Review: The Gallows is a spook-free zone

REVIEW: Tryhard horror film The Gallows makes Insidious: Chapter 3 look like a good option. And that’s not a compliment.

The Gallows (M)

Directors : Travis Cluff, Chris Lofing

Starring : Ryan Shoos, Reese Mishler, Pfeifer Brown, Cassidy Gifford, Jesse Cross, Melissa Bratton.

Rating : *1/2

Bad noose for everybody

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This pedestrian chiller takes the found-footage framework of any old Paranormal Activity instalment, and redecorates it with a drab this-might-have-really-happened yarn set in a high-school auditorium after dark.

Not so scary ... Reese Mishler in The Gallows.

Plot-wise, it is the 20th anniversary of a student play titled ‘The Gallows’ that ended in the fatal accidental hanging of one poor cast member named Charlie.

To supposedly heal past wounds, the school that lived through this tragic incident inexplicably lets its budding thesps take another crack at the same production.

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Fast-forward to the night before the revival makes its premiere, and a handful of teens are helplessly locked inside what is rapidly becoming a hellish host venue.

Too much ... the film’s annoying characters and jerky camera work are hard to stick.

Someone (or something?) wants them dead. So it’s a good thing they’re armed with a moderately bulky video camera to capture all of the not-so-terrifying mayhem happening all around them. And what a shame the mobile-phone reception is so spotty throughout the building.

Herky-jerky hand-held camerawork, annoying characters (the over-confident jock shooting and narrating a lot of this half-assed haunting brings a persistent chronic pain) and a serious absence of anything resembling a spooky jolt makes The Gallows’ not-so-hot market rival Insidious: Chapter 3 suddenly look very good indeed.