The Gallows is a late entry into what feels like a dwindling found-footage sub-genre, and it’s one that does nothing new with the idea.

In fact, it’s a film that falls into nearly all of the usual pit-falls that the genre can offer – but it’s not all bad.

The Gallows sees an American high-school ill advisedly restaging a play that twenty years ago resulted in the death of a student. ‘The Gallows’, as the play is titled, culminates in the hanging of the main character. Tragically, though, on the production’s opening night, the props malfunction and the lead actor finds himself hanged for real.

While it would seem obviously insensitive to drag the play back up, that’s just what the school does, and with the new lead actor terrified of failing – he’s a terrible actor – a group of kids break into the school at night and aim to get him out of trouble by sabotaging the stage, an act of criminality which they bafflingly decide to record on film, and which provokes the ire of a particularly bitter malevolent force which the new play has dredged up…

The first and most glaring issue with The Gallows is that the lead character Ryan is one of the more hateable figures you’ll ever see in a film. He’s exceptionally obnoxious to everyone he encounters, and boasts absolutely no redeeming features.

Quite how he’s managed to secure a reasonably nice girlfriend is the film’s biggest mystery, but the fact that he’s the man behind the camera for large swathes of the film means that you’re stuck with him and his idiot commentary, and it becomes suffocating. Whatever spirits haunts the school play, Ryan is the film’s true evil.

The others are a far more palatable bunch, but their characterisation is still a touch thin to really make you connect with them. And while the usual liberties are taken with the found-footage gimmick – why would they be recording any of this? Who has ‘found’ it? Why does activating the torch on a phone instantly mean it’s also recording? – the film does boast a few genuinely frightening moments.

There are jump scares, sure, but there also moments of sustained and genuine terror, and first time directors Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing use the lighting – or, rather, the darkness – of their setting very effectively. There’s no gore on display here; what scares the film has are crafted authentically.

Using the young cast of unknown’s real names as their character names (Ryan Shoos plays Ryan, Pfeifer Brown plays Pfeifer, etc) adds an extra element of creepiness to the low-budget proceedings. And while an unnecessary twist in the film’s coda doesn’t work at all, dedicating the film to the fictional character that died in the original stage production is a nice touch.

(Fun fact: the film opens with a ropy home-video of the original stage tragedy, but Cluff and Lofing hadn’t told the audience what was going to happen – and fooled the other actors over when it would happen – so the shocked and horrified reactions you see are largely genuine.)

Far from a classic, The Gallows is at least nice and short, getting to the point reasonably quickly, and not dragging its heels too often. The film’s climax should appeal to anyone who’s a fan of Buffy episode ‘I Only Have Eyes For You’, and before the coda leaves a sour taste in the mouth, the film’s final stretch provides a surprisingly coherent and even somewhat affecting conclusion.

Released in UK cinemas on 17 July 2015.

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