There are bad slashers. There are so-bad-they’re-good slashers. And then there’s Hanging Heart, a film that seems to have been cobbled together from a rejected episode of Law & Order: SVU, a dollar-bin soap opera, and an after-school special about Stranger Danger. It’s not scary, it’s not sexy, and it’s not even unintentionally funny in the fun, campy way. It’s just a cinematic crime scene that somehow made it onto VHS.
The World’s Saddest Thespian
We begin with Denny, a struggling stage actor who performs in an “experimental theater group.” Translation: he recites nonsense on stage while dressed like he’s auditioning for a Cats revival in someone’s garage. Denny is played by Barry Wyatt, whose acting is so wooden it should’ve come with a termite warning.
He lives under the benefaction of Elliot, a wealthy gay attorney who is obsessed with him. Elliot showers him with gifts, like cars and rent-free housing, which Denny nobly refuses. This is supposed to make him look principled, but it just makes him look like the world’s least ambitious mooch. Imagine being broke in Los Angeles and turning down free rent. Clearly, he deserves everything bad that happens to him.
Murder Most Mild
One day, Denny has sex with his girlfriend Cathy on stage. (Yes, on stage. In a theater. During daylight hours. These people apparently don’t know what a bed is.) Cathy is then strangled by a cloaked figure in a bad Party City wig. And by “strangled,” I mean she lies down gently while the killer wiggles their hands vaguely in the vicinity of her throat. It’s the least convincing murder since that time William Shatner overacted himself to death in Star Trek II.
Naturally, Denny is arrested, because in this universe, wearing a black wig once is enough to prove you’re a serial killer.
Courtroom Carnage
The middle hour of Hanging Heart is basically a courtroom drama, except imagine A Few Good Men if everyone in it had suffered massive head trauma. The prosecution calls drug-addicted Richard, who testifies that Denny “hates women.” Apparently this is compelling evidence, because everyone gasps like he just revealed Denny is secretly Elvis.
Meanwhile, Elliot—remember him? The sugar daddy/defense attorney/obsessive stalker—represents Denny in court. Conflict of interest? Ethics violations? Who cares, this is a movie where logic goes to die.
Denny also sees a psychiatrist, who helpfully diagnoses him with “trauma flashbacks” to his childhood sexual abuse and his mother’s strangulation death. This sounds heavy, but the flashbacks are filmed like a high school health class video. The “stepdad” looks more like a guy who wandered in from a used-car dealership audition, and young Denny looks like he’s just upset his Nintendo got taken away.
Dream Logic, or Just Bad Logic
While on bail, Denny has dreams where Elliot tries to seduce him in showers and bedrooms, which somehow leads to more murders. Joanne, the theater director, sleeps with Denny and is immediately strangled afterward. If Hanging Heartteaches us anything, it’s that sleeping with Denny is a death sentence—and honestly, who could blame Elliot for trying to stop these women? Anyone willing to hook up with this guy should probably be protected from themselves.
Denny is then put into a psychiatric hospital, but don’t worry—Elliot bails him out again. By now, you’d think the judge would have caught on that maybe letting this guy out on bail repeatedly is a bad idea, but no, justice in Hanging Heart is about as coherent as the plot.
The World’s Worst Detective
Enter Detective McGill, who is supposed to be building a case against Denny but spends most of the film skulking around bars like a jealous ex. He also blackmails Julie—Denny’s prostitute friend turned love interest—into helping him set Denny up. Julie complies because she’s tired, broke, and apparently forgot that cops can’t actually make you participate in hit-and-runs.
McGill’s “master plan” is to stage a car accident where Denny gets lightly tapped by a sedan. This is supposed to be dramatic, but it looks more like Denny tripped on a curb.
Richard, the Angry Drama Kid
Meanwhile, Richard—Denny’s rival in the theater—pops up like a hyperactive meerkat every twenty minutes to scream at Julie, attack people, or remind the audience that he’s on drugs. He’s essentially the “red herring” suspect, except nobody buys it, because he’s too busy yelling lines like, “You think you’re better than me, Denny?!” while looking like he’s auditioning for West Side Story.
The Big Reveal: No Surprise Here
Finally, after 90 minutes of endless courtroom blather, therapy sessions, and Denny staring into the middle distance like a discount Hamlet, we get the big reveal. The real killer is… Elliot, the gay attorney benefactor! Shocking! Except, no, it isn’t. The film telegraphs this from minute five, when Elliot first leered at Denny like he was a limited-edition Ken doll.
Elliot has been murdering all the women in Denny’s life out of unhinged lust. This would be creepy if the movie didn’t film his “confession” like a bad soap opera monologue. Instead of menace, we get Jake Henry giving us “community theater Dracula.”
Performances: From Wooden to Splintered
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Barry Wyatt as Denny: Displays the emotional range of a damp sponge. His “anguish” looks more like constipation.
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Jake Henry as Elliot: Imagine a Law & Order extra suddenly told he’s the villain, then immediately regretting it.
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Francine Lapensée as Julie: Spends the whole movie sighing like she’s waiting for her paycheck to clear.
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John Stevens as Richard: Snorts scenery the way his character supposedly snorts cocaine.
Themes? What Themes?
The movie pretends to explore themes of trauma, sexuality, repression, and obsession. What it actually explores is how long an audience can stay awake while watching endless scenes of actors wandering through badly lit sets. The “psychosexual thriller” label is used loosely here; it’s less De Palma and more Lifetime Original Movie about really boring people.
The Ending: Shrugged Into Existence
The movie ends with Elliot arrested, sitting in a jail cell, looking vaguely annoyed—as if even he can’t believe he wasted his time on this. Denny, meanwhile, walks away free, presumably to ruin more avant-garde theater productions with his soulless acting. Julie survives too, because someone had to.
Roll credits. Applause? Silence.
Final Thoughts
Hanging Heart is not a slasher, not a thriller, and not even really a movie in the conventional sense. It’s a clumsy mashup of exploitation tropes, courtroom melodrama, and bad dream sequences that thinks it’s saying something profound about trauma and repression but actually says nothing at all. It’s not scary, it’s not stylish, and it’s definitely not sexy.
The only thing it is? Long.
Still, I’ll give it this: you’ll never again take competent filmmaking for granted after enduring this thing. It makes you grateful for basic concepts like pacing, editing, or actors who can convey an emotion other than “blank confusion.”
