The Gallows

What it's about:

Twenty years after a deadly freak accident at a high school play, a misguided attempt to re-stage the play and honour the student proves that some things are better left in the past.

What we thought:

Since The Blair Witch Project the found video footage horror movie has been done to death. And none of them have lived up to its predecessor.

This time around The Gallows tells the story of a group of high school students rehearsing to perform a stage play set in the Puritan era.

Twenty years before the same play was performed but was later abandoned after the understudy Charlie Grimille died during the opening night.

In all honesty I really don’t see why anyone would want to revisit something with a tragic past, but hey this is the movies after all.

The story is told through the ‘eyes’ of the cameraman, obnoxious jock, Ryan (Ryan Shoos). His best friend Reese, (Reese Houser) has for some reason decided to quit the football team and join the drama ‘nerds’. Reese sucks at the acting thing and Ryan comes up with a plan to get him out of his predicament.

Joined by Ryan’s cheerleader girlfriend Cassidy (Cassidy Gifford) the trio make their way to the school at night (of course) to destroy the set.

But things don’t go as planned (or do they) when the drama queen Pfeifer (Pfeifer Ross) shows up.

Sidenote: are we the only ones who find it a bit strange that they used their real names?!

Anyway, moving on.

The four get trapped inside the school building stalked by ‘something’ and what follows is a fight for survival before they each get killed off.

Besides all the running, screaming and shaky cam footage they really did try to weave in some plot. The first plot twist happens quite early and by the time the other ‘shocker’ comes along you’re really not interested anymore.

There isn’t really much acting going on here, there is no character development, the characters are egocentric and not relatable, there is no one you can really root for.

If you scare easily this will make you jump in your seat however, if you’re a die –hard horror fan don’t even bother watching this.