One-time Watch. Good for film school students for their first dialogue exercise.

Lofing and Cluff resort to formulaic cliches, and while there is great (meaning spooky atmosphere) and a jump scare or three, their failure to capitalize on supporting characters like the janitor (David Herrera) and the poorly contrived ending, results in a yawn instead of a gasp.

The Gallows will probably appeal to high schoolers at a sleepover. For the rest of us, a rewatch of The Blair Witch Project will have to suffice.

It’s a genius strategy – make a movie for peanuts, and make a ton of profit because people love horror movies. As a result over the past ten years we have seen a barrage of painfully bad found footage films that take a dump on the legacy of ‘Blair Witch’. The trend continues in ‘The Gallows’, which is again a cheaply made film, shot with handy cams, and presented as a found footage movie with thrills and chills. Sadly the thrills in the film are lame and the chills are absent.

The found footage horror sub-genre came into its own back when we saw The Blair Witch Project. There has been a clutch of films since then that serve up cinematic variations of found footage fare. Some work, some don’t. The Gallows lies somewhere in between.

The Gallows has a routine storyline, but is backed up by exciting camera-work.