Hanger (2009)

Every once in awhile I watch a film that really tugs at me and asks me, "Where is your sense of moral decency and values?", and I stop, turn my head to Mr. Moral Decency, and reply,"I think it just slid out my ass, along with the spicy, vegan tofu dish I made earlier in the night with the extremely hot chipotle peppers."

As disgusting as that may have painted a picture in your head, it does not even come close to the grossly disturbing and sick direction that Ryan Nicholson has turned us to in his latest raunch-filled feature, Hanger. Bringing back many of the actors and actresses from his uber-cultish and very popular Gutterballs, Nicholson has created a film that lies somewhere beneath the dirty scum and filth of Street Trash and the rough-edged bleakness of Combat Shock, but don't forget to add in a dash of some Troma Films-style humor with porn-quality nudity. There is only one other director that comes anywhere near to the filth and shock-value of director Ryan Nicholson and that is indie filmmaker Terrence Williams (Horno). I swear those two share a brain or are long lost brothers because they seem to share a very unique and disturbing vision.

Hanger is the story of Rose (Scream Queen Debbie Rochon, Bleed), a prostitute and porn actress who gets knocked up by one of her clients, that no longer can bring in the money as not many men want to pay to bang a pregnant woman. Therefore, her pimp Leroy (Ronald Patrick Thompson) finds out when someone rats her out and decides that if she can't make him money, he will just give Rose a back-alley abortion with a hanger. Obviously, it does not work, maybe due to the fact that she looks as though was supposed to give birth yesterday, and she dies in the process. Leroy tears the baby out and tosses it in the trash. The baby did not die, but is horribly disfigured from the hanger used in the abortion, and a street bum decides to raise the baby up until his 19th birthday when the dude that got Rose pregnant in the first place, The John (Dan Ellis, Monsturd), takes him from the scum that he was living with on the streets and runs him over while the dude is taking a dump.The boy is named Hanger (Nathan Dashwood, Stan Helsing), after the fact that his facial features are so horribly disfigured and that is what he now goes by. I may be totally wrong, but was that bum in the beginning of the film that he lives with the director in a cameo? It might have been. The abortion I just described was shown in graphic detail...really graphic detail. The scene kind of made me squirm, but just a little.





Actually, I am not sure if any of the scenes really shocked me and that may not be a good thing.

I enjoy nasty, gory, violent, and disturbing movies. Hanger definitely has some major shock value, but had a kind of humorous edge to, as the script had called for characters that belted out raunchy one-liners here and there ("Fix him up a nice slice of pussy pie!"), as well playing stereotypes to the hilt-many of them with extremely racist undertones. Russell (Wade Gibb, Gutterballs) has to be playing one of the most poorly done Asians I have ever scene. It was so bad that it really was funny, if only slightly.

I feel that you can't watch Hanger and really take it at face-value. It is a film shot with a small budget that is meant to shock, horrify, and gross the audience out with tongue-in-cheek. I really think that Ryan Nicholson has a lot of fun when he makes his films, as does the cast and crew. The gore effects in the film were done really well, whether it was the scene in which the topless hooker got her head smashed and caved in by the door of the truck, or the Jehovah Witness (Susan Arum) that Hanger tore apart, starting with her tits- the gore was gruesome and satisfied my gore-hound urges.



In all honesty, the acting really sucked a big one. It is pretty damn awful, but the amount of humor, gore and the gorgeous Nicole (Candice Lewald, Gutterballs) really was the only one in the film that was not heavily done up with latex and makeup. There are no scenes that tease the viewer-scenes that look as though they are gonna show some nudity and then never deliver. Ryan Nicholson delivered the raunchy nudity and sex in Gutterballs and delivers again in Hanger. There were a few scenes that I felt dragged on a wee bit, but it did not bring the movie's level of interest down to low.

I have to give Nicholson respect for leaving no subject taboo in this film, and I mean NO SUBJECT. I know from having interviewed Nicholson in the past that he makes his films on his own terms, for better or for worse, and it seems he is still sticking to that motto and forging his own unique style of borderline porn blended in with over-the-top gore and violence. Hanger is, simply put, a tale of revenge involving the lowest forms of life one would be lucky to never encounter in their lifetime. Hanger is a film that is over-the-top in gore, violence, nudity, and crude humor. One of the sickest scenes in the film, and this just is something that I am always personally disgusted by every time I see it in a film and that is bloody tampons, but even worse, bloody tampons that are used in any way for a food item. In one scene, Russel (Wade Gibb) takes out a fresh and bloody tampon and stirs it in his tea and then drinks it- I really was disgusted, but I continued watching and was put at ease when a nice gory scene happened only minutes later, which was followed by death by douche tube, in one of the most impressively done and well executed gore effects.

If one can get over the bad acting and pretty weak plot, sit back and enjoy all the raunch, crude humor, female masturbation, nudity and gore that comprises of the rest of the film, it just may surprise you that there is some charm somewhere in that vile, shit-encrusted toilet bowl that encompasses Hanger (I mean that in a good way!). This may not live up to his previous and much more popular effort with Gutterballs, but Hanger still packs bite and will please fans of crude humor, sick violence, and well-done gore with a nice layer of gratuitous nudity oozed over it all for a recipe in low-budget nastiness.