Film Review: The Gallows

School's Out

Adding to this years' already terribly mediocre lineup of horror movies this week is The Gallows, another entry into the overblown horror filmography of the murderers of contemporary horror that is Blumhouse Productions, a company famous for their work with the Paranormal Activity series, the Insidious series, The Purge, and of course the Sinister series. Aside from all being produced by the same company, these particular films all share a particular trait in seemingly being the blueprint and and DNA for the way in which modern horror flicks are made, with the age-old use of the quiet, quiet band technique being the cornerstone of each films' genetic makeup. Sure, there are few good entries within the back catalogue of Blumhouse, particularly the first Paranormal Activity and Sinister, whilst the also have the proud honour of producing Whiplash which still holds its' own as film of the year so far in my opinion, but a huge chunk of their films are either too similar in tone to be extinguished from any other around them or just being actually plain terrible. In terms of The Gallows therefore, Blumhouse's new addition to the horror genre hopelessly falls into the latter category with it being a painful experience from start to finish, and not in a good horror movie way. 

After a tragic accident during a school production of The Gallows in 1993 where pupil Charlie freakishly died by that of hanging, the same school once again after 20 or so years sets out to perform the play once more, much to the displeasure of Reese who is set to perform in the leading role with an aim to win the heart of his leading lady. When Reese's friend Ryan comes up with the idea to destroy the set before the day of the show in order to prevent any potential failings on Reese's part, along with girlfriend Cassidy, they somehow become locked in the school and being to wonder if the evil spirit of the dead Charlie is with them once again. So, where are the problems with The Gallows I hear you ask? Everywhere. Firstly, the shaky, tedious option of the found-footage genre is as generic as it comes within this particular film with it not expanding its' horizons in any form whatsoever and instead relies on annoying moments of long, boring and ultimately pointless shots of either darkness, a room, or someones' emotionless face in a failed attempt to mimic or take heed from that of the classic that is The Blair Witch Project. The addition of the ever-infuriating camera shake to enable our protagonists to run away in complete darkness just results in making the film incredibly hard to watch and achieves nothing except making me regret the fact that I could have possibly paid for this film if it was not for the beauty of my Cineworld Unlimited card. 

As for the protagonists, this brings me to my second point which is that any good horror movie creates and leaves you with a sense of threat or danger towards characters that you really care about and are meant to worry for during their duration of whatever horrific act their particular horror movie has placed them in. Within The Gallows however, the filmmakers have decided to not abide by this notion at all and instead placed us with the most hateful, annoying, cringe-inducing protagonists I have seen in a long time, especially that of high-school bully Ryan who's role in the first twenty minutes of the film is to behave like a total ass and act like the kind of person you are just waiting to be murdered horrifically in a film like this in order to wipe his non-nonsensical life from existence. With hateful characters such as this, all The Gallows does is leave you rooting for the supposed evil presence of Charlie to swiftly knock off his victims and get the film over and done with, something of which I sense was not entirely the filmmakers goal. Finally, the film succeeds in bringing one jump to the table and I haven't decided, or really cared about deciding, whether this was due to the scene being actually quite scary or whether the volume of the showing was fundamentally going to make me jump, yet with this being under the production values of Blumhouse, I am going to go for the latter. Hand your head in shame The Gallows, you are a stinker of a horror movie. 

Overall Score: 2/10  

Film Review: Insidious: Chapter Three

Alone In The Dark

Looking back at the career of Leigh Whannell so far, there is a solid enough amount of evidence to argue that the hugely annoying norm of "cattle-prod" cinema that infests our cinemas and classes itself as "horror" nowadays is essentially pretty much his own doing. Bit harsh, yeah, but with writing credits that include the Saw series, Dead Silence, and the first two Insidious movies manifesting from his own mind, I think I have a partial leg to stand on. Maybe not, but hey, when you delve a bit deeper and look at his constant affiliation with James Wan, the argument gets a tiny bit stronger when we see The Conjuring and Annabelle added to that list. The plot thickens. But enough of my hatred anyhow, as now we have Insidious Chapter 3, a new film in the series of "horror" flicks that should  never have got past the first film, which in all honesty I did kind of actually enjoy but was then subsequently angered by the turgid sequel that swiftly followed. But now we have a prequel to the first film once again featuring Lin Shaye who reprises her role as eerie ghost whisperer, Elise Rainier, but the real question is, how much of a boring, stinker of a film can it possibly be? Well to be honest, its' kinda spooky. 

When teenager Quinn (Stefanie Scott) disregards all previous rules of horror flicks and attempts to contact her dead mother, she inadvertently makes contact with a creepy, seemingly asthmatic demon who seeks to bring her to the depths of hell or wherever that place is that looks a lot like the Black Lodge from Twin Peaks, without the dancing dwarf of course. Enter Elise Rainier (Lin Shaye) who is subsequently tasked with preventing such evil deeds from occurring whilst avoiding her own fate of death from the rip-off  Jennet Humfyre, i.e. the Woman in Black. Even in the plot synopsis you can see how many cliches, rip-offs, and stolen scenes are used to lesser effect within Insidious Chapter 3, with elements of The Exorcist, Poltergeist, and The Shining all appearing in some shape of form during its' 90 minute runtime, but there were certain moments in which it proper freaked me out and where the use of a cattle-prod was put to one side for the time being, and for that I can safely say, was particularly pleasing to see. It may not have been as good as the first, but Insidious Chapter 3 is leagues better than its' predecessor making it a solid, if rather similar, entry into the horror canon. 

Overall Score: 5/10 

Film Review: It Follows

Every Step You Take

Oh I do love a good horror movie. Last years' The Babadook took home first prize for being the best in it's respective category whilst so far this year, there has been an array of sub-par horror films such as The Woman in Black 2 and REC 4. Now we have It Follows, which has been dubbed, "smart, original, and above all terrifying," by the critics consensus on Rotten Tomatoes, starring Maika Monroe, last seen in the rather bonkers, The Guest. Although I am usually in accordance with what Rotten Tomatoes say about the quality of films, this is a rare occasion where I have to disagree, with It Follows not being overly smart, not really being original, and definitely not being terrifying. Sorry RT.

It Follows tells the tale of Monroe's character, Jay, who after having a bit of fun-and-games with boyfriend Hugh, starts to become haunted by a shape-shifting wraith-like entity which only she can see and can only be "passed on" by having more fun-and-games with other people. Sounds like a cool premise doesn't it? I mean you have the generic teen-sex-is-bad-and-should-be-punished vibe running throughout, which has been done countless times before, and a pretty funky 80's synth soundtrack, which has been done before, rounded off with those kind of eerie and spooky long shots of people walking down even longer pavements, or sidewalks if stateside, which has been done before, and more effectively in umm what's that film? Oh yeah, Halloween. So in terms of originality, I wholeheartedly disagree, with It Follows basically ripping the foundations of Halloween from it's feet and replacing Michael Myers with combination of a really tall guy, a naked woman, and a guy who gets really angry when near a swimming pool.

In terms of fear factor, I think I managed to properly jump once, and this was only when the film resorted to the ever-so-original quiet, quiet, quiet, LOUD process which horror films tend to go for these days when they think the audience might have become bored or even worse, fallen asleep, with the loudness of cinemas these days being more than capable of wakening anyone from the deepest of sleeps. In fact, they should have put Schumacher in one when he was in his coma. That would have woken him up. Hope you get better soon Mike. So, back to the movie, not one time during the film could I honestly say I felt under threat, whilst the long-drawn out scenes in between each entity attack becoming seemingly more boring than the last. So, in terms of  being, "above all, terrifying," I once again disagree.

Enough slating. In it's best moments, It Follows is a solid re-hash of better films of its' type, such as Halloween, with the acting being pretty much top-notch, particularly from leading lady, Maika Monroe, who gives a particularly good performance as the victim of the slowly walking entity that I will name "It". When it's dull, it's dull, and the originality and scares that the film promised were overly lacking, resulting in another film that has suffered from it's necessity to generate hype and declaration at being, "one of the most striking American horror films in years." Um, it's not.

Overall Score: 5/10