Review: The Gallows

I will call it now, early in the year, that The Gallows will be the worst horror film of 2015. I cannot think of a film that represents better the worst qualities of the found footage genre. Mind you, I have been a fan of many found footage films but The Gallows consistently fails to bring a single new notion to the genre. Instead it favors routine beats we have seen so many times before.

The Gallows opens with a news story about a high school student who is killed during the production of a play title "The Gallows." The ending of the play features a hanging and the rope did not give.We then jump 20 years after where the school’s drama department is mounting the show again. How this would ever happened is never dealt with but who cares about logic in a film purporting to be reality, right?

The star of the new production, Reese (Reese Mishler), is a jock-turned-actor whose grating best friend, Ryan (Ryan Shoos), follows him around with a camera. Ryan believes the play is "gay" and Reese is gay for being in it and wants to destroy it. We have to spend too much time with this bro-dude asshole. Why not make the character object to the play because of the previous death, because it is in poor taste or any other interesting reason? Sadly the filmmakers have no interest in making any of the characters interesting or even decent people.  Ryan and Reese sneak into the theater  to sabotage the set with Ryan’s awful girlfriend, Cassidy (Cassidy Gifford).

What entails is the laziest, most tired effort at a found footage horror film. There are virtually no scares or tension as, at the 45 minute mark mind you, the spectral killer is finally shown. From there we basically root for these horrible teenagers to die. Earlier this year the far better Unfriended explored similar archetypes with far more humor and entertainment value. The Gallows and its filmmakers should be ashamed.

1/5