THE GALLOWS (R)
Released by New Line Cinema
Reviewed by Adam Mast
Anyone else out there sick of found footage movies? This hand-held camera gimmick can be effective when used properly (see CHRONICLE), but more often than not, it comes across as the laziest form of filmmaking. The new low-budget horror flick THE GALLOWS does absolutely nothing to elevate my opinion of the found footage movie subgenre, but I suppose what readers really want to know is, does this movie provide a sufficient number of scares throughout its brief, 81-minute running time? The answer is, no. Not really.
Twenty years ago, a young life was tragically lost by way of a freak accident during the staging of a high school play called THE GALLOWS. Cut to the present. For whatever reason, the current high school drama department decides it would be a good idea to re-stage the show in honor of the tragedy, because, hey, that makes a lot of sense, doesn’t it? As expected, things go south. Fast.
As this film opens, THE GALLOWS is quick to point out that what we are about to watch is real, a conceit that is rendered all but void due to the sheer lack of authenticity on display throughout this movie. It should take more than irritatingly shaky hand-held camera work to convince even the most casual moviegoer that what they’re watching is anything close to resembling real. Even the voice of the student operating the camera sounds like it was dubbed in after the movie was completed.
Granted, some might argue that it hardly seems fair to criticize a horror flick for not feeling real enough when clearly, we’re all going in with the understanding that it is just a movie. That may be true, but then why even attempt the “this is real” approach in the first place? This hook worked to a much stronger effect in the granddaddy of found footage movies, THE BLAIR WITCH PROJECT, because the proceedings were subtle and authentic enough to fool viewers into believing that what they were watching might actually be real. It was an entertaining trick and one that THE GALLOWS doesn’t even bother trying to truly convince us of. Even this year’s creative ghostly online thriller UNFRIENDED did a vastly superior job at reaching some level of authenticity. It was more intense too.
In terms of story, THE GALLOWS takes an angle that we’ve seen in countless horror movies, particularly the slasher films of the ‘80s. In this case, it’s the idea that someone—or something—would come back and have their revenge after several years of waiting for just the right moment to make their epic return. It’s a story trait that I freely admit I have quite the fondness for. As a teen, I was weaned on a steady diet of horror movies like PROM NIGHT, TERROR TRAIN, HELL NIGHT, and HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME. Of course, it should be noted that THE GALLOWS is more supernatural in nature, and by the end of the picture, it’s more in tune with something like THE RING or PARANORMAL ACTIVITY. Just not as good.
There are a few scares here, and admittedly, the crowd I watched this flick with was a ton of fun. In fact, the audience reactions were infinitely more entertaining than the movie itself. In the end, the boring found footage technique, a derivative story, and the lack of likable characters keep THE GALLOWS from being the kind of ghost story you’re likely to remember after leaving the theater.
