THE GALLOWS
When it comes to found footage horror movies there are really only two types of camera operators. There’s either the documentarians seeking out something creepy that they want to capture on camera, so it makes sense they keep filming when things start to go bananas. Then there are those carrying the video (like in The Gallows) where insane stuff starts to happen and at no point do they turn off the video and be like “okay, time to focus and save myself.”
The Gallows follows a bunch of high school students who sneak into the school auditorium to vandalize the set of the play. What play is the school doing a production of? Why the show is called ‘The Gallows’, of course. Which is interesting because twenty years ago the school did a production of ‘The Gallows’ where a student was accidentally hanged during the show. That’s right. This student theatre production includes a bit where a character is hanged, and that went awry.
Now, the question that is surely bouncing about in your head is, what kind of school is putting on a play like this and why would they insist on including the hanging bit, especially when the last time they put on this production a student died. Twenty years isn’t even that long to wait. This film takes place in 2013 and if Jurassic Park is fresh in their memories, I think a dead student would be too. Nobody in the administration stepped in to be like “hang on a second, sorry about the pun, but let’s not do this”?
Also, was it just my school that put on shoddy knock-off productions called things like Man of Steel about a character named Ken Clarke? Our school wouldn’t have put on 'The Gallows' we would have put on something called Mr. Hangman and it would have featured two recorder solos.
Anyway, there’s a ghost that haunts this Beatrice High School and the ghost hangs people. There’s a noose on the loose and Reese, Ryan and Cassidy are going to get into a bit of trouble trying to escape it. The Gallows cost about $100,000 and made $43 million, which makes you wonder why anybody is investing in crypto when they should all just be making Gallows movies.
Where would I fit in? I was very much a “I’ll be the one to film this vandalism” kid. I rarely was the one committing the act of vandalism, but I certainly collected plenty of evidence in my time. I watched an old video of me when I was 18 and I also know exactly how I would come across in something like this – absolutely mugging for the camera, nervously laughing through every zinger I could spit out, trying desperately to impress everybody around me.
IF I WERE IN 'THE GALLOWS' I WOULD: DIE AND WHEN PREPARING FOR MY FUNERAL THEY WOULD FIND A WILL I HAD WRITTEN WITH THE INSTRUCTIONS 'WHAT IF YOU BURY ME UPSIDE DOWN SO MY LEGS ARE POKING OUT OF THE GROUND, WOULDN'T THAT BE FUNNY?' THAT EVERYBODY WOULD PRETEND THEY NEVER SAW.
