Cassidy Gifford hopes to prove acting chops in ‘The Gallows’

Football stud Reese (Reese Mishler) is playing the lead and developing a crush on his drama-nerd co-star, Pfeifer (Pfeifer Brown).

Fast-forward to 2013. From the balcony of the same theater, the obnoxious Ryan (Ryan Shoos) records his friend Reese (Reese Mishler-yes, the main characters were all named after the actors to help them get into it) as he rehearses the same role that claimed Charlie’s life. On the eve of the play’s revival, several students find themselves trapped in the auditorium, haunted by the student’s ghost. At best, you don’t care if they survive; at worst, you can’t even root for them to die elaborately because that would too tax the brains of the filmmakers. Loud noises, narrow corridors, locker doors opening and closing on their own, a television set that turns on by itself to provide expositional news footage – “The Gallows” isn’t without a certain amount of atmosphere, it simply feels borrowed wholesale. The dialogue is thin, bordering on cryptic; the characters’ motivations are unclear; and most important-at least for the school’s liability insurer-it climaxes with an execution on a fully functioning gallows, which has already resulted in one student’s accidental death back in 1993. Cluff and Lofing even dedicate their film to the “late” Charlie Grimille. Ryan’s only positive contribution to this schoolhouse massacre is his super-crisp HD camera, but it’s a HUGE advantage at that. I promise this is no fantasy because Cluff and Lofing aim to please, along with their cinematographer Edd Lukas.

The Gallows is more antagonistic prank than found footage horror film-as if someone set out to chronicle every last criticism anyone has ever levied at the sub-genre and purposely made a movie out of only those elements. “But at the end of the day, she’s a mom and she wants to share in the experiences and be a part of it”. Secrets become obvious as Reese’s struggle for survival intensifies, revelatory information is discovered that you’d assume should be common knowledge, and Charlie’s wavering ability to be captured on film is never fully explained. What’s the phrase – so close, yet so far? No matter how artistically it’s shot. “There have been a number of issues that wanted to be stated for plot (factors) that may come out later in the film, however finally it type of got here down to us type of enjoying off each other”. You looked crappy most of the time.