The Gallows Act II

While I don't think this is the best film of all time, I do think it is way better then the first one. I think that the best part of this movie is the acting. The main actress was hands down the best part and I enjoyed even the parts in between the scares.

It's a really slow movie, quite a few jump scares but ones that you'll see coming from a mile away.

Barely cohesive story; the play from the first movie has become an online challenge (yet somehow nobody is noticing that EVERYONE dies from it.) Not impressed by these movies that try to millenial-ise the story by making it social network-based, it does nothing for the story and it's already been done a million times.

Not many deaths, not much explanation or reasoning behind anything, just "reading this kills people." Crappy characters with some SEVERELY first world problems. (Oh no, not enough youtube followers for my family to love me!)

Better off wasting your time other places.

Can't say I was expecting much having rated the first part 5/10. This is a sequel we definitely didn't need but it's the sequel we got. I believe that audiences with little horror genre experience and/or audiences between 13 and 20 years old might get some kicks out of this, but I can't help seeing just an unimaginative horror movie here.

First part of this duology was much more of the found-footage kind, it's a genre I often have a soft spot in my heart for. This one, however, uses that style (social media, live video, YouTube) very little and for the most part is a, well, classic type of movie. I can compliment some of the camera & editing work, although a big portion of the results were jumpscares that had little to no effect on me. Aesthetically nice color grading, some cool framing, hangman masks, this and that. Acting performances were okay, nothing that'd impress a lot. Most of the characters were quite the cliches. The story feels extremely familiar, some plot turns made me reminisce about other, older horror movies that did the same or something close to that. Some things doesn't always make sense, some script and/or character moves seem far-fetched. I figured out the twist half an hour into the movie & the climax turned out to be unsurprisingly flat.

"The Gallows Act II" is the kind of horror movie that comes out a few times a year every year, a painfully familiar concept tries to appear original with the filmmakers changing and altering some parts of the whole design. I'm sure that there's effort and work behind this movie, but for a seasoned horror buff this is the kind of movie he'll likely forget after writing the review. My rating: 4/10.

The original had a moderately effective format that brought in some box office. This movie has the ghost Charlie from the original and that's it. Why couldn't the filmmakers have stuck to the original formula and upped their game? This is like Blair Witch 2. Avoid.

I was at the premier of the first one. Travis and Chris had a brilliant idea and no money. Now, they had some money and blew a wonderful opportunity to take this one to new heights and just didn't. Very slow. Decent jump scares. Better acting, but bad story. Doesn't really keep your attention and nothing you can't see coming.