Hanger (2009)
Directed by: Ryan Nicholson
Cast: Nathan Dashwood, Debbie Rochon, Dan Ellis, Wade Gibb
DVD Release Date: November 17, 2009
Reviewer: Marc Patterson

Director Ryan Nicholson has a real sharp edge to him, and this isn’t necessarily a bad thing. He’s one of the most brutal filmmakers out there in the arena of independent horror, and he does not flinch or shy away from destroying any new boundaries the genre places down. When it comes to utterly sickening, repulsive, and totally vapid filmmaking – Ryan Nicholson is king. That being said, if I had watched Hanger before I had seen any other of his films I wouldn’t be a fan, and I wouldn’t have bothered giving him a second chance at redemption. Hanger is unapologetically obscene and offensive, and rubs its STD-infected snatch in your face with the pity of a $5 hooker. And while I say that as a bad thing, I’m sure it epitomizes Nicholson’s exact intended effect.

In Ryan’s previous film Gutterballs he took on 80’s slasher cinema. Here he goes for the gusto and takes 60’s and 70’s era grindhouse, punishing the audience with excruciating levels of repugnant visual stimuli. An aborted fetus casually chucked across a dingy motel room, landing with a bloody splat on the floor is only an appetizer. Wait until you witness the deformed freak with a fetish for used tampons (don’t ask what’s in his tea!). If this is the sort of stuff you think you can stomach, then you might consider giving Hanger a shot.

The film begins eighteen years ago with a low rent and very pregnant street hooker portrayed by Debbie Rochon. Her pimp is a mean as hell motherfucker with a penchant for brutality and abuse. After warning her to get an abortion (because babies aren’t good for business) he decides to take care of the matter himself with a wire coat hanger. But the baby isn’t dead, and is rescued by a certain sympathetic “John” who finds the baby a homeless daddy, where he can be raised. Eighteen years later we meet a grown up “Hanger”, who though raised homeless on the street, must go find a job and be an adult (the horror!) He manages to get a job at a local recycling plant, and gets dropped into the cesspool of adult life with two other deformed outcasts. Together they watch porn and drink beer, and try to spy on the unusually hot office girl portrayed by Candace Lewald, who played the slutty Lisa in Gutterballs, who likes to stay late and masturbate naked on the office desk. Meanwhile, there’s a whole revenge plot that begins to develop. You’d figure that it would be Hanger executing the revenge, but oddly it’s that strange father figure – the elusive John from eighteen years ago – who’s back to vindicate his hooker’s death.

While I realize that what I’m about to say must sound ridiculous considering that we’re talking about HORROR, I still have to say again – if you couldn’t handle Hostel or Saw you won’t want to approach Hanger within fifty yards. Hanger is only for the most hardcore, desensitized of horrorphiles. This film is not for the least bit squeamish amongst us. And, if for any reason you’re now under the impression that I didn’t care for this film for its gratuitous violence and heavy sexual overtones, think again. These things don’t bother me. I’m pretty desensitized, and can point you to a fairly positive review that I gave Gutterballs. While I never bothered reviewing Live Feed, Ryan’s freshman outing, I can tell you that I also somewhat enjoyed that film. What bothers me is poor filmmaking, and instead of upping his game, I feel like Nicholson coasted through this film a bit. Hanger offers little to nothing in terms of a solid plot development, but utilizes the idea of an aborted baby, who miraculously survived, coming back for revenge as a loose and poorly constructed plot device. In fact, the kid never really comes back for revenge. He just gets pulled along through one ridiculous scene after another, which serve nothing than to showcase the sick and warped creations of Nicholson’s imagination. Equally disappointing was that the pacing of the film was all over the place, and while this could have been a really vitriolic take on early grindhouse, it instead seemed to just regurgitate the excesses of a day gone by in a manner that could have been better served wrapped into a short 30 minute film.

There were a few fun laughable moments, such as when one unnamed hooker meets her end with her head smashed in the door of a pickup truck. The preposterousness of the moment actually caused me to laugh aloud. While such nods, as this one, to Herschell Gordon Lewis are obvious, they are few and far between. I have to say though, Ryan goes into territory that I doubt Lewis ever knew could exist, and I say that specifically keeping in mind the scene in The Gore Gore Girls, where a razor blade was used to cut a strippers nipples open as milk poured out. Lewis had a sick and perverse sense of gore about him, but he also had a sharp wit that has seen few come along since who can match it. While Ryan takes the element of gore to an entirely new level, he seems to forget the punch-line is equally as important in the equation, and his varied attempts at dark and twisted humor come up flat.

I’m not going to bother with the whole do I recommend or not recommend this film wrap-up. I think at this point you should have a pretty solid idea of what you’re in for if you decide to snag this sick little puppy up. Check out the trailer below and if you do decide to see it (or have seen it) let me know. I’d really be curious as to what you thought.