''The Rambler'' is a 2013 American

independent Independent or Independents may refer to: Arts, entertainment, and media Artist groups * Independents (artist group), a group of modernist painters based in the New Hope, Pennsylvania, area of the United States during the early 1930s * Independ ...

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit fear or disgust in its audience for entertainment purposes. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements include monsters, apoca ...

written and directed by Calvin Reeder. The film's narrative concerns a mysterious loner known only as the Rambler, played by

Dermot Mulroney Dermot Mulroney (born October 31, 1963) is an American actor. He is known for his roles in romantic comedy, western, and drama films. Appearing on screen since 1986, he is known for his work in various films such as '' Young Guns'' (1988), '' Stay ...

. Newly released from prison, he embarks on a dark journey across a bleak and strange contemporary landscape, meeting a bizarre cast of characters.

Plot

Cast

as The Rambler *

Lindsay Pulsipher Lindsay Pulsipher (born May 6, 1979) is an American actress. She has had several roles in film and television and is known for her series regular role as Rose Lawrence on A&E Network's '' The Beast'' (2009). She joined the third season of HBO's ...

as The Girl *

Natasha Lyonne Natasha Bianca Lyonne Braunstein ( ; born April 4, 1979) is an American actress, director, writer, and producer. She is known for playing Nicky Nichols on the Netflix comedy-drama series ''Orange Is the New Black'' (2013–2019), for which she r ...

as Cheryl * James Cady as The Scientist

Release

''The Rambler'' was premiered at the

2013 Sundance Film Festival The 2013 Sundance Film Festival took place from January 17, 2013, until January 27, 2013, in Park City, Utah, United States, with screenings in Salt Lake City, Utah, Ogden, Utah, and Sundance, Utah. The festival had 1,830 volunteers. Films A r ...

, and subsequently screened within such festivals as

South by Southwest South by Southwest, abbreviated as SXSW and colloquially referred to as South By, is an annual conglomeration of parallel film, interactive media, and music festivals and Convention (meeting), conferences organized jointly that take place in m ...

and

Maryland Film Festival The Maryland Film Festival is an annual five-day international film festival taking place each May in Baltimore, Maryland. The festival was launched in 1999, and presents international film and video work of all lengths and genres. The festival ...

Home media

The film was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for Digital Video Disc or Digital Versatile Disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any kin ...

and

Blu-ray The Blu-ray Disc (BD), often known simply as Blu-ray, is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 2005 and released on June 20, 2006 worldwide. It is designed to supersede the DVD format, and capable of sto ...

Lionsgate Lions Gate Entertainment Corporation, doing business as Lionsgate, is a Canadian-American entertainment company. It was formed by Frank Giustra on July 10, 1997, domiciled in Vancouver, British Columbia, Canada and is currently headquartered ...

and Starz/Anchor Bay on June 25, 2013.

Reception

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 40% based on , with a

weighted average The weighted arithmetic mean is similar to an ordinary arithmetic mean (the most common type of average), except that instead of each of the data points contributing equally to the final average, some data points contribute more than others. The ...

rating of 6.1/10. On

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

, which assigns a rating to reviews, the film has a weighted average score of 32 out of 100, based on 6 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". Amy Nicholson from ''

LA Times The ''Los Angeles Times'' (abbreviated as ''LA Times'') is a daily newspaper that started publishing in Los Angeles in 1881. Based in the LA-adjacent suburb of El Segundo since 2018, it is the sixth-largest newspaper by circulation in the Un ...

'' gave the film a negative review, writing "What all of this means is, frankly, nothing. But it's a handsome nothing, at least until you get sick of the screaming." Justin Lowe from ''

The Hollywood Reporter ''The Hollywood Reporter'' (''THR'') is an American digital and print magazine which focuses on the Cinema of the United States, Hollywood film industry, film, television, and entertainment industries. It was founded in 1930 as a daily trade pap ...

'' called the film "Misguided exercise in genre fetishism", criticizing the film's plot, cheap special-effects, and performances. Drew Hunt from

Slant Magazine ''Slant Magazine'' is an American online publication that features reviews of movies, music, TV, DVDs, theater, and video games, as well as interviews with actors, directors, and musicians. The site covers various film festivals like the New York ...

gave the film a positive review, writing, "Like ''

Inland Empire The Inland Empire (IE) is a metropolitan area and region inland of and adjacent to coastal Southern California, centering around the cities of San Bernardino and Riverside, and bordering Los Angeles County to the west. It includes the cities o ...

'', essentially a three-hour reel of David Lynch’s nightmares, the film is anchored in the sort of dream logic that may only make complete sense to its creator. Reeder’s dogged refusal to allow even the smallest semblance of standard movie comforts—likeable characters, narrative logic, easily identifiable themes—to worm their way into the film may be hubristic, but by that same token, it’s refreshing and revitalizing to watch someone assertively rattle the cages of cinematic form. After all, there’s more than one way to tell a story."

References

External links

* * * * 2013 films 2013 horror films 2010s road movies American avant-garde and experimental films American mystery horror films American independent films American road movies 2010s mystery horror films 2010s avant-garde and experimental films 2010s English-language films 2010s American films {{2010s-horror-film-stub