Hanging Babies Out To Dry

I wasn't sure which movie to review for today. I was thinking about the next movie that is in instant watch which is climbing up my DVD queue. Since that will be a while yet, I instead decided to watch Hanger (2009), a movie that will be taken out of instant watch in the next few days. I've had some bad runs in the past where it seemed like every movie I watched was just very bad. It seems like I am in another one of those runs now. My streak for reviews here on this blog will likely come to an end today. I will do a review over at Top Horror Movies Club, but will likely only do the one. Next week I will be out of town Tuesday night and all day/night Wednesday for work. It will be a slow week here, but not because I'm not in the mood to review movies.

Rose (Debbie Rochon) is a very pregnant hooker. Her pimp isn't very happy about this at all, since Johns don't want to fuck a fat chick. (Not that I would know, just what the movies claims) Rose goes out to meet her regular John (Dan Ellis) who gives her a little bit of money, and some advice about getting out now. Her pimp doesn't like the money she for once took in, so Rose decides to leave. Of course her pimp discovers this, and he decides to do what he wanted her to do as soon as Rose found out she was pregnant. He takes a coat hanger and pulls that baby out. Rose doesn't survive, but the baby somehow does. Now 18 years later, Hanger (Nathan Dashwood) is being kicked out by the guy who raised him. I guess that tent isn't big enough for the both of them now. Hanger meets up with "The John", he never gives his actual name, who sets Hanger up with a place to live and a job. He eventually tells Hanger about his mother and how she died, which is the reason Hanger looks the way he does. Hanger wants to find this pimp now and get his revenge.

Hanger is directed by Ryan Nicholson. From what I have been reading in other reviews, he is trying to make a living out of extreme horror films. This is the first film by him that I have watched so far, and I wasn't really all the impressed by it. The story is okay, but doesn't live up to the abortion revenge genre, if there is such an animal. The voices are often times out of sync with the video. Nicholson admits freely that there was a problem with that, and promised it would be fixed on his next film. I guess there was also a problem with voices being recorded to low on the set, so they recorded things in a studio. I'm guessing they said something different on set because there was times when the actor would stop talking on screen, but his/her voice would still be saying a few more words. I was starting to wonder if Hanger wasn't an English speaking film. It was made in Canada, so I'm assuming it was and not French.

Nicholson tries a little bit of everything to get under peoples skin with Hanger. From showing an abortion, a guy who has a thing for used tampons, smashing someones face in, rape, and a good amount of other things as well. If you are looking for a movie for that reason only, to be shocked, maybe you will like Hanger. It doesn't have much else going for it in all honesty. The story itself wasn't very well paced. Heading into the last ten minutes of the film, I was really wondering how it was going to end. Not because I cared, but because it didn't feel like it was coming to any sort of conclusion. Maybe the biggest problem with the plot was probably Hanger himself. The effects crew did a good job with the makeup on Hanger, but for a story that is supposed to be about him and getting his revenge, he doesn't do a hell of a lot. We see him at his job a lot or sitting around at his new home. Once in a while he will kill someone for no real good reason, and that is about it. He doesn't even get the revenge the film pushes, what is up with that?

Nicholson is an effects guy turned director. If you are looking for a gory film, you might like Hanger for that reason then. Oddly enough, the lighting would be fine but as soon as the gore kicked in, the lighting would turn real dark. I don't know if Nicholson just didn't shot the scenes in the right away, or if he was just trying to hide them for some reason. The acting wasn't all that great, at least to me. Some people seemed to love just about everything this film had to offer, but there are a lot more bad reviews than good. Not that this has anything to do with the acting, but there is plenty of nudity to be found. Some of the women, like Candice Lewald, was well worth seeing nude. Some aren't afraid of showing their entire body either, if you catch my drift.

Hanger offered some moments that were okay, but it never reached a point where I felt impressed by it. I was impressed with some of the women, but that didn't have anything to do with the film itself really. Once scene has a woman where she was fully dressed and then in the next scene, where she is helping torture a guy, she is mostly naked. Made me do a double take and wonder why she was now naked. At times Hanger would remind me of something that Troma would make. Lloyd Kaufman even has a cameo in this one, so maybe that helped in my thinking. If this one happens to sound interesting to you for whatever reason, then give it a watch I suppose. If I ever came across Hanger again, I might, might, sit through it again just to see the nude scenes. I will give it the rating below just because of the ladies. They at least deserve a star all their own.
2 out of 5 Saving someone from rats isn't always a good thing