Jenn Wexler has been working with Glass Eye Pix, producing some of the more interesting genre films lately like Darling, Psychopaths, and Like Me. Her first feature, The Ranger pits punks against The Man, slasher-style. A group of 80s punks flee the city and head out to the woods. They shack up in a family cabin now owned by group member Chelsea, who’s played by Chloe Levine. They encounter a park ranger, played by Jeremy Holm, who is dead set on preserving the sanctity of the woods.
Characters don’t have to make great choices for them to be authentic or real or strong. Which is great for The Ranger, because it’s full of bad decisions and great characters. The movie builds tension slowly until a gunshot rings out and the first body drops, which kicks off a rollercoaster of violence and strange memories and gory horror. Colorful punks battling an insane park ranger is not what I would have thought I needed from the cabin-in-the-woods slasher genre, but god damn. Yes, please.
