Film Review: Despite Same Stale Producer, ‘The Gallows’ a Refreshing Horror Original From New Filmmakers

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CHICAGO – We all know dramatic films win most of the awards, comedies are hit or miss and horrors often don’t deliver the scares they promise. The problem with the horror genre lately is Hollywood is afraid to go against a “proven” formula (for financial reasons) and really think outside the box.

HollywoodChicago.com Oscarman rating: 3.5/5.0
Rating: 3.5/5.0

After 2009’s “Paranormal Activity” took the world by storm (grossing $193 million worldwide on a tiny $15,000 production budget), producing it paved the way for Jason Blum and his Blumhouse Productions to produce and put his stamp on “Insidious,” “Sinister,” “The Purge,” “Ouija,” “The Lazarus Effect,” “The Boy Next Door,” “Jessabelle,” “Unfriended,” “Oculus” and all of their follow-ups. There pretty much isn’t a horror film released by Hollywood these days without Jason Blum attached to it. That’s a double-edged, monopolistic sword that has been producing new films without continuing to innovate.

So when I first heard about the new horror film “The Gallows” from no-name filmmakers and the same Jason Blum machine, I couldn’t help but think it’d be the same formula and the same let down. But thankfully, it appears “The Gallows” was much more heavily influenced by its brand-new filmmakers than Blum’s more-of-the-same thinking.

Filmmakers Chris Lofing and Travis Cluff, who HollywoodChicago.com recently photographed and interviewed at the Music Box Theatre, still have a grassroots and humble feel to them even though they are their film are becoming famous now. When we photographed Chris and Travis at a tiny red carpet in front of the Music Box, they looked around – confused – as if to expect the cameras should be pointing at bigger, more known celebs.

StarRead Adam Fendelman’s full review of “The Gallows”.

But the cameras were for Chris and Travis and they are the reason “The Gallows” delivers as an effective new horror film – despite it having the fancy Blum backing and the big-time Warner Bros. global distribution and New Line Cinema production. (Tremendum Pictures, by the way, is Travis Cluff’s production company.) “The Gallows” opened to 2,729 theatres on July 10, 2015, and in its first full day of release, made back its production budget of a mere $100,000 (yes, think back to the initial “Paranormal Activity”) by 45 times with a box-office grab of $4.5 million. That’ll only grow as the weeks wear on and Chris and Travis will continue to get courted for their next projects.

What’s most special about “The Gallows” is its ability to capture some of the originality that the hugely successful “Paranormal Activity” and “The Blair Witch Project” did, but it’s now doing so in a time when that’s all been done before and it’s getting overdone to death. While it’s not immune to plot holes and discussing the film with fellow movie watchers will reveal some problems, originality was very important to Chris and Travis and you can see that theme clearly with their unexpected cinematic decisions.

“The Gallows” stars Reese Mishler, Pfeifer Brown, Ryan Shoos, Cassidy Gifford, Travis Cluff, Price T. Morgan, Theo Burkhardt and David Herrera from writers and directors Chris Lofing and Travis Cluff and producer Jason Blum. It has a running time of 81 minutes and released on July 10, 2015. “The Gallows” is rated “R” for some disturbing violent content and terror.

StarContinue for Adam Fendelman’s full review of “The Gallows”.

Cassidy Gifford in The Gallows
Cassidy Gifford as Cassidy Spilker in “The Gallows”.
Image credit: Warner Bros. Pictures

StarContinue for Adam Fendelman’s full review of “The Gallows”.

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