“Here lies the found footage genre. It had a good run.” That might as well be the tagline for the new horror movie, “The Gallows,” because if the countless other found footage films suffocating the market didn’t already kill the genre, then surely this is the final nail in the coffin. Though the movie was bankrolled by Blumhouse Productions, which has made millions from micro-budgeted horror flicks like the “Insidious” and “Paranormal Activity” series, “The Gallows” is just the latest in a long line of amateurish junk that the studio has been cranking out for years. The benefit of making films on a small budget is that you only need a few hits to offset the losses on your many flops, and sadly, “The Gallows” is destined to fall into the latter category – yet another footnote in Blumhouse’s cinematic game of Russian roulette.
In 1993, Beatrice High School student Charlie Grimille was horrifically killed due to a prop malfunction during the theater department’s production of “The Gallows.” Twenty years later, the school’s students have mounted a revival of the failed stage play (and the fact that the school board didn’t have a problem with this highlights the level of stupidity on display in the film), with football jock Reese (Reese Mishler) landing the coveted lead role despite his complete lack of experience or talent. Reese is noticeably nervous about making his acting debut, so when his friend Ryan (Ryan Shoos) suggests that they break into the school at night and destroy the set so that the play gets cancelled, he reluctantly agrees to tag along. (And of course they record the whole thing, because why wouldn’t they want evidence tying them to the crime?) But after the two guys – along with gal pal Cassidy (Cassidy Gifford) and drama queen Pfiefer (Pfiefer Brown) – mysteriously get locked inside and begin to experience creepy occurrences, they learn that the vengeful spirit of Charlie still haunts the school.
It’s easy these days to take for granted the influence that Pixar has had on storytelling for animated films in particular and child-friendly entertainment in general. Prior to the release of “Toy Story” in 1995, there was no guarantee that adults would be entertained at all by a child-friendly film, never mind be entertained as much as the kids were (even Pixar’s now-parent company Disney was guilty of that), and in fact, most movies didn’t even bother pretending to appeal to both kids and adults. As Exhibit A, I submit 1994’s “Monkey Trouble,” starring a pre-“American Beauty” Thora Birch. Nobody likes this movie.
