<Review by: Sailesh Ghelani>

Directed by Travis Cluff & Chris Lofin. Starring Cassidy Gifford, Pfeifer Brown, Ryan Shoos, Reese Mishler, Price T Morgan

In what is becoming a seriously fucked up trend, the unimaginative folks at Blumhouse Productions are making all of the scary movies coming out of Hollywood nowadays.

Scary movie after scary movie filled with clichés, horrible acting and cheap production values and they keep churning out more of this shit. Clearly have a lot of money. But no sense of what is really scary. I yawned and yawned till I could not yawn anymore watching The Gallows. I laughed at the cheap costumes, sets, ‘ghost’ and total lack of any coherent dialogue or plot. It was like high school students putting on a play just for fun, but without the fun.

In 1993, a high school production of a play called The Gallows goes horribly wrong when the guy who has to wear the noose around his neck in the aforementioned ‘gallows’ goes through the trap door and actually dies. Twenty years later the kids at the same high school decide to recreate the play, without the tragic ending. But Reese (Reese Mishler, they haven’t even bothered to change the names of the actors!) doesn’t want to do the play since he sucks at it and his buddy Ryan (Ryan Shoos, they haven’t even bothered to change the names of the actors!!) convinces him that they should all go and wreck the stage and props the night before the big day. So Ryan, his girlfriend Cassidy (Cassidy Gifford, they haven’t even bothered to change the names of the actors!!!) and Reese do just that but bump into the girl Reese has a crush on who’s also in the play – Pfeifer (Pfeifer Brown, they haven’t even bothered to change the names of the actors!!!!).

But they all get locked in and in true Paranormal Activity style they get pulled up and out of the scene and end up in a noose. This is all captured on a handy camera and an iPhone with night vision. Needless to say, the camera work is shaky, awkward and gives you a headache. The screaming girls simply add to that. The ridiculous attempts at scaring you simply make you sigh. This is by far the worst attempt at cheap scare tactics that Blumhouse has attempted. They think they’re very cool and old school. They’re simply cheap and lack any creativity whatsoever.

The Gallows is the worst type of scary movie. It’s not scary. It’s not interesting. It’s not imaginative. It’s not surprising. It’s everything that is wrong with scary movies today and we can thank Blumhouse Productions for it.