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Category:    Home > Reviews > Horror > Supernatural > Demonic Possession > The Gallows (2015/Warner Blu-ray w/DVD Set)

The Gallows (2015/Warner Blu-ray w/DVD Set)


Picture: B+/B- Sound: B+/B- Extras: C Film: C-



You'll want to be on the gallows when you watch this lousy found footage film, which starts off interesting and quickly loses steam, relying on boo scares and invisible hangings to give the audience a fright.


The story, co-directed by Travis Cluff & Chris Lofing, centers around a high school play where a student is hung and killed on stage during a performance of the play 'The Gallows' in a noose. Fast forward to 2013, where the school (for some unknown reason) decides to put on the play again and gets a small band of high school theater actors involved, who one night decide to sneak into the stage and come across a haunting and get trapped in the school where magically all of the electricity is out and they have to fend for themselves against an entity.


The Gallows stretches its short running time of an hour and twenty minutes with mostly just the teens talking to one another and zooming in on different things 'thinking' it's a ghostly apparition but seeing nothing. The excessive teen arguing weighs on the viewer as do an overall 'staged' feeling that contributes to the bad actors they got to play in the film. This makes the Paranormal Activity films looks like Stanley Kubrick productions. Eventually when people start getting killed there are a few cool moments here and there but ultimately its aim is obviously towards a more teenage market with its absence of gore (which in my opinion could have saved it).


Presented in sharp 1080p high definition with a widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and a powerful, lossless Dolby Atmos 5.1 track (mixed down from its original 11.1 Atmos theatrical presentations), the film at least looks and sounds great on Blu-ray. There's also a DVD version included in standard definition with an anamorphic widescreen aspect ratio of 1.85:1 and a lossy Dolby Digital 5.1 track.


A Digital UV copy is also included in compressed quality for your tablet or smart phone if you like to watch movies on the go. Extras include the original film that inspired this one, Deleted Scenes, a Gag Reel, and some trailers.


All in all, The Gallows is just another entry in the found footage genre that doesn't really sell and feels staged. Unless you a big fan of this sub-genre, I would safely skip it. Let's hope there isn't a sequel.



- James Harland Lockhart V

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