by Rich Cross
Do you remember that old-school party game Consequences? Each player takes a turn to write down a fragment of a story before folding over the paper and passing it to the next person to continue the narrative with no knowledge of what’s gone before. Watching The Hanged Girl (previously titled The Haunting at Saint Joseph’s), it feels like the production company might have adopted the same scripting technique. From a humdrum but explicable starting point, the film lurches through a series of bizarre, arbitrary plot flips which stretch any connection to its original premise beyond breaking point.
A group of friends and family head into the great outdoors for a pre-nuptials weekend break. Their destination is an old chapel, refurbished into a high-end holiday let but implicated in rumours about the building’s macabre past involving stories of human sacrifice. As the group tries to relax, latent tensions and awkward secrets surface. This culminates in lots of shouty arguments and, in the risible final act, multiple bloody deaths – none of which have any link to the ancient curse.
The production values on The Hanged Girl are reasonable enough, and while there’s no tension or atmosphere, and nothing exciting about the way the film is shot, it’s competently made. It’s simply that the filmmakers seem to have no idea what story they’re trying to tell. No one’s character journey makes sense, and none of the script’s wider themes is developed, so they end up being left (in an oddly fitting way) hanging. After the chaotic final twenty minutes, the film ends so abruptly that you’re left wondering if the rental company turned up on set to collect the cameras.
THE HANGED GIRL is released on streaming platforms and on DVD in the US on September 5th.
