The most important piece of advice that I can offer you prior to watching Hanger is: do not take it seriously. An appearance by Lloyd Kaufman should suggest that to you, even without my advice.
Rose is a pregnant hooker who is often beat mercilessly by her pimp, Leroy. Leroy has told Rose many times that she needs to get rid of her unborn child. Rose no longer wants to be a hooker and wants to have her baby. One of her regular dates, referred to as “The John” no longer wants to pay her for sex so long as she is pregnant. As this means less money for him, Leroy decides to take matters in to his own hands. Using a hanger, he extracts Rose’s child, killing Rose in the process. He then tosses the child in to a dumpster. Flash forward 18 years, and we learn that the child (named Hanger) has been living with a homeless man who found him in the dumpster. On his 18th birthday, “The John” picks up Hanger and takes him to his new home and job. Hanger’s face is usually obscured as it has scars from the hanger, and his teeth are quite sharp and ugly. He lives with a roommate Russell, who is also a bit deformed and apparently Chinese (not convincingly). Russell likes beer and porn. “The John” eventually tells Hanger of his mother and how he came to be. He has also devised a plan to kill Leroy.
Hanger is a vile and disgustingly foul picture. However, I found myself disgusted at the less violent scenes. For example, Russell dipping a freshly used tampon in to his tea and then drinking particularly disturbed me. Russell removing a tampon from a passed out woman’s body also was a tad jarring. A man dressed as Santa Claus, raping Hanger in an open wound; also a little unnerving. While these depictions were treated also with humor, it did nothing to deflect the near nausea I suffered.
Having said that the film cannot possibly be taken seriously, it seems futile to give any sort of aesthetic review, but I shall try. Surprisingly, the acting wasn’t as horrible as I expected. Russell (Wade Gibb) was quite hilarious. Fortunately, he was in most of the film. There was a lot of “downtime” (no killing) which was terribly uninteresting, with the exception of Russell spouting off hilarious lines. That made for a bit of an uncomfortable pace. There was also quite a bit of nudity, both male and female. In fact, at one point, the film rotated back and forth between 3 scenes: Santa Claus raping Russell and Hanger, a woman masturbating on her desk, and a hooker tormenting “The John” with her smelly crotch. It was quite a dizzying bit of disturbia.
Really, all flaws and nonsense aside, I caught myself having a good time watching this. It is not without value. To appreciate it, you definitely need to have an appreciation for exploitation and over the top violence. It’s kind of hard to be offensive when you are completely tongue in cheek, but no doubt some folks will not understand that and become offended within minutes. If you are one of the people, I would just stay very far away from this.
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