Hanger

"Hanger" is NOT a good movie. It is, in fact, repulsive and low budget and I dare recommend this but for a select few. There are problems galore. The acting is pretty substandard, the cinematography is less then stellar, and the plot is pretty thin. There are HUGE holes in this bad boy... Yet, it does have it's charm. There is a large does of humor to be found, alongside some grotesque imagery and a brave, if not poorly conceived, script. This is a splatter revenge flick with gumption and originality though it's window dressing is of the hand me down variety. There is a liberal amount of sexuality that serves little purpose beyond getting pre- pubescent teenage boys to watch it...so it has it's desperation as well. If your looking to round out your low budget, monster/revenge movie list then by all means look into it with a healthy amount of skepticism. If your looking for the next cult classic...there MIGHT be enough to give it credence. However if your looking for a movie to sustain the weight of it's shocking plot description you will be disappointed. It's a movie that 2 out of 10 will think was "alright".

Some people will hate on this movie but I really enjoyed it's over indulgent nature. It was a piece of B movie garbage that I would watch again and again.

Now don't get me wrong here, if you're looking for a truly great movie, just forget about even looking at this film. It's only for those folks who love super trashy, B grade, ultra violent and sick movies. Chalk full of sex, violence, gore and for some reason, every man in this movie has a messed up face (which really grew on me).

Even the good guys in this film are completely vile, so you can only imagine how disgusting the bad guys are.

I vote a 9/10, simply for the fact I love the over the top dialog, grotesque characters, violence and gratuitous sex.

Like Roger Ebert, I have to give some credit to a film that does what it sets out to do and has no illusions about social value or artistry. That's "Hanger" in a nutshell. Pure exploitation from start to finish. (This review refers to the uncut edition, as though a cut edition would be any better.)

Perhaps one of the most striking things about the film (other than an obsession with genitalia) is the heavy use of facial appliances. There may be two male actors who are not heavily covered with facial appliances throughout the film (and I have my doubts about one of them). Female roles fare a little better, trading "money shots" for not having to wear prosthetics. The whole thing comes off like a medieval allegorical play, with all the players in masks representing their roles.

Overall, not as funny or interesting as "Gutterballs." It is much more extreme than "Run, Bitch, Run," which hardly rose to the level of exploitation anyway. And it's not nearly as creepy as "deadgirl," which is in a completely different class of film-making (i.e., much superior).

The best use I know of for "Hanger" is to show somebody an exploitation film that exists for no other reason than to exploit. Still, you gotta admire honesty.

Not recommended for people with reasonable standards of decency or any expectations of artistry.

I guess I qualify to fit the target group of this movie, after all I have seen previous movies by Nicholson and "Gutterballs" was real fun. Sure, all his movies have a trashy flair and the sexual shocking was there every time... but "Hanger" is a different thing. You can describe this movie like a cross between "Street Trash" and some stupid 70ies Revenge Movie. Basically this could guarantee some interesting 90 minutes for fans of Movies like Pulp Fiction/Boondock Saints and underground horror. But what Nicholson delivers here qualifies for the Troma Catalog in one of the lowest drawers.

The movie is set in the dirty red light district and revolves around a prostitute who gets a back alley abortion with a clothes-hanger by her pimp (is that guy supposed to be black or what... since the Chinese guy is barely Chinese I guess tough guy Leroy is a non-black black guy??). So you get were the title comes from which is also the name of the aborted monstrosity walking the street with a deformed face, a stoma, baby-talk and toy rabbits. Now Mr. Hanger meets his father (like most characters with serious prosthetic work on his face and especially nose) and they plot some rough revenge. Funny thing is that this "plot" always tends to be dropped on the sidelines for some lame masturbation or gay sex jokes as well as ridiculous soft-core sequences of some meaningless chick (I don't get her deeper idea for the plot) working her snatch in her office.

All this leads up to one of the most ridiculous shoot outs in movie history (let me guess.... Mr Nicholson liked Boondock Saints very much but really took a deep dive here)that like everything in the movie is thrown in a pot and blended to a tasteless mush. Basically all you get is tasteless jokes about deformed retards (all those back alley hicks reminded me a lot of "Street Trash" yet "Hangers" stretches it much further), you get some guy collecting tampons and making tea out of it, a gay retard using hangers stoma for a fun ride, fart jokes, prosthetic dicks with cartoon "boing" samples, some killed prostitutes and a torture sequence with a blowtorch (Hmm, reminds me of something else) which is like many of the not so many gory moments in this movie plain ridiculous. The way the scenes are bound together and especially the dialog come across like written by a retarded horny 16year old writing a script with his dick in his hand.

Come on Mr. Nicholson... there is a boundary to stupidity on a level that the viewer feels ashamed for the director and you crossed it. The ending of your movie deserves to enter the halls of trash to serve as a warning of how it should never be done.

A clothes-hanger abortion survivor? Whoa! Who's turned into a blood-thirsty freak? Whoa mama! Graphic nudity? Mama mia! It's directed by Ryan Nicholson? Oh...hmmm...I guess I'll check it out.

I've gotta admit, even though this flick seems to have all the ingredients to sound like a pretty sweet and f'ed up flick, it's almost a chore to watch. Scratch that. It is a chore to watch. My biggest issue was how the story played out. The pacing was horrendous. Mix that with a cast of entirely unlikeable characters and bingo, a chore. And why are the characters unlikeable? Well, you can blame that on the amateur acting, and subpar writing. Just like Ryan's past movies he seems to not have a problem with giving his actors full reign of their characters. And when you have actors who aren't so hot at acting, it more than likely ends up being like this.

A thought that popped in my head a few times while watching this was how close it came to becoming a porno. And actually how it even felt like a porn flick at times. Ryan, you add some penetration to these films, and you'll instantly become the best horror porn director ever. Or at least the best working at the moment. Maybe think about it, eh?

There aren't many film-makers out there that are as carefree and in love with the horror genre as Mr. Nicholson, and that is the sole reason I keep seeing his movies. I hope instead of sticking to human horror he tackles something a bit more 'traditional', but leaving his trademark sickness to it. A creature feature or a big foot movie, but with the works.

Hanger was a gross, sleazy, dirty flick that should have been a crazy fun time, but ended up being boring, unlikeable, and felt like it tried much too hard to be funny and shocking. The handful of disgusting scenes and graphic nudity can only go so far.

p.s. Edward Lee's Bighead just called you a copycat.