Ted Geoghegan | Through the Shattered Lens

In 2018’s The Ranger, Chloe Levine gives a strong performance as Chelsea, a young woman who grew up visiting a remote cabin that was owned by her uncle, a reclusive writer. Chelsea has never recovered from the mysterious death of her uncle. (She says he was attacked by a wolf.) Now, she’s a 20-something with pink hair. She’s dating a wannabe punk rocker named Garth (Grant Lahu) and hanging out with Garth’s friends and bandmates, Abe (Bubba Weiler), Jerk (Jeremy Pope), and Amber (Amanda Grace Benitez).

Garth makes most of his money by dealing a drug called echo. When the cops attempt to bust the group at a punk club, Garth reacts by stabbing a policeman. Garth, Chelsea, Abe, Jerk, and Amber pile into their van and go on the run. Their plan is to lay low until the heat dies down. I don’t know how they’re planning on doing that in a van that is covered with graffiti and which has the word “ECHO” written on the side of it.

The group decides to hide out at Chelsea’s old cabin, which happens to be in the middle of a national park. At the park, they run into a stern-faced park ranger (Jeremy Holm). The Ranger tells them that, if they break any of the state park rules, he’ll have to come after them. Everyone except for Chelsea laughs at the Ranger and they basically dare him to come arrest them. The Rangers warns them that it’s hunting season and they need to wear bright clothing so they don’t get accidentally get mistaken for wildlife and shot. Amber points at her blue hair and says that’s bright enough. Jerk gives the Ranger the finger. Garth smirks. Uhmm …. aren’t these people supposed to be trying to hide from the law? If you’re trying to lay low and not draw attention to yourself, why would you needlessly antagonize the first authority figure that you meet? For that matter, why doesn’t anyone in this film change they’re very identifiable clothes? Why doesn’t anyone cut their hair or do anything else that people do when they’re on the run? Chelsea is fairly likable and I sympathized with her frustration over the way everyone in the movie treated her family’s cabin. But Chelsea’s friends? They’re not only obnoxious but they’re stupid as well.

Upon reaching Chelsea’s cabin, Garth immediately lights a cigarette in the living room. Chelsea asks him not to smoke in the cabin. Garth replies that nobody’s around who is going to care. (Uhmm…. Chelsea cares, you idiot.) Later, Garth and Amber decide to start a bonfire in the middle of the woods. Again, these people are just amazingly stupid. Fortunately, just when you feel that you can’t take much more of them, the Ranger starts killing them off.

The Ranger starts out strong. Both Chloe Levine and Jeremy Holm give strong performances and many of the kills scenes are genuinely creative. That said, I ended up getting a little bored once the focus shifted from the Ranger stalking Chelsea’s friends to the Ranger holding Chelsea prisoner. Once the Ranger starts talking (and talking and talking) about his motives, he becomes a far less interesting and menacing character. The Ranger is at its best when it focuses on being a wilderness slasher.

In the end, this film reminded me of why I don’t go camping. You never know what might be in the woods.

The fifth film on my DVR was the 2015 haunted house film, We Are Still Here. I recorded We Are Still Here off of the SyFy channel on March 20th. Sad to say, I really can’t remember what I was doing or watching on March 20th while my DVR recorded one of the best horror movies of the previous year. I was probably watching something pn Lifetime. That usually seems to be the case.

But anyway, let’s talk about We Are Still Here.

As a self-professed lover of both horror and old grindhouse exploitation films, there is really no excuse for it to have taken me this long to see We Are Still Here. We Are Still Here is one of those wonderfully low-budget indie films that mixes a traditional genre — in this case, the haunted house film — with a far less traditional view of humanity. With its mix of bump-in-the-dark horror and cynicism about human nature, We Are Still Here feels like a mix of the Coen Brothers and H.P. Lovecraft.

Anne (Barbra Crampton, a veteran of horror films like Castle Freak and You’re Next) and Paul (Andrew Sensenig, who played the mysterious antagonist of Upstream Color) are a married couple who are struggling to deal with tragedy. Their son, Bobby, was recently killed in a car wreck. Anne is trapped in a prison of depression, while Paul just wants to move on with their lives. Hoping that it will help them to forget their sadness, Paul and Anne buy a house in New England.

(New England, not coincidentally, was also the home of H.P. Lovecraft, as well as being the setting for some of his best-remembered stories.)

But, of course, the house proves to be anything but therapeutic. From the minute they move in, Anne is convinced that they are not alone. With every mysterious sound and strange happening within the house, Ann becomes more and more convinced that the spirit of Bobby is with them.

If you’re a horror fan, you will not be surprised to learn that they are not alone. There is a presence in the house but is it Bobby or is it something far more sinister? Shortly after moving in, Anne and Paul meet their new neighbors. As friendly as they may be, there is definitely something off about Dave (Monte Markham) and his wife, Cat (Connie Neer). Dave tells them that the house was originally a funeral home an about how it was owned by the mysterious Dagmar family. The Dagmars were reportedly forced to leave town after it was learned that they were selling the bodies brought to them for burial and burying empty coffins. Could this have anything to do with the strange vibe that Anne and Paul both get from the house?

Despite Paul’s skepticism, Anne invites her friends, May (Lisa Marie) and Jacob (Larry Fessenden), to come for a visit. May and Jacob are both spiritualists and Anne hopes that they can contact Bobby’s spirit. Again, it’s not a spoiler to reveal that they do contact something. The surprise comes from what they contact and what happens as a result.

We Are Still Here is a chilly and dream-like film, one that wisely devotes as much time to creating and maintaining a properly creepy atmosphere as it does to all the expected scare scenes. When the presence in the house is finally revealed, it’s a scary moment but for me, the most haunting scenes in the film are the shots of the snow-covered landscape surrounding the house. The icy roads are as cold and unforgiving and as potentially dangerous as anything that might be living in the old Dagmar house. And, just as the weather cannot be controlled, neither can the paranormal.

We Are Still Here is a deliberately paced film. In fact, it’s probably a bit too deliberate to really be effective when viewed with commercial interruptions. We Are Still Here works because it creates an atmosphere of foreboding and certain doom and it’s hard to maintain an atmosphere when, every 20 minutes or so, the action has to stop for a commercial about Tide pods. To best appreciate this film and what it has to say about loss, faith, and delusion, it’s necessary to watch the story unfold without any pause to the narrative.

Fortunately, this intelligent and well-acted horror film is currently available on Netflix, where it can be viewed without commercial interruption! If you’re a horror fan, you owe it to yourself to watch.