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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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Another Creepy Spider Movie Hits Shudder This Month

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Good spider films are a theme this year. First, we had Sting and then there was Infested. The former is still in theaters and the latter is coming to Shudder starting April 26.

Infested has been getting some good reviews. People are saying that it’s not only a great creature feature but also a social commentary on racism in France.

According to IMDb: Writer/director Sébastien Vanicek was looking for ideas around the discrimination faced by black and Arab-looking people in France, and that led him to spiders, which are rarely welcome in homes; whenever they’re spotted, they’re swatted. As everyone in the story (people and spiders) is treated like vermin by society, the title came to him naturally.

Shudder has become the gold standard for streaming horror content. Since 2016, the service has been offering fans an expansive library of genre movies. in 2017, they began to stream exclusive content.

Since then Shudder has become a powerhouse in the film festival circuit, buying distribution rights to movies, or just producing some of their own. Just like Netflix, they give a film a short theatrical run before adding it to their library exclusively for subscribers.

Late Night With the Devil is a great example. It was released theatrically on March 22 and will begin streaming on the platform starting April 19.

While not getting the same buzz as Late Night, Infested is a festival favorite and many have said if you suffer from arachnophobia, you might want to take heed before watching it.

Infested

According to the synopsis, our main character, Kalib is turning 30 and dealing with some family issues. “He’s fighting with his sister over an inheritance and has cut ties with his best friend. Fascinated by exotic animals, he finds a venomous spider in a shop and brings it back to his apartment. It only takes a moment for the spider to escape and reproduce, turning the whole building into a dreadful web trap. The only option for Kaleb and his friends is to find a way out and survive.”

The film will be available to watch on Shudder starting April 26.

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Part Concert, Part Horror Movie M. Night Shyamalan’s ‘Trap’ Trailer Released

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In true Shyamalan form, he sets his film Trap inside a social situation where we aren’t sure what is going on. Hopefully, there is a twist at the end. Furthermore, we hope it’s better than the one in his divisive 2021 movie Old.

The trailer seemingly gives away a lot, but, as in the past, you can’t rely on his trailers because they are often red herrings and you are being gaslit to think a certain way. For instance, his movie Knock at the Cabin was completely different than what the trailer implied and if you hadn’t read the book on which the film is based it was still like going in blind.

The plot for Trap is being dubbed an “experience” and we aren’t quite sure what that means. If we were to guess based on the trailer, it’s a concert movie wrapped around a horror mystery. There are original songs performed by Saleka, who plays Lady Raven, a kind of Taylor Swift/Lady Gaga hybrid. They have even set up a Lady Raven website to further the illusion.

Here is the fresh trailer:

According to the synopsis, a father takes his daughter to one of Lady Raven’s jam-packed concerts, “where they realize they’re at the center of a dark and sinister event.”

Written and directed by M. Night Shyamalan, Trap stars Josh Hartnett, Ariel Donoghue, Saleka Shyamalan, Hayley Mills and Allison Pill. The film is produced by Ashwin Rajan, Marc Bienstock and M. Night Shyamalan. The executive producer is Steven Schneider.

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Woman Brings Corpse Into Bank To Sign Loan Papers

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Warning: This is a disturbing story.

You have to be pretty desperate for money to do what this Brazilian woman did at the bank to get a loan. She wheeled in a fresh corpse to endorse the contract and she seemingly thought the bank employees wouldn’t notice. They did.

This weird and disturbing story comes via ScreenGeek an entertainment digital publication. They write that a woman identified as Erika de Souza Vieira Nunes pushed a man she identified as her uncle into the bank pleading with him to sign loan papers for $3,400. 

If you’re squeamish or easily triggered, be aware that the video captured of the situation is disturbing. 

Latin America’s largest commercial network, TV Globo, reported on the crime, and according to ScreenGeek this is what Nunes says in Portuguese during the attempted transaction. 

“Uncle, are you paying attention? You must sign [the loan contract]. If you don’t sign, there’s no way, as I cannot sign on your behalf!”

She then adds: “Sign so you can spare me further headaches; I can’t bear it any longer.” 

At first we thought this might be a hoax, but according to Brazilian police, the uncle, 68-year-old Paulo Roberto Braga had passed away earlier that day.

 “She attempted to feign his signature for the loan. He entered the bank already deceased,” Police Chief Fábio Luiz said in an interview with TV Globo. “Our priority is to continue investigating to identify other family members and gather more information regarding this loan.”

If convicted Nunes could be facing jail time on charges of fraud, embezzlement, and desecration of a corpse.

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