The Gallows

Review -Oh Snap! “The Gallows” is a surprisingly short, scary, and effective film. Let me amend that and say it’s also kinda weak. I mean, this one’s probably not gonna land on your film shelf but it’s certainly worth the one-time watch. It’ll get’cha but it probably won’t stay with you.

20 years after a tragedy befalls the performance of a school play entitled, “The Gallows”, a new generation of teen dramatists look to bring the play back to life. The night before the scheduled production, a small group of insurgents set out to wreck a little havoc and they pay the ultimate price. The premise is small, the cast is small, it only runs 80minutes, and the film looks to be shot exclusively on iPhones. From the outside, there’s nothing about the film that screams exception, yet it manages to be unsettling and uncomfortable enough to keep the goosebumps, scares, and punishments effective.

I think there’s some real genius behind the camera here. As an example, the film boasts a character so obnoxious, that the film’s unsettling effectiveness survives almost independently on this character during it’s first 30 minutes. This character makes it impossible for the audience to be comfortable during the film’s build up. I don’t know that I would recommend this tactic to other filmmakers but it works here, and as well as any of the film’s inescapable dark hallways, jump scares, and screams.

Really the only problem I have with the film is the coda. “The Gallows” wraps up semi-mysteriously, yet the audience is provided with enough information to have an arguably-lively conversation about it’s finale. Now, although this coda completely ties the loose ends of the film together I found that I really didn’t like or need it. And once I had it, I wished for the mystery that probably would have pissed me off if there’d been no coda. Be that as it may, “The Gallows” while not great or original, remains a surprisingly effective and scary film.

-m-