyler Gillett, and Chad Villella are all filmmakers under the collective label called Radio Silence. Bettinelli-Olpin and Gillett are the primary directors under that moniker while Villella produces.

They have gained popularity over the past 13 years and their films have become known as having a certain Radio Silence “signature.” They are bloody, usually contain monsters, and have breakneck action sequences. Their recent film Abigail exemplifies that signature and is perhaps their best film yet. They are currently working on a reboot of John Carpenter’s Escape From New York.

We thought we would go through the list of projects they have directed and rank them from high to low. None of the movies and shorts on this list are bad, they all have their merits. These rankings from top to bottom are just ones we felt showcased their talents the best.

We didn’t include movies they produced but didn’t direct.

#1. Abigail

An update to the second film on this list, Abagail is the natural progression of Radio Silence’s love of lockdown horror. It follows in pretty much the same footsteps of Ready or Not, but manages to go one better — make it about vampires.

Abigail

#2. Ready or Not

This film put Radio Silence on the map. While not as successful at the box office as some of their other films, Ready or Not proved that the team could step outside their limited anthology space and create a fun, thrilling, and bloody adventure-length film.

Ready or Not

#3. Scream (2022)

While Scream will always be a polarizing franchise, this prequel, sequel, reboot — however you want to label it showed just how much Radio Silence knew the source material. It wasn’t lazy or cash-grabby, just a good time with legendary characters we love and new ones who grew on us.

Scream (2022)

#4 Southbound (The Way Out)

Radio Silence tosses their found footage modus operandi for this anthology film. Responsible for the bookend stories, they create a terrifying world in their segment titled The Way Out, which involves strange floating beings and some sort of time loop. It’s kind of the first time we see their work without a shaky cam. If we were to rank this entire film, it would remain at this position on the list.

Southbound

#5. V/H/S (10/31/98)

The film that started it all for Radio Silence. Or should we say the segment that started it all. Even though this isn’t feature-length what they managed to do with the time they had was very good. Their chapter was titled 10/31/98, a found-footage short involving a group of friends who crash what they think is a staged exorcism only to learn not to assume things on Halloween night.

V/H/S

#6. Scream VI

Cranking up the action, moving to the big city and letting Ghostface use a shotgun, Scream VI turned the franchise on its head. Like their first one, this film played with canon and managed to win over a lot of fans in its direction, but alienated others for coloring too far outside the lines of Wes Craven’s beloved series. If any sequel was showing how the trope was going stale it was Scream VI, but it managed to squeeze some fresh blood out of this nearly three-decade mainstay.

Scream VI

#7. Devil’s Due

Fairly underrated, this, Radio Silence’s first feature-length film, is a sampler of things they took from V/H/S. It was filmed in an omnipresent found footage style, showcasing a form of possession, and features clueless men. Since this was their first bonafide major studio job it’s a wonderful touchstone to see how far they have come with their storytelling.

Devil’s Due

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