CFF 2024: Off Ramp

Part hilariously raunchy buddy comedy, part explosive road trip thriller, and part remarkably poignant drama, “Off Ramp” is all heart.

I did not expect a film about (as described on IMDb) “two Juggalo degenerates journeying through America’s hellish underbelly to The Gathering of the Juggalos” to be one of the most profoundly affecting and unforgettable films out of this year’s stacked and packed Chattanooga Film Festival. Yet here we are.

I had no intention of reviewing Off Ramp as part of the festival. It wasn’t even on my watch list.

However, I was surprised by how much chatter surrounded the film and how enthusiastically audiences responded. Then Off Ramp took home the Best Feature award, and I finally committed to figuring out what all the hype was about.

Nothing could have prepared me for the wild, emotionally resonant, transformative journey I was about to take.

First, you need to understand that this is not really a story about Juggalos.

It is about Juggalos, of course, but it’s not JUST about Juggalos. That’s merely a plot device—a clever hook to tell a heartfelt story about belonging, acceptance, found family, and discovering your tribe.

The film revolves around Trey (Jon Oswald), just getting out of a stint in prison and another, and his best friend Silas (Scott Turner Schofield), who seems hellbent on hard partying—refusing to grow up.

The duo are embarking on a road trip, an annual pilgrimage to the Gathering, where they hope to promote their rap demo. Like every great road trip movie, nothing goes according to plan.

It’s a recipe for a raunchy, SLC Punk meets Harold and Kumar meets Jay and Silent Bob anarchist bro-venture. It is that, but it is also so much more.

Taking the titular off-ramp from the interstate, driving through the heart of the deep South while escaping the long arm of the very corrupt law, the men encounter a series of increasingly unhinged and horrifying misadventures amid inhospitable territory.

Their journey takes them to the home of an estranged old friend with a grudge, an excommunicated Juggalo named Scarecrow (Jared Bankens), who exerts twisted control over his kindhearted sister Eden (Ashley Smith).

It all culminates in an unbelievably weird and blood-soaked third act that gives genre films the horror they came for without betraying the film’s core themes.

Right out of the gate, the film reveals itself as tender, relatable, and wildly funny.

Writer-director Nathan Tape with co-writer Tim Cairo initially thought they were making a pure comedy that would poke fun at the admittedly weird Juggalo community.

However, as Tape began to research his subjects for a more authentic storytelling approach, he became struck by how truly loving and accepting the community was and how much beauty existed beneath the heavy makeup and strange hairstyles. Much of the film’s narrative is built from stories shared with Tape by the Juggalos he met during this process.

Trey and Silas live on the fringe of society with a general disdain for authority. They are wild and crude, slinging profanities and vulgarities while enjoying a wide variety of legal and illegal substances.

Despite this, it’s immediately clear our central “degenerates” are two men with good hearts who mean well but have had to traverse a painful and rocky road that hasn’t always led them down the best path.

The characters feel real and nuanced, and their chemistry is both believable and palpable—elevated by the sharply-written as well as the heavily improvised dialogue.

During their journey, we slowly and organically learn more about the nature of their friendship and the trials and tribulations that have brought them to this point.

This includes one particularly powerful and genuinely surprising revelation that I won’t ruin here, but it’s a reveal that adds significant depth and meaning to a film already steeped in humanity.

As we learn about who Trey and Silos are as people, we also get insight into their moral code and guiding principles shared by their Juggalo family—with nuggets of almost Tao-like wisdom, including “there are a million ways to mourn, all of them are correct” and “happiness isn’t always a good time.”

Musical fandoms teetering on the border of obsession and cult-like devotion are nothing new.

We don’t have to look much further than the rabid Taylor Swift fanbase, affectionately dubbed Swifties. On the surface, there’s little difference between Swift’s army of ride-or-die devotees and the enduring followers of Insane Clown Posse known as Juggalos—from secret languages to cult-like gatherings to bodily adornments meant to identify their membership in the tribe.

So why are Swifties viewed as merely irritating at worst while Juggalos are widely derided and feared, even routinely harassed, thanks to the FBI once designating the fandom as a criminal gang affiliation?

Perhaps it’s because Juggalos, unlike Swifties, aren’t mostly white, affluent kids and wine-drinking soccer moms from the suburbs.

They are primarily the disaffected outcasts of America’s underbelly: the poor, the disadvantaged, the over-policed and underrepresented communities that so often take the rap for the country’s failings while the wealthy elite rape and pillage fecklessly without consequence or concern.

Though he does so with ample humor, heart, and a fair share of bloody mayhem, Tape deftly peels back the curtain on this cynical view of a group that regularly preaches about love and acceptance.

OFF RAMP also looks and sounds incredible, resulting in a character-driven film about trauma and resilience that is both beautiful and heartfelt.

That doesn’t mean it’s not an absolute blast. It’s one of the wildest cinematic rides I’ve been on in a while, endlessly funny and full of chaotic madness.

This is indeed a love letter to the Juggalos. More accurately, however, it’s a love letter to the misfits and weirdos, to anyone who has ever felt like they didn’t belong for any reason or couldn’t be fully loved and accepted while living their authentic life.

It’s about finding a community that loves and supports you when the rest of the world is happy to judge you at face value and deem you unworthy.

It will leave you feeling like a better person after seeing it, perhaps eager to adopt a bit of the Juggalo philosophy into your own life.