The Gallows Review

The Gallows (2015)

IMDb Genre: Horror/Thriller

Director: Travis Cluff, Chris Lofing

Writer: Travis Cluff, Chris Lofing

Starring: Reese Mishler, Pfeifer Brown, Ryan Shoos

Upon writing this review it’s been a few weeks since I watched the film and the more I think about it the more annoyed I am by it. The reason for this is that I went in with such high expectations and the film just doesn’t match up.

Whoever did the marketing campaign deserves a lot of praise; I’ve seen the phrase ‘so scary it’s hard to watch’ in relation to this film for a while now. The first trailer made it look dark and the acting top-notch, when they leaked the first scene it gave you just enough plot information so you could get excited and the second trailer made it look action-packed and fast-paced. Really none of the things the promotional footage promised were true.

For starters, the film is found footage which I didn’t think was obvious from the trailers and as someone who is getting bored with the trope this disappointed me from the start. Secondly, the film is very slow at the beginning with over half an hour (I actually checked my watch) of teens rehearsing a play and being mean to each other. I know many films start this way but this opening was overly drawn out and gave us no character development so I was watching characters I didn’t care for. I think this had an impact on my enjoyment of the rest of the film as the few deaths there are have been spread out unlike a typical teen slasher as though I’m supposed to feel bad for them.

For the majority the film was tolerable as an average teen slasher but the end ruined what redemptive qualities the film had as it clearly thought it was a clever horror and decided it was above the ‘vengeful ghost picks off teenagers’ plot it had set out up until then. The problem with the ending it presents is that it feels forced and it doesn’t entirely make sense. The ending is something you really need to get right; if people leave the cinema saying ‘I don’t get it, someone needs to explain it to me’ as they did with this it does not leave a good impression.

The film does provide some decent jump scares and there’s some good gore effects work. I also like that, unlike other found footage films, there are a couple of times when the death happens off-camera and the action carries on until a suitable point then we see the death on the secondary camera a little later. This is a new technique for found footage and it’s welcome.

Overall The Gallows is disappointing, maybe good for a laugh but that’s about it.

General Opinion: 

Meh.

Scare Factor:

Some effective jumpy scenes but ultimately nothing that will stay with you.

Gore: 

Not very gory but the gore was probably my favourite part as the effects work was great but it wasn’t over-played.

Clowns: 

There’s the odd teen prank silliness towards the beginning but the characters are too annoying for it to be very funny.