The Gallows * (2015, Reese Mishler, Pfeifer Brown, Ryan Shoos, Cassidy Gifford) – Movie Review

Shot in Fresno, California, this horror movie about a cursed high school theatre production is enterprisingly made on a small budget. Playing like an eager-to-scare amateur student film, it was independently funded and produced before being honoured by being picked up and distributed by Warner Bros. Most of the film’s budget comes from local friends of the film-makers, first-time investors, who no doubt will be thrilled at the happy result for them of their investment.

Students at a small town high school resurrect a play in a misguided attempt to honour the 20th anniversary of a horrific hanging accident during the original performance. Four of them break in to the school at night and, though committing a crime and apparently above-average intelligence, record it all on shaky cam.

Writer-directors Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing try to keep you hanging in suspense, but the Blair Witch found footage thing has gone way past stale. The film-makers can’t see past the clichés to produce a fresh, scary movie, and producing a low hum on the soundtrack when evil strikes just seems what it is, cheap, though the school building they filmed it in is a suitable scary-seeming night-time location. With a lack of invention, scares and excitement, the film seems much longer than its short 81 minutes running time.

So it’s true what the film-makers’ message says, that some things are better left alone. At any rate, it should work as a calling card for Cluff and Lofing, who’ll no doubt be able to do better things on a studio budget.

Most of the actors and actresses use their own first names for their characters in the film though Ryan Shoos goes by his entire real name.

© Derek Winnert 2015 Movie Review

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