Movie Review: The Gallows (2015)

Movie Review: The Gallows (2015)


  The Gallows (2015) is basically The Blair Witch Project set not in a forest, 

but instead in a high school at night with the lights out. This is every bit as 

bad as it sounds. This movie takes the found footage cliche to an all time 

low.

   

     At the start of The Gallows, we are told that all of the footage we are 

going to be seeing is "taken from police files." Ostensibly everything that 

we see in this movie is the work of high school kids messing around with 

video cameras.  That would seem to explain why all of the camera work is 

so herky-jerky and why the movie fails to have a coherent story. However, 

the movie's claim about the origin of the footage is contradicted by a scene 

towards the end when a police officer enters the high school late at night 

and gets killed by an unknown assailant.  That footage was clearly shot by 

a professional cameraman, not by some amateur.

   

     None of the characters in The Gallows have any depth.  This matched 

by the fact that none of the actors or actresses have any talent.  All of 

players in this movie are good looking, which is probably why they got their 

parts in the first place.  When you see just how bereft of talent that Cassidy 

Gifford is, you have to assume that she got her role just because she is the 

real life offspring of Kathie Lee and Frank Gifford.  

   

     Right from the start, The Gallows makes no sense.  For instance, the 

dumb jock narrator goes around antagonizing people for no apparent 

reason.  This leads to two questions.  First, why do the people running this 

high school theatrical production put up with him?  This leads to an even 

bigger question:  What is this guy doing in the production in the first place?



     The production itself is also problematical.  20 years earlier the high 

school tried staging a play called The Gallows, but cancelled it after an 

actor was accidentally hanged during the play.  Now, 20 years later, the 

same high school is bound and determined to once again stage the same 

play.  The rehearsals go poorly and it appears that the production work is 

also shoddy.  That being the case, three of the actors decide that the play 

is going to be such a disaster, it would be best if they break in their high 

school late at night and destroy the set.  

     All this is in direct contrast to my experience with the kids putting on 

shows when I was in high school.  These students were a bunch of 

egomaniacs.  The whole idea of destroying the set just simply would not 

even occur to them no matter how poor the rehearsals were  and how bad 

the production work was.

     In any event, the kids broke into the high school with ridiculous ease.  

Then they proceeded to go through the motions of vandalizing the set.  All 

they did really was knock a few things over, causing so little damage to the 

props and stuff that its difficult to see how that would have prevented the 

show from going on.  Talk about violating the suspension of disbelief.

   

     Once finished with their minuscule efforts at vandalism, the trio decide 

to leave the school. However, all of the school's doors are locked and they 

are stuck inside.  When they try to use phone to contact someone outside 

the school, it does not work.   When they try to set off the fire alarm, it does 

not work either.  On top of that, they find another member of the cast is also 

in the school. There is never any sort of explanation as to what this girl was 

doing there.  Apparently she is in the habit of breaking in the high school 

late at night for no real reason.

   

     As anyone who has watched horror movies since 1978's Halloween 

knows, this 4th student is going to turn out to be the "final girl."  That is, the 

lone survivor of the slaughter that is going to take place.  There is never 

any sort of explanation as to who or what is killing the students or why this 

massacre is taking place.  This movie sticks to the formula to the point of 

being completely predictable.  The movie does not provide its audience 

with any suspense or any really scary moments.  It also does not provide 

any unintentional humor.  The end result is that The Gallows is a movie in 

which four persons are murdered and yet the film itself is about as 

interesting paint dry.

     The real horror of The Gallows is that it apparently the start of a new 

series of alleged fright flicks.  It was made in 2012 on a budget of 

$100,000.  When it was finally released just a couple weeks ago, it grossed 

over $10 Mil. on its opening weekend.

    As they say, you reap what you sow.  Be prepared for lots more alleged 

horrors to come with great trailers, good ad campaigns and poorly made 

movies.

   

     If there is a book that needs to be written, it is The Decline and Fall of 

Horror Movies. Back in the day, horror movies were every bit as well made 

as movies in other genres. The acting talent that was associated with 

horror movies was every bit as good as that in other kinds of movies. Even 

today, the names of Jamie Lee Curtis, Peter Cushing , Boris Karloff, 

Christopher Lee, Peter Lorre, Bela Lugosi, Vincent Price and Barbara 

Steele are revered by movie fans of all stripes. 

   

     That was in the past. Nowadays, things are much different. Horror 

movies appear to be the exclusive domain of cheap untalented hacks. The 

acting talent is no-name and no-talent. The scripts are nothing but rip-offs 

of previous quality movies. Horror movies today seem to be pale, languid 

imitations of the horror movies of the past. There has not been a 

memorable horror film made since 1999's Blair Witch Project.

     

     

Lori Rackl's Disappointing Column on the 2013 Emmy Awards

The Emmy Awards are all over and done with, but what stands out as most disappointing is Lori Rackl's race based coverage.  Instead of going for color blindness, Rackl chose to go for the racial jugular implying that black actresses such as Kerry Washington are so inferior to white actresses such as Claire Danes that they need to be awarded the Emmy Award solely for just showing up on the ballot.

Indeed, Rackl says that Danes is "amazing" in her role, but Washington deserved to win solely because of her skin color.

Lori Rackl, racist.  Who would have guessed?

What a real piece of work Rackl has become.

Friday the 13th (1980)

There are times when a movie succeeds in creating a whole new sub genre. This is often a positive development, since variety is the spice of life. Hollywood flicks all too often get bogged down in the same old, same old cookie cutter formulas. In the case of the 1980 flick Friday the 13th and the slasher sub genre that it spawned, this was not a positive development. This is especially the case since the new sub genre came with a brand new cookie cutter formula that subsequent slasher flicks have rigidly adhered to.

Friday the 13th has an absurd premise. Camp Crystal Lake is reopening after 23 years. The reason why it had closed is that a six year old child, Jason Voorhees, was presumed to have drowned while camp counselors were engaged in immoral acts. The next year, two camp goers were killed. 23 years after the drowning of the young Jason, with the camp reopening, the crazed old mother of Jason Voorhees who is still known as “Mrs. Voorhees” (Betsy Palmer) wants revenge against the new camp counselors even though none of them had anything to do with Jason’s death. If anything, none of the reopened camp’s counselors even look old enough to have been born by the time of Jason’s tragic drowning. However, Mrs. Vorhees has become crazed to the point of becoming utterly psychotic and she must have her revenge no matter what.

There is at least one person in the community who is on to Mrs. Voorhees’s evil plottings. This is an old man known as “Crazy Ralph” (Walt Gorney) who warns both prospective campers and camp counselors that the camp is doomed to face unimaginable horrors. Naturally, everyone disregards his warnings. Likewise, there is a truck driver named Enos (Rex Everhart) who tries to warn a prospective camper named Annie (Robbi Morgan) about how Camp Crystal Lake is “jinxed.” She ignores him to her peril.

Camp Crystal Lake opens up and it turns out that just about everyone who shows up, both counselors and campers alike, are nothing but a bunch of perverts. Then the killer shows up and runs amok spreading havoc despite getting repeatedly whacked in the head with blows that would knock a full grown man down. When the killer is finally revealed as Mrs. Voorhees, the absurdity of such an old lady sustaining all that physical punishment becomes apparent. In the end of the movie, the presumably drowned son Jason springs up from the lake to wreak even more havoc and set the stage for a whole series of awful slasher flicks.

Friday the 13th is an awful flick in almost every regard. The writing is horrible, the acting is terrible and the cinematography is mediocre. The screenplay is amateurish. Although the idea of teenagers being killed at a summer camp at night is a good premise for a horror movie, it is poorly executed in this movie.

Unlike almost all of the pre-1980 horror movies, Friday the 13th and the slasher flick sub-genre that it spawned is not with the victims. These poor excuses for movies are with the killers and the whole point is for the audience to anticipate the next murder or killing spree. Slasher flicks like Friday the 13th are movies to avoid like the plague.

Friday the 13th Part 2 (1981)

What do you get when you take a horrible movie that did well at the box
office and proceed to make a sequel with minimal resources devoted to
the new flick? Well, in the case of Friday the 13th Part 2, you get a
movie that is even worse than the awful original. This is also the case
with the Friday the 13th series as a whole: one pathetic excuse for a
motion picture after another.

The basic setup for Friday the 13th Part 2 makes zero sense. Camp
Crystal Lake has been shut down due to the events depicted in the
original movie. However, a new camp has just been constructed right by
the old camp. Why bother building a new camp when the old one would do
just as well? In the first flick, the mad dog killer was Mrs. Voorhees
who was still grief stricken because she believed that her son Jason had
died at the camp. In Friday the 13th Part 2, the killer is Jason who
witnessed the death of his mother in the first film. Of course, Jason
wants revenge for that death and is bith willing and able to kill
indiscriminately to feel that his vengeance has been fulfilled. Also,
Jason had been living in the woods as a hermit since the near drowning
incident that had caused his mom to go stir crazy in the first place.
With the construction of the new summer camp, Jason’s secret hideout is
now threatened with the possiblity of discovery and Jason will kill like
crazy to prevent the outside world from learning of his secret living
quarters and the contents inside the shack.

Naturally, Jason’s first target is Alice Hardy (Adrienne King) who
beheaded Jason’s slasher/mother. He does not even wait for the new camp
to be constructed before stabbing Alice by an ice pick in the temple and
causing her to disappear about two months after the events in the first
Friday the 13th. Of course, the producers ask us to believe that after
this ghastly slaying, Jason can now keep his murderous proclivities
under wrap for another four years and ten months until the new camp is
constructed.

Other than the identity of the insane slasher, Friday the 13th Part 2,
is for all intents and purposes a rehash of the first flick. Once again,
just about all the camp counselors are just a bunch of moronic perverts.
Once again, Crazy Ralph (Walt Gorney) makes his fearsome prophecies that
nobody heeds about how the new camp will become “Camp Blood.” Once
again, there is only one counselor who has brains and is able to beat
off the attacker, except her name in this flick is Ginny Field (Amy
Steel).

Of course, as so with all the other post-Friday the 13th slasher flicks,
the movie ends with the lone survivor apparently killing the mad
slasher. Of course, if the slasher film is profitable, then there will
be a sequel or so in which it is revealed that the killer really did not
die. This pathetic excuse for a major motion picture did make a bundle,
so Jason got to live on in numerous sequels.

This review should suffice for any of the later Friday the 13th sequels
since there is, for all practical purposes, zero variety amongst them.

The Old Movie Maven

The Old Movie Maven is the website for a magazine of the same name and has some interesting stuff about old movies and such.

DarkSider's Realm

All Links courtesy of the Internet Wayback Machine


DarkSider's Realm Blog

DarkSider's Review of Remote Control

The Original Website of DarkSider's Realm

DarkSider's Review of Troll


DarkSider's Realm was a major GeoCities-based horror flick review website later turned into a blog that is now dead as a doorknowb...........for now at least.

Racks and Razors Interview of Raine Brown

Racks and Razors Interview of Raine Brown .


Free Sample:

Brian: Let's brush up on our Shakespeare! You've performed quite a bit of the old Bard. Do you have a favorite Shakespearian play? (Mine is 'Titus Andronicus'! It's bloody and twisted nasty!)

Raine: Wow crazy and untypical choice. I would have to say the romantic in me will always love Romeo and Juliet. I think it is the most perfect love story depicting first innocent love. I also have a fondness for Hamlet, such a well written play with lots of psychology. And there will always be a place in my heart forMidsummer Nights Dream. Maybe because I will forever be cast as Hermia, the petite, loud mouthed, opinionated, tough but loveable one.