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ON THIS DAY IN HORROR - July 10th

"THE GALLOWS" released in 2015

Independently financed by first-time filmmakers Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing, The Gallows follows the attempts to restage a play where a student died performing it 20 years ealier, in a attempt to honor the anniversary. The school play quickly turns into a twisted tale of supernatural revenge when four friends are trapped inside the school for the night!

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Twenty-years after the accidental hanging death of Charlie Grimille during the performance of "The Gallows", Beatrice High School student Pfeifer Ross (Pfeifer Brown) decides to re-stage the play for the anniversary. Pfeifer's friend Reese (Reese Mishler) initially agrees to help, but is convinced by his friends Ryan (Ryan Shoos) and Cassidy (Cassidy Gifford) to vandilze the sets instead - believing that he will get closer to his longtime crush Pfeifer by "comforting" her afterwards. The trio sneak into the school only to find Pfeifer is already there and that they have been locked inside with no cell phone coverage. Walking through the abandoned school, they find recordings left behind by someone (or something) in a hidden room, and realize that they are not alone. As they frantically search for a way to escape, they are stalked by the figure of The Hangman - a character from "The Gallows" - a malicious spirit that wants them to reenact the last act of "The Gallows" for real!

Top:   Cassidy (Cassidy Gifford) finds herself alone!;

Above:   Pfeifer (Pfeifer Brown) and Reese (Reese Mishler) 

search for their missing friend.

News Reporter: [t.v within maintenance suddenly blares on before Reese, Pfeiffer, Cassidy and Ryan] Beatrice High School senior Charlie Grimille died tragically during the high school's presentation of The Gallows.

Written and directed by Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing, the small $100,000 budget was raised from first-time investors and the duo's family and friends. The Gallows was originally written as "Stage Fright" in a homage to two earlier slasher films of the same name (the first released 1987, the other in 2014) which also had a masked killer picking off teenagers attempting to revive a theatre production. In something of a found footage-genre tradition, most of the actors, with the exception of Cassidy Gifford, were inexperienced and characters were named after the actor's real names (although the surnames were changed).

Top:   Pfeifer and Reese find the footage of Cassidy's death;

Above:   Is it the vengeful spirit of Charlie Grimille 

returning as The Hangman?

Filmed between 2011-2012, certain exterior scenes were filmed in Lofing's hometown of Beatrice, Nebraska, however most of The Gallows was shot primarily in and around Fresno, California, using Veteran's Memorial Auditorium as the main setting for the story. The filmmakers shot night-for-night, adding to the realism for the cast. Due to the low budget, the actors performed their own stunts and no major CGI was used in the original cut of the film. For the opening hanging scene, Lofing convinced co-director Cluff (who also played Mr. Schwendiman in the scene) and Jesse Cross (playing Charlie Grimille) to not inform the rest of the cast and crew of the sudden prop malfunction they had scripted in, leading everybody to believe Cross had actually just hung to death! The genuine screams, horror and frantic rushing of the crowd was exactly what Lofing had envisioned for the beginning death sequence and maintained the very first few shots as the film's opening.

Top:   Cassidy tries to help Ryan (Ryan Shoos) from being taken

by The Hagman;   Above:   Ryan is later found hung by Pfeifer!

Reese Houser: We have to pull the fire alarm, the cops will come and somebody will find us.
Pfeifer Ross: What if he finds us?

The Gallows was picked up by Blumhouse Productions and New Line Cinema in mid-2014 - allowing Cluff and Lofing to finish editing the film (both writer/director's also serving as the films editor's, as well as several other behind-the-scenes jobs during production) and handle the visual effects that were introduced into the film - and was released a year later, to mainly negative reviews. Geoff Berkshire of Variety wrote, "The Gallows isn't without a certain amount of atmosphere, it simply feels borrowed wholesale. That would matter less with a better script, but the four main characters are paper-thin even by genre norms." On the other hand, Richard Roeper of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three out of four stars, saying "In a quick 80 minutes, we get the back story, we meet the four core characters (all of the young actors do fine work), get the wits scared out of us about a half-dozen times and wind up with a VERY creepy ending."

Top and Above:   Co-directors Chris Lofing (left) and 

Travis Cluff (right) on set of The Gallows

Despite the reviews, The Gallows grossed $43 million against its $100,000 budget, and introduced Charlie Grimille as a potential horror icon citing him and his signature weapon (the noose) to the likes of Jason Voorhees (machete) and Freddy Krueger (bladed glove). No word on whether a sequel/franchise to The Gallows is currently in development, but we're sure horror audiences have not seen the last of Charlie "The Hangman" Grimille!

ROTTEN TOMATOES SCORE:   15%