THE GALLOWS ACT II

The Gallows Act II Movie Review

Auna Rue (Ema Horvath) is a would-be actress and YouTube star. When she stumbles across the legend behind the stage play The Gallows, Auna Rue is soon haunted by the spirit of The Hangman. She does all this for the camera and her audience, because let's face it baby, these days, it's all about the likes! This is the sequel to the 2015 film The Gallows--if you are having a hard time remembering that movie, that can be easily explained--it was quite forgettable, and certainly not a flick that demanded a second act. But alas, it was a film that made money, so of course, the Blumhouse machine was going to churn out a sequel, and here we are. 

"That's what this is all about?"

The first film was of the found footage variety--this sequel is presented in the more traditional way, though there is a bit of the found footage feel when we see some of the YouTube videos. The movie is absolutely filled with jump scares...so many jump scares. As far as actual scares go, well, there are none. The film also lacks any suspense, comprehensive storytelling, or character development. The acting is bad, with Horvath, who looks like the love child of Neve Campbell and Hilary Swank, making for a weak lead (though, sadly, she turns in the best performance). We get a ton of hallucinations and false realities--you may try to make sense of this at the start, but you soon realize you are trying to make sense of the senseless and give up. The film comes off as a generic PG-13 horror film, but with just enough profanity added to get that R rating. This all leads to an ending that is so horrendous, so brutally bad, so nonsensical, that is actually adds a point to my score--this level of ridiculousness doesn't come along every day. In the unlikely event you saw The Gallows and thought to yourself "I really hope they make a sequel! It will be amazing!", you may want to save yourself the disappointment and skip this movie...actually, even if you never had this thought, you should still skip it. 

On A Scale Of One To Ten: 4

The Gallows Act II Movie Review