An Average Movie-Goer’s Review
Spoilers! If you don’t want spoilers – check out the Spoiler-Free post
I love horror movies and if I’m going to watch them anyway, why not write an entertaining/funny review from the POV of an average movie-goer and not a professional critic.
Today we’re looking at 2015’s The Gallows.
A found footage film that follows a group of students who are haunted by a vengeful ghost at a school after hours.
Quick Review:
This movie is like taking the first bite of a hot dog after not realizing the vendor has put all the sauerkraut on the end you just bit. You hate sauerkraut.
Is The Gallows Scary?
There are a few good jump scares in the movie but the movie doesn’t leave any long-lasting impressions. I didn’t have to look behind me once. Only recommending this as a strictly spooky time movie, if you skip the first 20 minutes and have nothing else to watch.
Detailed Plot:
We open with footage from a high school play from 10/29/1993. The cameraman appears to be the father of one of the actors, Charlie. In the last scene of the footage, Charlie is placed on some prop gallows which malfunction and he’s killed.
We cut to 2013 where several students are rehearsing the same play called The Gallows. The footage is being taken by one of the most annoying characters in any film that I’ve seen in recent times, Ryan played by Ryan Shoos.
I actually wanted to turn off the movie despite being only 5 minutes in. Throughout the short rehearsal, Ryan is making obnoxious comments that overtly tell the audience he’s supposed to be an annoying antagonist-like character in the movie.
Less is sometimes more.
The play is being rehearsed by our main characters Reese played by Reese Houser and Pfeiffer played by Pfeifer Ross. It doesn’t appear to be going well for Reese who isn’t projecting his lines and having trouble going through with the kiss at the end of the scene… ah high school.
After Ryan continuously taunts Reese about his decision to do drama, it appears as if both are actually friends and the taunting is for fun but not fun for the audience. Comes off as someone trying really hard to be funny and failing every single time and I know all about that.
There are a few more scenes of Ryan just being an all-around dick to everyone including throwing a football at the face of one of the other drama kids, Price, and telling the drama teacher he doesn’t take the play seriously.
We’re also quickly introduced to a few characters, Ryan’s girlfriend; Cassidy, janitor David, the cheerleading teacher; Miss Shannon, the drama teacher; Mr. Schwendiman, and a bunch of other football players who are required to take drama.
At another rehearsal, Ryan interviews a bunch of the parents of the kids and we learn there are stories of the school being haunted. There’s also another woman, who mysteriously might not be a parent of one of the kids. She tells Ryan she was there at the original play.
Later Ryan is still being a bag of dicks to Reese and asks him why he is doing the play, it’s then revealed Reese has a crush on Pfeiffer. Ryan takes the opportunity to run off to tell Pfeiffer how Reese feels.
He also tells her the play is going to bomb and that drama kids are dumb. He’s then called away to help Price move some ropes but this ends up being a prank by Price to get back at Reese for the football to the face thing.
While chasing Price, Ryan discovers one of the doors leading outside is broken and gets the idea to come back at night to destroy the set thereby preventing the play from happening.
He tells Reese and Cassidy his plan in hopes they help him. He manipulates Reese into thinking it’s a good idea by telling him he sucks as an actor and when Pfeiffer is heartbroken that the play won’t go on, she’ll need someone to lean on.
Later that night there’s a quick cheap jump scare with Ryan popping up in front of the camera. Does this scene need to be in the movie? No. Does it add anything? No. If it wasn’t in the movie would anything change? Yea, I’d be less angry about it being in the movie.
Ryan picks up Cassidy and they head to Reese’s house where we see Reese’s dad, Rick, telling him to not do theater and to play football instead. The three leave and arrive at the school, sneaking in through the broken door.
While Ryan messes with Price’s locker he doesn’t notice another locker swing open above him. The trio head to the stage to begin dismantling the set which quickly turns to breaking stuff. They hear a sound coming from the opposite end of the stage and hide believing it to be the Janitor.
Exiting the theater they bump into Pfeiffer who claims she saw Reese’s car outside and decided to investigate. She pulls Reese aside and asks what they were doing there. Reese lies his ass off saying they went there to practice.
While they’re talking, back on the stage Cassidy begins repairing some of the stuff fearing that since Pfeiffer saw them, she’ll rat them out. Ryan tries to get her to stop, telling her the plan is still on. After they argue Ryan reluctantly agrees to leave with her but when they try to exit through the broken door, they find it locked.
They go around the building trying other doors but all those appear to be locked as well. Cassidy starts to flip out especially since none of them have service on their phones and the windows are barred. The group argues and Cassidy reveals they came to the school to break the set which causes Pfeiffer to storm off to the stage and Reese to chase after her.
When they get there, they find it completely repaired which freaks out Ryan and Reese. Reese then has the idea to go to the office where they can use a phone and call for help. Unfortunately, all the phones are dead but Pfeiffer finds a secret door behind several storage boxes.
Going through the door leads the group to a room with an old tv playing static. Approaching it makes the tv shift to an old news report of Charlie’s death. Ryan realizes the woman he interviewed earlier in the day was Charlie’s girlfriend, Alexis, all those years ago.
The news report flashes a picture of the students in the play revealing Charlie was only in the leading part because the main actor called out sick. Reese runs off with the camera followed by Cassidy and Pfeiffer to find another picture of the class. It’s then revealed the main actor who called out sick was Reese’s father.
Using a night vision camera on his phone Ryan wanders the backroom trying to find a way back to the group. After hearing Cassidy’s scream he’s able to find the group, why did she scream? Don’t ask questions the movie doesn’t have an answer to.
The group argues but are immediately quiet when they hear heavy footsteps above them that seem to stop just above Cassidy. She’s then lifted in the air by an unseen force for a moment leaving red burn-like marks on her neck.
The group run into a back room where Cassidy yells at Ryan to leave her alone. Ryan instead goes to yell at Reese believing the reason this is happening is because of Reese’s dad. The two argue but are broken up by Cassidy and Pfeiffer. Cassidy spots a vent above the door believing it may be their way out.
Ryan chooses to go up the stairs to the vent while taunting Charlie in a fury.
To no one’s shock, he’s launched from the ladder and breaks his leg on the stage. Pfeiffer and Reese run off to find something for his leg with Cassidy staying behind. But just moments later, Cassidy screams causing the two to return. Instead of being on stage with Ryan, Cassidy is outside the now-locked doors to the stage.
A loud bang is heard and the door finally opens. The three find Ryan missing and his cell phone broken on the floor. Cassidy falls to her knees as the burns on her neck appear to grow and spread. Reese and Pfeiffer pick her up and leave the stage.
We flashback to the moment Pfeiffer and Reese ran off. Using Ryan’s phone night vision we see Cassidy freaking out and leaving Ryan alone to yell for the others to come back. When she exits the stage an unseen force shuts the stage door separating the two.
Ryan hears random screaming and sounds surrounding him. The figure of a ghostly hangman then appears in front of the doors and drags him to the back of the stage. Just when he thinks he’s safe, Ryan is hanged by the ghost and lifted up towards the ceiling.
We then return to the others who are still attempting to find a way out. Reese has an idea to escape through a ceiling window but after setting up a table to climb, he is distracted by the camera light dying. He returns to the girls and tells them he thinks he found a way out. Using Ryan’s night vision app he returns to the room but finds the table and his own phone missing.
His phone rings causing Pfeiffer to head over to him and the two find his phone in a locker. On the other end, Reese hears himself reciting the lines of the play.
He tosses the phone and questions why he decided to do the play in the first place. Pfeiffer then apologizes for asking him to do it in the first place. So that answers that question.
We return to Cassidy crying alone in the hallway who doesn’t notice a hangman approaching her from behind.
A noose appears on her neck and she’s dragged away. Pfeiffer and Reese return after hearing the sounds to find her missing. The two decide to pull the fire alarm causing the hangman to appear and chase them. They climb stairs up to the rafters and for the moment, they believe they’re safe.
The fire alarm is then turned off leading Reese to believe the police have arrived. Looking for a way down they bump into the hanging bodies of Cassidy and Ryan. Reaching floor level they don’t see the police but across the stage, they see the door to the outside open. The two cross the stage and Reese makes it out but when he turns around Pfeiffer is gone.
She’s then heard choking and Reese re-enters the school and onto the stage to save her. Reese realizes the ghost of Charlie wants him and he chooses to sacrifice himself to save Pfeiffer. They then recite several lines from the play which kind of comes off as cheesy but ehh, we’re almost at the end here.
After Reese dies, the ghost appears, takes Pfeiffer’s hand and they both bow. Someone in the dark theater claps and we cut to black.
We cut to the police entering the home of Pfeiffer where it’s revealed the entire thing had been set up by Alexis and Pfeiffer who are actually mother and daughter. I guess the movie is trying to say Pfeiffer is Alexis and Charlie’s daughter but I feel like her birth after a high-profile death wouldn’t have been a secret but ehh we’re at the finishing line here.
There’s also probably something I missed at the end that makes it more believable but I’m not re-watching this movie.
The police enter one of the rooms to find Alexis brushing Pfeiffer’s hair as they watch a recording of Charlie’s death seemingly on a loop. The movie ends with the police attacked and killed by the hangman.
Review
The Gallows is only about 80 minutes and honestly, it feels like they were forced to make it that long or they didn’t have the story to make it that long. You can easily skip the first 20 or so minutes and wouldn’t lose a bit of the story. We meet a bunch of characters that never show back up in the movie after the 20 min mark.
If the other 60 minutes hadn’t been done well this movie would have been a straight skip but since the story is actually interesting just bad execution and the acting is not that bad, it makes it a watch if you have nothing else. The dialogue is still iffy but it doesn’t ruin the movie and no movie can be perfect.
While the reveal of the twist is well done and is a bit creepy it doesn’t make sense. The twist comes out of left field and makes the movie fall apart, for example, what was Pfeiffer and Alexis’s original plan? Pfeiffer had nothing to do with getting them to show up that night, how did she know they were there? Do she and Alexis watch the school all day and night?
Overall as most found footage movies do, this movie builds some pretty good suspenseful moments and a few good jump scares, unfortunately, they are few and far between but if you skip the first 20 min, give it a watch.
Cast IMBD