“I’m here to talk about what happened in my relationship with Armie Hammer.” With that one line, the trailer for the new docuseries House of Hammer grabs you from the jump.
Courtney Vucekovich, one of the women who has come forward alleging that Hammer, the star of films like The Social Network and Call Me By Your Name, had been sexually abusive and expressed thoughts of cannibalism, is seen talking to the camera. Other participants include Julia Morrison, another woman who accused Hammer of similar disturbing behavior; and Casey Hammer, Armie’s aunt and a whistleblower who detailed generations of secrets and shocking behavior in the Hammer family’s dysfunctional history.
The accounts of these women, even just the ones that are included in the documentary’s trailer, are shocking. Morrison brings out her phone to share a text message allegedly sent from Armie. She admits she still hasn’t “really digested” it.
“I have a fantasy about having someone prove their love and devotion and tying them up in a public place at night and making their body free use,” the text reads, “and seeing if they will fuck strangers for me.”
An audio message with what definitely sounds like Hammer’s voice then plays: “My bet was going to involve showing up at your place and completely tying you up and incapacitating you and being able to do whatever I want to every single hole in your body until I was done with you.”
Both Vucekovich and Morrison talk about how, in the beginning of their relationships with Hammer, they thought everything was amazing. He would tell them how they were so perfect, so beautiful, so smart, and so funny. “But then things changed,” Morrison says. “He pushes you boundaries a little bit at a time. You’re his.”
We see flashes of messages that allegedly came from Hammer that read “I own you” and “I decide when you sleep. When you [redacted].”
According to Vucekovich, Hammer texted her, “I am 100% a cannibal. I want to eat you.” At one point she received a handwritten note from him saying that “I am going to bite the fuck out of you.”
Describing what Hammer would do to her, she says, “The ropes were around your neck, your wrist, your ankles, and you’re completely immobilized. And I’m just closing my eyes until it ended.”
In addition to getting into the salacious details of Hammer’s desires and relationships with these women, House of Hammer, as its very Game of Thrones-branding suggests, gets into the long history of sordid behavior and scandal that poisoned the Hammer family.
“On the outside, we were a perfect family,” Casey Hammer says. “But magnify Succession a million times, and it was my family. If you believe about making deals with the devil, the Hammers are at the top of the totem pole.”
Generations of Hammer men were involved in unsettling misdeeds, she claims. The situation with Armie proves how it’s gotten worse and worse: “My name is Casey Hammer and I’m about to reveal the dark, twisted secrets of the Hammer family.”
House of Hammer will be available to stream on Discovery+ Sept 2.
