THE GALLOWS ACT II: A Complete Utter Nightmare
I don’t hate the “found footage” genre as much as some others do. In addition to loving the popular choices like The Blair Witch Project and REC, I also enjoy films like Grave Encounters and Unfriended. Heck, I thought Unfriended: Dark Web and two of the Paranormal Activity sequels had merit.
The Gallows, however, was a film I could not stand. Despite loving the empty school setting and the disjointed narrative that cuts back and forth between different footage, I hated the characters and I found the premise of the Charlie Challenge to be a tired, half-baked spin-off of the familiar Ouija board concept. Imagine my excitement when I heard there was going to be a second Gallows movie. Now imagine my dread when I then learned that the film was shelved for two years.
This movie opens with a found footage scene, where a group of disposable teenagers call upon the titular spirit of the Charlie Challenge, Charlie Grimille. The first jump scare involves an object being thrown at the camera, and I couldn’t even make out what the object was. I knew I was in for a long 100 minutes.
Shallow Materialistic Characters and Incompetent Drama
With the opening scene out of the way, the movie abandons the found footage format and rolls back to a standard narrative.
Our protagonist is a young high school girl named Auna (Ema Horvath), who moves in with her older sister so she can attend the local high school for its prestigious theater program. She dreams of becoming an actress but lacks the confidence due to factors like discouraging parents and barely reaching 200 subscribers on YouTube. So guess what? She takes on the Charlie Challenge to gain popularity. Yup, the plot of the movie is kick-started by the protagonist’s shallow motivation.
It only gets worse from here on out. We’re also introduced to fellow high school student Cade, played by 31-year old Chris Milligan, and the movie seems obligated to provide way too many scenes with asinine dialogue to sell Auna and Cade’s blooming romance. There is also a terribly ill-conceived moment where the entire theater program applauds a monologue performance that wasn’t that great to begin with. It does a disservice to both monologues and aspiring actors – easily the worst scene in the whole movie, if it weren’t for the ending (I’ll come back to this).
Maddening Jump “Scares”
When the characters are not talking to each other, the script reminds you that it’s trying to be a horror movie by adding in jump “scares” that have no context or buildup. A loud noise would simply occur for no reason other than to make us suddenly jolt, from the sound of banging the bathroom door to… locking (?) a bedroom door.
If you are somehow watching this movie, look out for a bedroom scene for an incomprehensible jump “scare” involving the door. The sound effect doesn’t sound like knocking or banging but more like someone locking the door. But then a character is startled, asks who’s there, and then the door is opened normally by a second person. I still have all the questions.
The Gallows Act II is full of incompetently filmed, illogical moments like the one I just described. More than half of the loud sounds are false scares, and when the genuine scary moments come, they’re played out for too long with no sense of timing; it’s almost like the scene is constantly slow-motion. Techniques like lighting, movement, and framing are at their bare minimum here. There’s simply not enough care taken in every shot. Nothing really builds to anything. Nothing taps into our primal fears.
The more it went along, the more my jaw went slack.
What a Horrible Ending
For the final nail in the coffin, The Gallows Act II drops a final twist in its ending. Like the worst twists in horror movies, this one makes no sense, but it’s far beyond that.
The twist in The Gallows Act II fundamentally messes with its own internal logic and its choice of genre. It is here in its final moments that the movie reveals its identity crisis of wanting to be a bad supernatural horror or a bad thriller. It’s the kind of twist that backpedals on its own story, where not only everything that happened prior to it is now void, but it also serves as an excuse and explanation to previous scenes that were illogical and impractical. All of this happens in the final 60 seconds.
It’s the most infuriating kind of ending, the kind that makes my soul leave my body, self-reflect, and realize how I just wasted four dollars and 100 minutes of my life.
The Gallows Act II: Begone!
I now understand why this movie was shelved for two years. Furthermore, I now understand why it didn’t even play at my local AMC Theater.
The Gallows Act II is aggressively awful, a maddening ordeal that taps into my PTSD of movies like Slender Man, The Apparition and Creature. The filmmaking quality barely meets direct-to-video standard, and despite a lead actress who really tries, the movie does not respect her character or any other character in the story.
And with an ending like that, I’m convinced the movie does not respect the audience either.
Did you see The Gallows Act II? What did you think of the film? Share below!
The Gallows Act II was released in select theaters and on VOD on October 25, 2019.
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