The Horror Pod Class

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The beauty of small theatres is that they act as little pockets of experimentation.  They are smaller and more adaptable and willing to try lots of different things to get people in the door.  That's why last week Screenland Armour hosted a kick ass free screening of The Ranger directed by Jenn Wexler.  A small budget slasher film with a fiesty indepededent spirit was exactly what I needed to start the work week.  

The Ranger at its core is a movie about a girl whose uncle dies in the woods only to be rescued by a forest ranger.  The titular ranger (Jeremy Holm) is not the good guy he seems. Years later Chelsea(Chloe Levine) now a young woman runs with a group of punk rockers.  During a raid on a night club they are hanging out in the group shoot a police officer and decide a cabin in the woods is the perfect place to run to.  Chelsea leads the group to the cabin her deceased uncle bequeathed her.  The ranger recognizing Chelsea begins to come after her and her friends. 

The Ranger leans into its label as a a punk rock slasher.  All of the characters would willingly define themselves by that label.  They go to punk rock concerts, they dress punk, and most importantly they have that fuck you mentality we commonly associate with that genre.  That being said as we are establishing our main characters the punk rock label is never a mask our characters can hide behind.  If they are assholes, they are punk assholes.  If they are ditzy and silly than they are ditzy and silly punks.  In short punk rock is not a panacea for everyone's personality issues.  I appreciate that level of introspection.  It gives a fullness to the characters that makes the punkness of the movie feel more like a contribution as opposed to a contrivance.  The soundtrack is absolutely bonkers.  Comprised mostly of west coast punk the sountrack is a wonderful hodgepodge of new and old.  You will find Rotten UK, The Polyester Wags, and The Lobstrosities to name a few on this absolutely killer mix tape.  It is clear that the soundtrack was handled with the same loving care the movie was given which is a truly rare thing nowadays.       

The acting in this movie by the supporting cast is servicable.  There is no one stealing scenes from Chelsea or the ranger.  They are mostly standins for traditional slasher archtypes only with punk and modern sensibilitites.  Two of the punks happens to be gay which interjects a level of modernity to the slasher subgenre that some are all too fast to label conservative.  Chloe Levine is an absolute star.  She emotes more with her giant eyes than most do with their entire bodies.  Levine plays Chelsea with a richness that helps the audience grasp her level of damage without painting her as a victim.   She is a survivor and in a punk rock fantasy that is about as good as it gets.  Jeremy Holm plays a great goofy villain.  I am not quite sure if he is going for campy or realism and this indescsion prevented me from ever deciding if this character is really fully developed. There is a bit with some wolf skin and some howling that totally lost me towards the end of the film.  That being said if his only job is to create pe