BWW Reviews: Don't Let THE GALLOWS Rope You In

In 1993, high schooler Charlie Grimille was killed in a freak accident during a school production of The Gallows. Twenty years later, the school is staging the play again and, well, you probably already know where this is going but let's go into specifics anyway.

In a school where drama is a mandatory class and there's no administrator to question the appropriateness of re-staging the "death play," our protagonist Reese (Reese Mishler), an ex-football player with questionable acting skills, has inexplicably been cast as the lead. Reese's best friend Ryan (Ryan Shoos), our intrepid cameraman for most of this found footage adventure, is an obnoxious, "that's what she said"-saying jock who can't understand why Reese insists on trying to act when he is clearly so terrible.

When Ryan realizes that Reese's leading lady Pfeifer (Pfeifer Brown) is the reason, he convinces Reese that he'll just embarrass himself in front of Pfeifer and ruin the show if he goes through with it. Together with Ryan's girlfriend Cassidy (Cassidy Gifford), they come up with a plan to sabotage the production, and save Reese the humiliation that is surely coming, that leads the three back to the school after hours where it appears someone, or something, is waiting for them. Could it be Charlie?

Written and directed by Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing, THE GALLOWS is fairly straightforward and predictable, a typical mix of jump scares with a surprisingly weak premise and questionable internal logic that will leave you asking yourself the 5 W's (and 1 H). Cluff and Lofing attempt to evoke both the eeriness of a traditional ghost story and the rhythmic suspense of a stalker or, if you prefer, slasher film. But with so few characters you can't really build a body count and the action is left short and compressed. Of course, so is the film. Clocking in at about 80 minutes, it's slow to start and doesn't spend nearly enough time cultivating genuine suspense. The film's most effective scares are of the lo-fi variety - the opening video of the original Gallows production twenty years earlier, a snowy television in a school office, and an old news report of Charlie's death. Anything else worth seeing is in the trailer.

The acting is surprisingly strong, especially in the face of some cheesy dialogue. Both Brown and Gifford play their roles well, but the film spends most of it's time with Shoos and Mishler. Shoos makes the most out of his role; playing the jerk has gifted him the film's best lines and most fun moments. But Mishler carries most of the emotional weight, if a movie like this can be said to have any, on his broad shoulders. And he's believable, at times unsure and clueless but always sincere. I can say without reservation that I genuinely didn't want any of the characters to meet their fate at the end of the noose and yes, that sucks some of the fun right out of a film like this.

Ultimately, THE GALLOWS is kind of like R.L. Stine's Phantom of the Auditorium meets GRADUATION DAY (1981). But found footage. With a supernatural twist. While I may not be able to recommend either of those over THE GALLOWS, I can't really recommend THE GALLOWS either.

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Check out the trailer:

THE GALLOWS starring Reese Mishler, Pfeifer Brown, Ryan Shoos and Cassidy Gifford is rated R for some disturbing violent content and terror. It opens nationwide today, July 10.

Photo Credit: New Line Cinema/Warner Bros.

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