The Gallows is It Follows' antimatter; whereas It Follows's rise from festival darling to indie breakout was gradual and well deserved, I'm legitimately stunned that Warner Bros. put their backing behind such a cheap, lackluster project as The Gallows. This is a prime example of the worst kind of horror, how it strips away atmosphere for trembling camerawork, cobbles together a script from ancient clichés, and latches on the bandwagon of dying fads (in this case, found footage), to wring out every penny from giggling teenagers it possibly can.
In 1993, a Nebraska high school's production of "The Gallows" ends in tragedy when lead actor Charlie Grimille is hanged on-stage due to a prop malfunction. Twenty years later, the school is (commemorating?) the tragedy with another production of the play, this time with Reese (Reese Mishler) in Charlie's role. A jock-suddenly-turned-thespian, Reese struggles with his lines, made even more difficult when working off of his crush, leading lady and student director Pfeifer (Pfeifer Brown). Reese's friend, Ryan (Ryan Shoos), who would rather be spending his time throwing footballs at drama nerds than working with them, is assigned to videotape the play and its dress rehearsals. Eager to shirk responsibility, he hatches a plan to sneak into the school after hours and trash the set, effectively shutting down the play. Ryan ropes Reese along by saying that once the play is canceled, Reese can swoop in to comfort a distraught Pfeifer.
That night, the boys sneak into the school, along with Ryan's girlfriend, Cassidy (Cassidy Gifford). As they're dismantling the set, they hear strange creaks and footsteps, which turns out to be Pfeifer, suspicious after spotting Reese's car outside. Pfeifer and Reese start arguing; Cassidy tells Ryan she doesn't want to go through with the plan; the group decides to leave. However, all the doors have mysteriously locked, and it soon becomes apparent that there's a malevolent force hunting them.
Look at the best slasher films: Halloween, A Nightmare on Elm Street, Alien, The Thing. What do they all have in common? Resourceful, intelligent, likable protagonists. Part of what draws us into a slasher flick is putting ourselves in the characters' shoes, figuring out how we would survive. What makes Halloween and The Thing scary is that the characters are smart enough to leave the house, call the police, and stock up on guns, but the monster still outwits them, or worse, can't be killed. If the heroine runs up the stairs instead of out the back door, we laugh at her stupid decision, and are not shocked or more importantly, scared when she eventually gets hacked or clawed or eaten.
Unfortunately, some filmmakers have interpreted that our laughter indicates we don't care about character, just death. It doesn't matter if a person's obnoxious or dense as a brick, we just want to figure out how many whacks it takes to get to the center of a spinal cord. The Gallows banks on this, building Ryan as an insufferable jock whose bullying and cruel jokes are meant to be comic relief. The idea is that if we hate Ryan, we'll be begging for the ghost to off him, which is true, but why directors Chris Loring and Travis Cluff feel we should be subjected to the annoyance in the first place baffles me.
When the doors are locked, no one tries to break a window. When there's a chance to escape, no one takes it. When someone's injured, the rest leave them alone to get medical help. Have you seen this before? I have.
But it's not the barrage of clichés that bothers me, but rather, how unapologetically they're presented, as if to say, "This is how the genre goes; deal with it." It's not to say the film couldn't do more: the red flashes of the school's emergency lights, coupled with the long, seemingly never-ending hallways, could make for a hellish labyrinth, dripping with an isolating atmosphere. However, The Gallows goes for the cheap scares, dumb logic, bland characters, and a ending so poorly constructed, it looks like it was rushed to meet a deadline.
If there's a saving grace, at least it's only 80 minutes long.
Thank you all for reading; I'm the Man Without a Plan, signing off.
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