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.
