The punch-in the-eye colour of the characters’ hair dye might suggest something similar to Turbo Kid, but Jenn Wexler’s The Ranger is an entirely different beastie. Set in a sort of parallel 1980s, a group of friends get out of their depth and go for a hiding holiday on a mountain. The pity is they’re not sure what they’re hiding from.
The Ranger is a great film to watch if you really want to hate the teen fodder before they are inevitably mowed down. This is, almost paradoxically, because their characterisations are confusing. The film is the first FrightFest festival opener to be directed by a woman (klaxon!) and in a time where we’re increasingly aware of the value of social diversity, it is notable that the cast includes gay actors playing a mixed-race gay couple (double klaxon!!).
You can’t really just ignore this because identity politics have become so much a crux of how horror films are discussed and valued owing to Carol Clover’s final girl theory and the like. That The Ranger’s characters then hurt someone who’s just doing their job, vandalise a forest to show how cool they are and are frankly horrible to each other certainly upends expectations. If, as the soundtrack and lovingly pastiched wardrobes suggest, this is because punk rawks, you’ll want to side with the bad guys, and therein lies the neat little trick of the film: we don’t know who the bad guys are, especially when a weird maybe-cult is mentioned.
While the young cast are serviceable and manage not to be wooden despite their “stalker in the woods” setting, Chloe Levine (as Chelsea) is the standout. Veteran of The Defenders, she combines bile with brittleness that while not always likely even in the context of the trippy plot, does make her interesting to watch. This is particularly the case considering flashback sequences with genre favourite Larry Fessenden (I Sell the Dead) because there is less reliance on signposting and more on naturalistic acting here. Jeta Laurence does an almost superior job in this regard with her limited screen-time as Chelsea’s free-willed younger self. Mr Robot’s Jerry Holm gives a lip-smacking performance as an unhinged guardian of the wood.
The real star of the show is Jenn Wexler. While the script she co-wrote with Giaco Furino has believability issues, the film’s overall tone is ambitious. This is her first feature as director, and nifty shots (and things you don’t see) as well as knowing when to pull focus mean that this slight story on a tight budget actually looks quite expansive, and the gore effects are suitably cringe-inducing. That world-building and cinematography is important, as the central questions of what happened are left very much unanswered while the film retains a classic feminist tone. That said, it feels slightly incongruous to place punk against a raison d’etre about challenging reality in the way the characters repeatedly sloganeer about. The final shot, however, will have you pondering for moons to come.
THE RANGER / DIRECTOR: JENNIFER WEXLER / SCREENPLAY: JENNIFER WEXLER, GIACO FURINO / STARRING: CHLOE LEVINE, LARRY FESSENDEN, JETE LAURNCE, JEREMY S.HOLM / CERT: TBC / RELEASE DATE: OUT NOW (USA)
