The Gallows (2015) Review

Assuming the best, I purchased my ticket early and made the decision to go see The Gallows with a group of friends on the night of its release.
Sitting in a theater full of too-young-kids that probably snuck in, and guys yelling about how many girls they got laid by that week, I realized the kind of group that this film attracted: "I think I like horror so I came to see this lame movie".
I guess I gave away on my opinion in that last sentence, but we'll get into that.

The Gallows is a story of a group of high schoolers that get trapped inside their school one night while trying to dismantle the set of the school's play, because the lead (a football player) doesn't want to be a part of the play anymore. While they're inside the school, the play's previous lead (who died in a freak accident during the show- he was hanged on stage) comes back to haunt them.

So back to my review of the film: it was awful. It was so bad. If I could take back that hour and 20 minutes of my life, I would gladly do it. I'll explain...
It was an almost-found-footage kind of film. It was all shown through the video camera that one of the characters is carrying around, conveniently documenting everything that goes on. I guess to keep with the theme of having an irresponsible kid holding the camera, the shots are awful, shaky, and nauseating. The camera is CONSTANTLY moving and blurring and cutting in and out, to the point where I actually had to cover my eyes to keep from feeling like I had vertigo. In relation to it being found footage: I am so tired of found footage horror films. It seems like that's all there is lately; it's a cop-out in my opinion because rather than making things truly scary, you minimize what the audience sees by using a video camera. It's lame. It's so, so lame.
Anyway, the acting is fine, I never really felt like the acting was cheesy at any point, however the characters were pretty bad. There was the jock, the theater nerd, the cheerleader, and the football-player-turned-lead-in-school-play. Cliche. Nothing special about a single one of them.

As for the film itself: it was an hour and 20 minutes of awful, unnecessary jump scares and loud noises. I was playing with my melted chocolate bar in the wrapper more than I was watching the film because I was so bored (and nauseous because of the camera). Some jump scares didn't even have anything to do with the "scarier" parts of the film, they were literally just fillers.
The twist at the end was pretty okay- I'll give it that much. I enjoyed how unexpected it was, but even that wasn't done well.

So I guess that was my awful, scathing review of The Gallows. If you want to save yourself some money and time, don't go watch this film. If you have nothing to do and you really want to torture yourself, hey, feel free.

...but really, don't see it.

Until next time, guys! Sorry this review sounded so angry, it was just honestly one of the worst films I've ever seen. :P

We Are Still Here: Review

I recently watched the 2015 film We Are Still Here as per the recommendation of a handful of super excited people. I'd been hearing good things all week, so I told myself, "hey, I'll save this one for a rainy day and it'll be awesome!"

Cut to about two days later...there was a beautiful thunderstorm here in New York and I was so excited to snuggle up burrito-style and turn this flick on.
With the thunder and lightning in the background, I flipped this one on and got myself ready to be terrified.
The story is about a small town that a middle-aged couple moves to after the tragic death of their son. When things start to get a little weird in the house, the couple realizes that there may be someone their besides their beloved Bobby...so they call upon their "psychic" friend to check the house out with her boyfriend.

Things start to go downhill early on, giving you little bits of suspense here and there right off the bat. I feel like things are very stop-and-go; a lot of the suspense and jump scares happen very abruptly and they're kind of expected.
I have to say, the story itself is good. It's a pretty typical house-haunting-type film, but the story of the house and the history is fun.
The characters are really well-written, however the casting left a lot to be desired. I found the acting really cheesy to the point where I was having a hard time getting into the story.
The entities floating around the house getting crabby and nasty were pretty terrifying. I won't get too far into where they come from or what their deal is because it's very well-explained in the film, but what you should know is that two of them are kids, which is one of the things that freaks me out the most. Ick.

Overall, I liked the film. Maybe not enough to watch it again, but I do recommend it as a film that you check out at least once so you can join in on the conversation about it!
I give it a 6/10, a little better than halfway there but the acting really ruined it for me. The entities and the deaths are what got the rating up there for me...if you guys enjoy gore like I do, this one has PLENTY. I promise, it doesn't start off too gory, but once you get a little ways in...BAM. Body parts flying everywhere. Thumbs up on that for me.

Happy haunting, my spookies...let me know what you think of We Are Still Here!
Taylor Terrible <3