Stage Fright aka The Gallows Review

Stage Fright 2015

aka The Gallows

Directed by: Travis Cluff, Chris Lofing

Starring: Reese Mishler, Pfeifer Brown, Ryan Shoos

Review by Luis Joaquín González

I was just thinking, it’s been a whole two-weeks since I reviewed a film called Stage Fright; I might be getting withdrawal symptoms… So here we have the most recent of the five identically titled stalk and slash movies and it is something of a crossbreed of styles that we need to discuss. I first heard about this project in 2011, when I read an article that described it as a cross between Friday the 13th and Candyman. A trailer soon followed that stated an October 2012 release date and included a host of shots that I don’t recall appearing in the version, now titled as The Gallows, that I saw last night at the cinema. I could find very little information regarding the name change and all pages/sites that hosted the original trailer have been deleted. It’s lucky that I kept a copy, which I’ve attached to this post so you can see the differences for yourself. It’s been reported that the DVD/Blue-Ray release will include a lot of the deleted scenes, so I’ll be looking forward to finding out via a commentary what it was that led to such drastic re-modelling tactics? I wonder if it had anything to do with the release of the musical Stage Fright that may have been the first to successfully copyright that title…?

Since The Blair Witch Project made a splash back in 1999, horror has been awash with found footage ghost stories. Paranormal Activity is likely the most recognised of these, but a quick glance at any horror playlist will find countless films with similar concepts. Supernatural slashers are nothing new but aside from a couple of half-hearted additions (Dead of Nite), we haven’t really had a true combination of that style and the slasher genre… Until now. I guess that you could call it the first ‘Paranormal Slasher’.

A school in a small town is going to relaunch a play called The Gallows after twenty-two years. The show has a haunted history, because the last time that some students attempted to open it, a youngster named Charlie Grimille was killed by hanging on stage. The accident was caught on camera, but the investigation is still open due to some suspicious circumstances. A new generation of actors that are playing key parts in the second production decide to break into the theatre and stay there for the night. Little do they know that some things are best left alone…?

Ok, so the first question that I need to answer for you is whether The Gallows is actually slasher-tastic enough to be on the right website here. Well, I’m happy to confirm that it is most definitely a stalk and slash flick, but it’s one with a few supernatural flourishes. It has the whole House on Sorority Row/I Know What You Did Last Summer ‘revenge for a fateful event from the past’ thing going on, which is a key ingredient of a host of genre entries. It’s also worth noting that Charlie Grimille is a typical antagonist with a hulking frame and Burlap Sack-type hangman’s mask. I have always had a problem with a Nightmare on Elm Street being classed as a standard slasher movie because its methods of slaughter are too fantastical and therefore far removed from the original source code: Psycho/Giallos. Here, the victims are killed by a noose, which is a far less outlandish gimmick.

When the psycho makes his presence known, the film becomes extremely tense as the four teens are left wandering the dark corridors of the theatre and desperately trying to discover an exit. Travis Cluff does a superb job of realising the panic of being trapped inside with an unknown intruder and an adept use of soundbites and shadows means that we are constantly left uneasy about what could happen next. Another sign that this is a slasher movie is the placement of the hulking killer, because he manages to convey the Michael Myers-alike ‘appear in the background’ trick extremely well. I guess that the only true ghostly ingredients are the inclusion of unexplained sounds and a TV and VCR that plays footage of the initial accident with no connected power.

Whilst the handheld camera approach works to provide a few moments of tension and an incredibly effective late jump-scare, it has to be said that the movie might have played much better if it had been shot like a more standard third-person horror. The story was unoriginal but good-enough, the boogeyman was scary and the location was immense; so one can only wonder how it might have turned out if completed differently. I was speaking recently with a SLASH abover Brandon who agreed with my review of Gutterballs. What I said was that the characters are so deplorable that you don’t really care what happens to them and therefore are left without anyone to root for. The main camera operator here, a guy by the name of Ryan, is also a jerk, which means he ruins the opening part of the movie and dominates your reaction to the fate of other players. It’s not the fault of the actor, who alongside the rest, did what was expected of him. It’s just hard to understand what the screenwriters had in mind when they were dreaming up his personality.

With that said, after an intro that struggles to sustain interest, The Gallows becomes a scary and unique horror movie and one that I’m glad to have seen in the cinema. We watch these films to be scared and entertained and Cluff’s picture does exactly that. The missing footage may explain some of the parts that are slightly unclear (it’s hinted that you should not mention Charlie’s name in a Candyman type way, but not really clarified) and I am actually looking forward to seeing a director’s cut of the feature. Until then, this copy has enough to be worth checking out…

Slasher Trappings:

Killer Guise:√√√√

Gore:√

Final Girl:√√

RATING:

Dead of Nite 2013 Review

Dead of Nite 2013

Directed by: S.J. Evans

Starring: Tony Todd, Joseph Millson, Cicely Tennant

Review by Luisito Joaquín González

It still surprises me that since Cannibal Holocaust launched the ‘found footage’ gimmick that has been vital to horror hits like The Blair Witch Project and Rec, it hasn’t been used very often in the slasher genre. It’s strange because I can’t imagine another style of horror that would benefit more from that narrative. I remember considering posting a review of The Last Broadcast on a SLASH above, as it incorporates many of the ingredients that are commonplace amongst features on this site. In the end though, I decided that this was wishful thinking on my part as it is not, in fact, a slasher movie.

That argument cannot be levelled at today’s choice of post, Dead of Nite, which is a recent British entry to the cycle. It was released hot on the heels of Evidence – another title that utilised pre-filmed flashbacks as a structure, but chose the standard stalk and slash template as an overcoat. What is it they say about waiting ages for a bus and then two coming along at once?

 

A team of youngsters that run an online paranormal exploration site decide to visit the notorious Jericho mansion. It has a reputation as the most haunted place in the South East of England due to rumoured sightings of ghosts and a murderous history. They are locked in for the night to complete some research, however the next morning, most of them are found dead. All that remains are the tapes from their cameras…

To say that Nite starts badly would be one hell of an understatement. We open with Police taping off the scene of the massacre and the camerawork judders like it was being filmed by an epileptic. To make matters worse, these weren’t even scenes of found footage that could be excused due to a shaky hand. Many low budget horror films incorporate cameos from previous stars such as Kane Hodder or Robert Englund as a form of genre recognition. Here we get Candyman’s Tony Todd, but I’m not sure if you could consider his appearance to be a plus. He spends ten of his fifteen-minutes worth of screen time whispering inaudibly and then when he does raise his voice, it seems that the effort he took doing so made him totally forget that he was supposed to be ‘acting’. To be fair though, it’s not only Todd that could be accused of poor dramatics. The scenes filmed outside the mansion before the teens are locked in the abode, play like a pre-school playground production of West Side Story. Someone call the drama coach, you guys have all got detention.

Anyway, when they finally bolt the doors, the screenplay goes on a self-discovery mission. If a script could suffer a midlife identity crisis, then Dead of Nite’s is in desperate need of counselling. After the obligatory shot of a full moon, the visitors decide to hold a seance. The ouija board spells out the word death and the glass flies off the table and smashes to smithereens against the wall. You could be forgiven for thinking that we have got a supernatural thriller on our hands, but after a sickle is grabbed from the wall by an ominous hand, the paranormal elements are never seen (or heard of) again. That’s not such a bad thing though, because when the slasher stuff starts, the film finally finds some credibility and delivers a few impressive chills.

Whilst Nite can be considered a ‘found footage’ film, these elements, much like the ghostly stuff I mentioned earlier, are kind of bolted on. One minute we will be watching a camcorder shot of the action and then in the next instant, we see everything through a fixed lens. Surprisingly though, this blend works extremely well in some places, like when the director cuts to isolated staircases and rooms to underline the atmosphere of solitude. After the fusebox is destroyed early in the runtime, everything is filmed in night vision and it makes the actor’s eyes illuminate like reflective motorway studs in the darkness, which was creepy. I liked the antagonist’s guise and Robin Scott Fleming delivers a decent score to help maintain the tension. The killer stalks with a traditional Michael Myers-alike strut and even if we only get a handful of murders, they are creatively delivered and fairly menacing.

Whilst there aren’t any true gore scenes and the mystery is easy to figure out, Dead of Nite has enough in its briefcase to at least deliver the odd moment that is worthy of praise. I wasn’t expecting much, but I enjoyed the few jolts and the attempt to make the stalking sequences as scary as possible. If you have seen everything else and keep what I’ve said in mind, you should check it out.

Slasher Trappings:

Killer Guise: √√√

Gore

Final Girl √

RATING: