LogFAQs > #945872459

DAY 14.2: The Gallows
On AMC

God damnit. This is another found footage horror movie.

When doing a play 20 years ago, one kid accidentally gets hung at the gallows for real instead of play. In the present, they decide to do the play again in commemoration of the kid who died and a few kids sneak in at night to wreck the set so one of them doesn't have to perform. But when they do spooky stuff happens.

This movie takes 50 fucking minutes before anything interesting happens. I shit you not. The rest of it is just teasing weird stuff is happening.

But let's take it back a bit. This movie opens up with a decent IDEA. A bunch of kids preparing for the play. I thought this might just be a group of kids preparing for it late and then they get stuck. No, instead we go to four specific kids and they all go in there to wreck the place so one of them doesn't have to perform...? And then NOTHING happens forever?

Before it got to them sneaking into the school, it was obnoxious high school stuff, but I thought maybe it would have promise. But then... nothing. Like it gets to the point that nothing really makes a lot of sense when you get to the end of the movie. If they had more characters, it would have given us a chance to turn some of them into fodder and just kill them off and also give other characters some kind of character development or just give a little more life into this movie. But instead it's just 50 minutes of nothing. It's just the spooky ghost doing mild spooky ghost things. That's really it. Until the ghost decides to be violent.

HOWEVER, I have to give the movie props in a few spots. There are some good ideas here. Some of the scares were actually extremely clever. It's clear they had these really good ideas in mind before they made this movie and said "Ah shit, we actually need to make this like 80 minutes (82, actually, with credits)." It's just... man. There's a way to do this movie, even with found footage, and make it something good. There's a way to do it, but this isn't it. Because there are moments of greatness here.

Hell, even the twist at the end is actually really well done! Even if the last bit was a bit, uh, weird. But here's the deal: this movie apparently costed $100,000 to make. They were clearly seeing how much they could get out of so little. So that's why we don't have good ideas that can work. We get... The Gallows and spooky executioner noose man. By the way, why is he a generic executioner looking dude? The kid wasn't an executioner in the play and I don't think anyone in the play dressed up as one either.

The Gallows is an idea that can work. But you got to give people something before 50 minutes into a movie. I don't get what it is with some of these found footage flicks where they just don't do anything for long periods of time and think the payoff at the end is worth it. No, it wasn't worth it. Even all the actually good stuff wasn't worth it!

I do not recommend The Gallows.

Rating: 2.5/10

I'll end up watching The Gallows: Act II at some point later in the month. Just because I want to see how it becomes somehow worse.

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