The Gallows Guillotines Were Always More Fun Anyway

Thus far in 2015, Blumhouse Productions has released The Boy Next Door, The Lazarus Effect, Area 51, and Insidious: Chapter 3. Precisely one of these has been any good. The rest have been lazy horror/thriller movies, the likes of which are destined to end up on several “worst of” lists – and probably in the bargain bins at your local electronics store. The Gallows is the latest Blumhouse film, and it might just be the worst of the bunch. It’s a found footage film filled with jump startles, annoying characters, and obligatory twists which add nothing to the experience but confusion for the audience – especially when they’re logistically impossible. Oh, boy. The initial scene in The Gallows sees a play from 1993, The Gallows, go horribly wrong. One of the actors, Charlie, winds up being hung for real. Twenty years later, and the same play is being put on, in the same school, once again. What better way to honor Charlie, right? I’m sure that’s the type of publicity a school would want. Anyway, the protagonists of the film are all somehow connected to the play. The one holding the camera, most of the time, is Ryan (Ryan Shoos), who hates all of the “drama geeks,” but is taking the class because he has to, or something. Anyway, all of this is just a convoluted setup to get four kids locked in a building with a ghost who is more concerned with scaring the camera than actually killing the kids. I don’t know why he wouldn’t get on with it, since they’re all annoying, one-note stereotypes, but I’m not a ghost, so what do I know? I guess, technically speaking, he does get on with it relatively quickly, as The Gallows only runs for 80 minutes – its one positive feature – but it sure feels like longer. I checked my watch more often during this movie than any other in recent memory. Hiding information, then revealing it, is not how one can be fooled by a movie. Having the new information change little except give its scary entity a motivation only serves to make the scary entity less scary. And since the only way the scary entity attempts to scare us is through jump startles – which are not scary anyway – that means that for most of The Gallows you’re going to be sitting there, half falling asleep, woken up only by the periodic loud noises and quick camera pans. Bottom Line: The Gallows is a lazy horror movie that throws jump startles at its audience in lieu of plot, characters, or genuine scares. Recommendation: The Gallows is destined for the bargain bin … and it doesn’t even deserve to be watched for that price. [rating=1.5]