While she’s not someone we’d typically expect to see in a horror movie, Katey Sagal, forever etched in our minds as the wisecracking Peg Bundy from Married with Children steps into the country-music themed Torn Hearts (2022). She's Harper Dutch, one half of the once-dazzling ’90s band The Dutchess Sisters, along with her now-late sister Hope Dutch (Alon McKlveen). Sagal trades sitcom sass for a role that struggles to find its rhythm.
Harper, not quite blessed with the star-studded longevity in the entertainment industry of a Dolly Parton, finds herself far removed from her heyday. She lives a reclusive existence, holed up in a Nashville mansion whose overgrown grounds scream of neglect and forgotten fame. That is, until best friends Jordan Wilder (Abby Quinn) and Leigh Blackhouse (Alexxis Lemire), the starry-eyed aspiring country duo Torn Hearts, crash her solitude. Their quest for a big break is sparked by a late-night rendezvous Jordan has with established country star Caleb Crawford (Shiloh Fernandez), which leads the young women straight to Harper’s house.
In any sane world, the notion of two nobody musicians turning up unannounced and barging into a country legend’s lair with a freshly baked strawberry rhubarb pie to beg for a duet would be laughed off as ludicrous. However, they see this as a new window of opportunity for fame, as the movie hopes to scoop us up with its unhinged audacity and twisted series of logic.
In the opening act of the movie, we’re treated to a brief minute or so of Jordan and Leigh’s club set, a performance so mediocre no one would book them twice. While it’s not the movie’s intended focus, the absence of a toe-tapping tune or memorable lyrics leaves the movie lacking a little bit of pulse. The silver lining is that, because their music is so lacklustre, we aren’t inundated with it throughout the movie.
We are also introduced to their manager, a known figure on the Nashville scene and Leigh's boyfriend, Richie Rowley Jones (Joshua Leonard), credit alone for that name, and really the only reason we’re mentioning it. He’s a blip on the radar but probably shouldn't have been. The venomous queen of yesteryear, Harper Dutch, squaring off against the girls of Torn Hearts could’ve benefited from an extra character thrown into the mix.
The opening half-hour creeps along as Jordan and Leigh tiptoe into Harper’s world, where she toys with them like a cat with its prey, her interrogation building a fragile sense of suspense. It’s not a flurry of action, but watching it unfold manages to hold our attention.
Sagal’s portrayal of Harper Dutch carries a strange, off-key menace, but the role never fully captivates. We’re served a wishy-washy backstory about Harper and the circumstances surrounding her sister Hope’s demise, told in whispers that are too vague to make much of an impact, yet it serves as the engine for the plot.
We figured Sagal's performance would be the spark, perhaps turning her from a comedy icon to a horror icon. Instead, it’s Abby Quinn’s Jordan—the underdog—who does the heavy lifting and shines when it’s needed, while Harper turns her attention to Leigh, seeing her as the 'star' of the duo since she’s the lead singer.
As a whole, the movie stumbles like a drunk cowboy, dragging us through too many frustrating stretches where, despite the characters feeling lively, they don’t do anything to keep the story moving forward, only for a sudden burst of momentum to revive things briefly before it all shuts down again.
The movie lays bare the country music business savage underbelly, with Sagal snarling its brutal truth: 'Nothing is free in Nashville.' It exposes the intoxicating lure of fame as the starstruck duo, eyes wide with idol-worship, bow to their musical goddess Harper, whom they believe is the best thing since sliced bread. They’ll do anything, even betray each other, to win her favor, blindly stepping into her sadistic game as she toys with their dreams. Jordan's line, "It doesn’t make any sense," perfectly captures the nonsensical motives and erratic antics of the main characters.
There’s a solid hook buried in Torn Hearts, drawing parallels to horror movies like the 1960s classic What Ever Happened to Baby Jane? starring Bette Davis. As the battle of the country stars fills our screens, the strings are just too loose; this guitar needed tuning before it could really sing.