The Gallows: Movie Review

I am having trouble figuring out what the last “wide release” horror film was that didn’t have BlumHouse Productions involved. Jason Blum has really taken over horror. We just had “Insidious: Chapter 3” and in the coming months from Blumhouse, we will have “Sinister 2”, “The Gift”, another “Paranormal Activity” and arriving in theaters this week is “The Gallows”.

Don’t get me wrong, I am grateful that we are getting a heavy dose of horror on a regular basis, but so many of the Blumhouse releases are so similar that I wish more risks would be taken. Unfortunately, “The Gallows” is just more of the same and despite a few jump scares, it is quite boring.

In 1993 a freak accident during a high school play took the life of a student. 20 years later, the high school decides it is a good time to resurrect the failed play. Is it just me, or does anyone else actually think the school board would allow a play to be put on that involves a character being hung at the gallows when a student was killed by the set piece two decades earlier? I am sorry, I just couldn’t buy that.

My initial issues with the story aside, I would have been able to forgive the film’s set-up if it was at least able to deliver on the scares. I will admit that there are one or two (maybe three) decent jump scares, but the remainder of the 80 minute run-time consists of mainly, yelling, running and hiding within the high school at night. There are four students locked inside the high school with something quite evil, but aside from the drama loving Pfeifer (Pheifer Brown), the rest of the characters are pretty cookie-cutter.

“The Gallows” lacks originality and the reveal at the end doesn’t feel all that surprising. I think many will see it coming from early on. There is good horror out there, like the recent indie film “It Follows”, but films without the strong marketing budget wind up finding their way to a limited theatrical or VOD release. Blumhouse does know how to get behind good horror like “The Town that Dreaded Sundown” which actually arrives on DVD this week (See my review here). I just wish they had more confidence in releasing that one to a wider audience rather than crap like “The Gallows”.

By: Marc Ferman