Movie Review: The Gallows

Here with another horror movie review.  It seems like I average one a month.  I have been watching a few horror movies on TV, like As Above, So Below and Paranormal Activity 5, neither of which were groundbreaking movies, but diverting.  The Gallows, like most horror movies, has some promise, but the ending saps any value from the movie at all.

The movie opens with the tragedy that occurred twenty years prior and picks up with the school performing the same play (which befuddled me as no school should be performing a play that had an accident that killed a kid).  The cast is unremarkable, with the jock turned actor, the pedigree thespian, the jokester and his blonde girlfriend.  I was really convinced there were more kids based on the trailers, but only four in the chaos actually does serve to make the scenes tense.  The jokester convinces his jock friend to destroy the set because the jock can’t act and when they go to the school with the girlfriend in tow, they run into the thespian who the jock kind of likes.  It is the formulaic horror movie, never deviating from the well-worn script.

There are moments where the story almost could have been something more, or the middling acting of the kids could be tolerated, but the heavy handed story really doesn’t give much room for enjoyment.  AMC dropped their prices, so I feel better knowing I paid less to see this movie than usual.  The concept was solid, and that’s what frustrates me.  The idea of being locked in a school with an unseen killer who is recreating his own death had a lot to offer.  Yet, at the end of each sequence, you could have predicted the outcome.  Despite that, I did jump, a lot, and the main ‘villain’ did wear a hangman mask, adding to the scares.  Overall, I can’t, in good faith, recommend this movie to anyone, unless you’re just really bored or don’t have anything better to do.  I should have seen the Minion movie instead.