Thursday, December 5, 2024

LET’S GET PHYSICAL: THE HANGING JUDGE (1991) ***

FORMAT:  BLU-RAY

Lorraine has horrible nightmares of a judge sentencing women to hang in a dilapidated barn.  She and her boyfriend, along with a ghost-hunting couple, decide to get to the bottom of the dreams by investigating the barn.  After about two minutes of looking around, they forget about ghost hunting, get drunk, and start canoodling.  After the friends find Lorraine hanging in the barn, they try their best to move on with their lives.  But will the evil spirits let them? 

The Hanging Judge was a custom-made W.A.V.E. movie.  That means the script was written by a fan who sent it into W.A.V.E. and Gary Whitson directed it for them.  Since it doesn’t follow any known screenwriting rules, it means it’s hard to know what to expect next.  It starts out as a surprisingly effective ghost story before turning into a standard bondage W.A.V.E. flick.  That’s just a fancy way of saying it’s got a little something for everybody.  Also, the production values are a hair above a snuff film.  That is to say, I rather enjoyed it.  It’s only about forty-five minutes long, but the dream scene is repeated which pads things out a bit, although not too much. 

Like The Pinelands Murders!, The Hanging Judge was a bonus feature on the Dead North Blu-Ray.  It makes sense since this flick also features Clancy McCauley getting hogtied in a tent as a major plot point.  Unlike either Dead North or The Pinelands Murders!, it actually has some legitimate atmosphere and a few memorable moments.  It’s also less than half the length of either of those two films, which makes for a breezy viewing.  Sure, the twist ending doesn’t exactly stick the landing, but for a bondage movie parading around as a horror flick (or is that the other way around?), it works better than you might expect. 

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