Clowning on Juggalos (see what I did there?) can sometimes feel like punching down. Their intense fandom, centered around the Detroit-based horror-rap group Insane Clown Posse, is one of the original instances of stan culture, with the usual crop of hyper-specific signifiers that make zero sense to the uninitiated. But something about Juggalos specifically — The obsession with Faygo? The clown makeup? A heavily-mocked throwaway lyric about magnets? — sets them apart. Whereas Deadheads and other jam band followers have gained a level of cultural acceptance, and mainstream fandoms like Beyonce’s Beyhive and Nikki Minaj’s Barbz are known for aggressively defending their figureheads in online scuffles, Juggalos seem surprisingly low-key. If you’re in, you’re in (whoop whoop!), but as a group, they don’t seem to draw attention to themselves by popping up on podcasts or engaging in random twitter beefs. Nonetheless, they’re an easy target: goofier than goths and more insular than emo or skater culture, not to mention further tarnished for being associated with a certain socioeconomic bracket (low) and geography (rural).
But underneath the makeup, we’re all human. Even more than the music or the Hatchetman logo, what connects Juggalos to each other is a sense of community and acceptance. Nathan Tape’s buddy comedy/road movie Off Ramp is a love letter to Juggalo culture as told through two longtime friends, Trey (Jon Oswald) and Silas (Scott Turner Schofield), each of whom rock highly distinct hairstyles and seem to speak solely in ICP lyrics. Trey just got out of a year-long stint in prison and wants to get back on the straight-and-narrow by becoming an ice cream man — just one clue that these off-putting-looking dudes are actually total softies. But Silas, ever the puckish jokester, convinces him to hit up the multi-day music-festival-cum-reunion known as the Gathering of the Juggalos one last time. Not only can this be his last hurrah, but he’ll also witness Silas’ rap debut on one of the main stages. They’ll just need to drive Trey’s van, the Hatchet Wagon, from Mississippi to Ohio. What could go wrong?
Oswald and Schofield have an easy chemistry that’s extremely believable and delightful to watch. Throughout the film, their increasingly outrageous shenanigans are grounded by their love and affection for one another, which goes deeper than a typical friendship.Trey, who’s tall and lanky with neat French braids, and Silas, the duo’s loose cannon, are immediately pegged by unfriendly locals as, if not Juggalos per se, then definitely some flavor of unwelcome freak (it may be worth noting here that the FBI once classified Juggalos as a gang, a designation the group successfully lobbied to remove). If the two friends dressed differently, acted differently, and basically changed everything about themselves, they could be part of the old boys club. Instead, they’re a threat to small-town values everywhere, so it’s not surprising that they’re met with frank hostility. It’s immediately clear that this happens all the time, and that Trey and Silas are for all intents and purposes each other’s immediate family (with the Juggalo culture as their extended family, of course.) Silas’ grandmother, whom he lovingly takes care of, is in a vegetative state and his brother Mike is dead, while Trey’s kin aren’t mentioned at all.
Perhaps this is why the pair react so strongly to the supremely fucked-up families they encounter during their trip. And, to be fair, Tape seems to have plumbed the depths of the Southern gothic canon for fodder (though the film is supposedly inspired by true events, a thought that truly does not invite speculation). After getting pulled over and dosing the cop with LSD from a water gun, as one does, they approach a local Juggalo heavy, Scarecrow (Jared Bankens), to inquire about swapping cars. His decrepit lair looks like it could have been repurposed from the first season of True Detective, a clown-faced Carcosa where, as a paraplegic, he’s attended to by a couple of lackeys and his unwitting sister, Eden (Ashley Smith). If their Flowers in the Attic dynamic weren’t icky enough already, Tape throws in a little breast milk and blood sacrifice to really drive home the satanic panic of it all. Amidst the absurdity, Eden and Silas form a surprisingly tender bond based on mutual acceptance, not just momentary attraction — though there’s plenty of that, too: at one moment, he pledges to “eat a gallon of shit just to buy a bag of her tampons.”
Later, they’re arrested by a clean-cut local sheriff and the still-tripping traffic cop, this time with a heavily pregnant young woman in tow. Their scheme to frame the Juggalos for her murder backfires, and the three (yes, three) survivors manage to reunite with Eden and create their own version of a family. Whether intentional or otherwise, it’s not hard to see shades of Alex Murdaugh, the South Carolina legal scion who was convicted of killing his wife and son, in the familiar trope of the upstanding-authority-figure-with-a-family-secret. And even though this particular plotline is more than a little ridiculous — Juggalos aren’t known for their subtlety, after all — it somehow still manages to loop back around and tie a wholesome (and gruesome) ribbon on the whole sordid affair. When the film ends at the Gathering, Silas about to get on stage with his chosen family at his side, more than a few audience members might find themselves newly down with the clown.
DIRECTOR: Nathan Tape; CAST: Jon Oswald, Scott Turner Schofield, Ashley B. Smith, Jared Bankens; DISTRIBUTOR: Freestyle Digital Media; IN THEATERS/STREAMING: September 6; RUNTIME: 1 hr. 31 min.
