PopHorror Let's Get Scared
Throughout it’s history, the U.S. Military has trained disciplined individuals and transformed them into Soldiers, Sailors, Marines, and Airmen. Each person is broken down and pieced back together into a highly skilled, death dealing machine (or some would like you to think!) While some tend to become slightly more civilized than their peers, there are others who take great joy in a shared love of juvenile delinquency, wild, neverending parties, and a camaraderie that can’t easily be defined, knowing that you may have to take a bullet for your buddy.
With that I welcome you to Range 15, the story of how a bunch of military veterans turned YouTube stars take on the zombie apocalypse and end up saving the world. The movie stars Mat Best, owner of Ranger Up Apparel and the MBest11x YouTube channel. If you’re not familiar with the channel, I will share one of their earliest, yet funniest videos below.
Now back to the movie. We open with Mat Best, who has just gotten out of the Military. After partying way too hard the night before, he wakes up in the drunk tank with his lawyer, played by William Shatner.
After a loud commotion, Shatner, now zombified, is quickly dispatched by Rocco, who had been handcuffed to a bench outside of the cell. After freeing themselves, the boys go on a zombie killing rampage before finding themselves at the police armory, where they enlist three more members and unknowingly end up with the cure before attempting to link up with their former commander, Keith David.
Range 15 is interesting in that it currently holds a couple of records; the Ranger Up site claims that it holds the record for most downloads via iTunes but I wasn’t able to find any other source that backs up that claim. A record I was able to verify was that it is the 5th highest crowdsourced film on Indiegogo, raising $120,000 grand in a week while eventually also becoming the 4th largest campaign on the site. Aside from the money put forth by both Ranger Up and Article 15 Clothing, the groups were able to raise $1.5 million before crowd sourcing ended!
With the funding secured and having an excess of funds available, Range 15 was able to secure several celebrity cameos aside from Shatner and David. Marcus Luttrel (author of Lone Survivor) and Tim Kennedy (UFC MMA fighter) bring veteran cred to the film, as both were prior military (US Navy Seal and US Army Special Forces respectively). Randy Couture, Sean Astin, and Danny Trejo also make appearances in various roles.
For a director, the film managed to get the talents of Ross Patterson, who co-starred in Accepted and The New Guy. He also had a cameo as SGM Gene Vandenham, an over the top war hero. The character has proved popular and has his own Twitter and Facebook pages, where he regularly makes over the top quotes.
As a final note, I am just going to say that this movie was made by veterans for veterans. The comedy in Range 15 is sophomoric, so if that’s not your thing, I would avoid it. The gore level is like what you’d see in a SyFy channel original movie. With that said, I loved it. I’ll fully admit to being biased due to being prior military myself, but if you’re in the mood for something silly and creates the most likely depiction of how military members tend to act in stressful situations, then look no further than Range 15!
