THE HANGMAN (2024)
Label: Epic Pictures
Region Code: Region-Free
Rating: Unrated
Duration: 90 Minutes 5 Seconds
Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0, 5.1 with Optional English Subtitles
Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (2:1)
Director: Brice Wemple
Cast: Lejon Woods, Lindsey Dresbach, Scott Callenberger, Kaitlyn Lunardi, Rob Cardazone, Jefferson Cox
Indie supernatural horror The Hangman (2024) is a door-to-Hell entry wherein a title card tells us that one of the seven doors to Hell is located in West Virginia, we see a robed cult opening that door and extracting what turns out to be a demon called The Hangman (Scott Callenberger). Enter into the picture black father Leon (LeJon Woods) and his teenage son Jesse (Mar Cellus) who are on a camping trip in, you guessed it, rural West Virginia. The son doesn't want to be there and dad has a hard time connecting with his kid, at the heart of the issue is the death of boy's mother a few years earlier, murdered in their own home. The father refuses to talk about it and the kid blames his dad for not being able to prevent her death, which leads to some heated conversation and frustration over the camp fire, and the two going to sleep sort of mad at each other. In the morning the father tries to smooth thing over with his son only to discover that the kid's tent is empty. In a panic he calls out for him but he's nowhere to be found, and then he discovers that his vehicle disabled. On foot he hits the road looking for help, which is where he is discovered by rednecks Billy (Kaitlyn Lunardi) and Scott (Rob Cardazone), who turn out to be drug-addled racists. They hold him at gun point and hurl racist comments at him, and when it becomes clear that they have ill intentions he escape into the nearby woods. Eventually he ends up at the home of a guy named Kaine (Jefferson Cox), who turns out to be another scary backwoods scumbag type with connections to the backwoods cult. Leon manages to get the upper hand over Kaine and frees a woman named Tara (Lindsey Dresbach) who he finds tied up in one a bedroom. She is thankful for the favor, and after hearing his plight about his missing son tells him about the backwoods cult and introduces a local priest named Jedidiah (Daniel Martin Berkey), who knows a thing or two about the cult and the demon called The Hangman.
Indie supernatural horror The Hangman (2024) is a door-to-Hell entry wherein a title card tells us that one of the seven doors to Hell is located in West Virginia, we see a robed cult opening that door and extracting what turns out to be a demon called The Hangman (Scott Callenberger). Enter into the picture black father Leon (LeJon Woods) and his teenage son Jesse (Mar Cellus) who are on a camping trip in, you guessed it, rural West Virginia. The son doesn't want to be there and dad has a hard time connecting with his kid, at the heart of the issue is the death of boy's mother a few years earlier, murdered in their own home. The father refuses to talk about it and the kid blames his dad for not being able to prevent her death, which leads to some heated conversation and frustration over the camp fire, and the two going to sleep sort of mad at each other. In the morning the father tries to smooth thing over with his son only to discover that the kid's tent is empty. In a panic he calls out for him but he's nowhere to be found, and then he discovers that his vehicle disabled. On foot he hits the road looking for help, which is where he is discovered by rednecks Billy (Kaitlyn Lunardi) and Scott (Rob Cardazone), who turn out to be drug-addled racists. They hold him at gun point and hurl racist comments at him, and when it becomes clear that they have ill intentions he escape into the nearby woods. Eventually he ends up at the home of a guy named Kaine (Jefferson Cox), who turns out to be another scary backwoods scumbag type with connections to the backwoods cult. Leon manages to get the upper hand over Kaine and frees a woman named Tara (Lindsey Dresbach) who he finds tied up in one a bedroom. She is thankful for the favor, and after hearing his plight about his missing son tells him about the backwoods cult and introduces a local priest named Jedidiah (Daniel Martin Berkey), who knows a thing or two about the cult and the demon called The Hangman.
If I was to pinpoint why this one doesn't quite work for me it's because the titular Hangman is lacking from large swaths of the film. I like the look of the demonic entity but he's largely absent from the film until the final third, so most of the film is Leon looking for his son, battling backwoods racists and the mysterious cult, and when we finally do get some Hangman action I thought it was a largely lackluster endeavor. Considering that Leon and his son are black and that there's a racist backwoods cult, and that the demonic entity is called The Hangman, which they do not exploit that lynching element to it's fullest. Heck, he's called The Hangman but there's not much lynching happening here, the demon just seems to be able to telepathically control rope and twine, which I thought was underwhelming.
That's no to say I didn't like elements of this one, I thought that the father-son chemistry between the two actors early on was solid, and is some of the best the film has to offer. Also the make-up FX of The Hangman are decent, I like the duster and cowboy hat design, the evil-dead demon face, but the convoluted origin story and the way that the demon dispatches his victims didn't do a lot for me. The tone also shifts quite a bit, starting out straight-faced but getting a bit goofy towards the end, but thankfully I liked the character of Leon quite a bit, and that carried me through. Towards the ends he suits up and arms himself and goes up against the cult and The Hangman to save his son, and like I said I thought it got a bit goofy, but through it all I thought Lejon Woods as Leon was solid all the way through. The story sort of falls apart there at the end, it gets convoluted with the origin story of the demon, there's a half-ass love interest (sort of), but the biggest flaw for me is that the titular demon is more of a side-character, and the film just needed to be more streamlined and focused. Not bad, not terrible, but very middle of the road backwoods supernatural/cult flick for me; despite the interesting elements it just never coalesced into anything memorable, but thankfully I quite liked our protaganist hero-dad, an he carried me through.
Audio/Video: The Hangman (2024) arrives on region-free Blu-ray from Epic Pictures in 1080p HD widescreen (2:1) with uncompressed English DTS-HD MA 2.0 or 5.1 audio with optional English subtitles. The digital-shot film looks solid, obviously there are no film defects to contend with, the image is sharp looking with solid colors and pleasing black levels. The audio options are fine, the sound design relies a bit too much on generic canned sound effects, but for a low-budget indie horror its not awful, dialogue sounded fine.
Extras include an Audio Commentary; 4-min Making of Featurette; a 3-min Deleted Scene; a 7-min Lejon Woods Interview; as well as the 2-min Official Trailer and a selection of Dread Trailers for Berkeley, Island Escape, The Jester, and Satanic Hispanics. The single-disc release arrives in a standard keepcase with a single-sided sleeve of artwork.
Special Features:
- Audio Commentary
- Making of Featurette (3:50)
- Deleted Scene (3:09)
- Audio Commentary
- Making of Featurette (3:50)
- Deleted Scene (3:09)
- Lejon Woods Interview (7:13)
- Official Trailer (2:16)
- Dread Trailers: Berkeley (0:33), Island Escape (1:54), The Jester (1:31), Satanic Hispanics (1:56)
- Official Trailer (2:16)
- Dread Trailers: Berkeley (0:33), Island Escape (1:54), The Jester (1:31), Satanic Hispanics (1:56)
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