Let Them Snort Coke

Trace and I have spent the last few weeks discussing big (or Canadian big) budget films like The Blob and Jason X, so we’re pivoting to discuss indie festival film, The Ranger, which debuted at SXSW back in 2018. Thankfully we have help from punk extraordinaire Annie Rose Malamet of Girls, Guts & Giallo to help us make heads and tails of the subculture.

In The Ranger, a group of punks, fronted by Chelsea (Chloë Levine), flee the police in the city to lie low in the woods. There they run afoul of a chipper – and sociopathic – park ranger (Jeremy Holm) whose penchant for enforcing the rules includes plenty of homicide. Will the punks find a way to survive, or will they wind up like all of the other missing people whose posters are plastered in the local convenience store?

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Episode 65 – The Ranger (2018) feat. Annie Rose Malamet

In their attempt at social distancing, the boys abandon the city and head deep into the woods. Along for the ride is Girls, Guts & Giallo‘s Annie Rose Malamet, who schools the boys on all things punk (and Lisa Frank) so that they can understand the annoying teens in Jenn Wexler’s The Ranger.

Are you ready for two films in one? On one hand, we’ve got an 80s slasher throwback featuring punks vs authoritarians. On the other hand, we’ve got a (secret?) rape/revenge with lead character Chelsea (Chloë Levine) potentially being abused by her uncle (veteran director Larry Fessenden) or the titular Ranger…or both.

Up for discussion: what drug are these kids doing? What’s up with the wolf symbolism? Why does the film’s pacing suffer when the kills begin? And why doesn’t the film lean harder into punk?

Finally: Trace opens up about an unsettling encounter tied to the film that initiates a frank discussion about film festival reviews, as well as the relationship between directors, critics and the production of art.

Cross out The Ranger!

Coming up on Wednesday: We’re time traveling back to the 80s to check out a vampire dive-bar and some Grace Jones performance art with 1986’s Vamp!

– Joe & Trace

P.S. Check out last month’s article on 1981’s Roadgames. You can find all of the old articles here.

P.P.S. If you subscribe to our Patreon you can listen to new episodes on Leigh Whannell’s The Invisible Man and Craig Zobel’s The Hunt (both of which are now available on VOD). Plus: a full-length audio commentary on Paul Verhoeven’s 2000 ode to invisible sexual assault, Hollow Man!