Review: Legend of the Psychotic Forest Ranger

Who doesn’t love the 80s? Big hair; vapid attitudes; Reagan; neon. So many memories. However, we all know the best part of the 80s was the movies. 80s movies are a thing of legend, or at least, a thing of 22-31 years ago. There’s the ones with epic fantasy; tales of teen-angst and coming-of-age; sci-fi masterpieces and groundbreaking effects. Most importantly – more important than Ferris Bueller or big hair combined – there was the slasher movie. Freddy, Jason, Chucky. Names that will live forever in movie-gold infamy. And now, a new name is added to the list: the Psychotic Forest Ranger. Who knew that a new 80s slasher would come out of 2011?  Or, more properly 2008?

A loving homage to the greatest worst movies ever made, ‘Legend of the Psychotic Forest Ranger’ has it all: cheesy effects, a killer soundtrack, gushing food-based blood, continuity error after continuity error, and some of the most horrible acting I have ever seen on the big screen. Of course, it’s all intentional (/brag – I know most of the actors in the movie, and they’re really quite good/award winning performers, so the ‘bad-acting’ was actually really good acting… yes. /end-brag).

Brad Mills helmed this project (and by ‘helmed’ I mean “wrote, directed, produced, edited, acted, etc. etc. etc.) and it is clear that it is a labour of love. Brad loves bad movies. Bad movies like “Psycho Cop” a movie that I didn’t think could be topped in continuity errors. Congrats, Brad. His idea was to bring back – or at least honour – the best of the worst from the golden era of horror. And he did it in a very memorable way.

The film revolves around 4 (or 8… or 10) teenagers who – I’m gonna ruin it – run into some trouble in the woods. Classic. Seems a forest ranger, many years ago, was tortured… or fired… or burned in a forest fire… or something, and now he’s out for revenge on anyone who mistreats his forest. Or is just around. Or isn’t around, but is relatively close by. No real reasons at all. Think Jason-style (ie – in the woods with various woodsy weapons) but with seemingly randomly thrown out catch-phrases. And a really good evil laugh. Mike MacDonald (the Ranger) really filled the bigger than life role and made him a very good combination of creepy, evil, and hilarious. And corny – let’s not forget corny.

I feel I must stop here for a moment. I say ‘corny’ with love. I say ‘hilarious’ and ‘awful’ and ‘terrible’ with love. I live for these kinds of movies. They are my bread and butter. Each of those words could easily be replaced by ‘amazing’ or ‘great’ or… ‘really corny.’

Anywho, the teenagers – who, if I’m not mistaken were 100% not played by actual teenagers… classic – were equally brilliant and gave some of the best completely one-dimensional performances I have seen. Emotionless deaths; terrible jokes; and, of course, big hair and neon. And sex. It could hardly be an 80s slasher without sex and the inevitable murder(s) that follow it. I can’t even single out a particular “teen” - they were all great and lent so much to the overall “story.” This is what a true ensemble piece is. No one stole a scene, and everyone had their moment (or, dozens of moments – pretty much every word out of Stephanie Peters’ mouth is hilarious).

But, if you wanna scene-stealer… well, there are a couple of those as well. Aaron Corbett as Ranger Dan is, sadly, in just a few short scenes, but they are some of the best/worst, and are perfect for the genre. He’s the hapless do-gooder who you just want horrible, horrible things to happen to. Spoiler alert: horrible things happen to Ranger Dan. Yay. But, if you want a “holy crap, that was a great scene… and it’s all because of that one guy!” then look no father than Keith Morrison as the cop. He’s on screen for maybe 5 minutes, and he has perhaps the most cliche lines ever uttered (again and again) on film, but it’s… well it’s perfect. Spoiler alert: horrible things also happen to the cop.

All in all, I really can’t say anything bad about this movie. Partly because it’s meant to be bad, but mostly because it does a great job at doing just that. As someone who has watched a lot of bad slasher movies (and I mean a LOT), I enjoyed every nod at Camp Crystal Lake, Sleepaway Camp, and that cottage where Evil Dead took place. I cheered at every death (spoiler alert: pretty much everyone has a great, cheesy death). Every good joke got a laugh, and every bad joke got a bigger one. There is something for every horror AND comedy fan.

In short (yes, in short after a page and a half), every second of this movie is meant to be pure entertainment, and it really pulls it off. If you haven’t already seen this movie, I highly recommend you do so when you get the chance (the Atlantic Film Festival, and of course one more night in the home of the Ranger, Cape Breton, and anywhere else this is going to be). See it, if for no other reason, so that in a few years when ‘Legend of the Psychotic Forest Ranger’ replaces ‘Troll 2’ or ‘Slumber Party Massacre’ as a classic movie-nerd conversation staple, you can say you saw it before it became a cult legend.

Or you can just see it and wait for the Ranger to come back. Spoiler alert: he’ll probably come back. Classic.