MovieChat Forums > The Gallows (2015) Discussion > There were so many things that made no s...

There were so many things that made no sense.


1. Charlie can apparently obstruct cell phone signals but can't extinguish a camera light or shut down a phone.

2. His power also extends outside the school, where he can prevent the fire department from receiving a fire alarm signal even when said fire alarm is going off in the school. Also, why not just disable the fire alarm from going off altogether, so that when pulled it does nothing?

3. The kids are too stupid to wear gloves when vandalizing school property.

4. The blonde guy continues to act defiant about the existence of Charlie even after he's seen the set they took down magically reassemble and his friend get lifted into the air by an invisible noose.

5. Same blonde guy is allowed to constantly film inside a school, even in classrooms.

6. Again, same blonde guy sees nothing wrong with filming the planning and execution of a crime and his two accomplices also don't have enough sense of speak up and tell him to shut the camera off. These are the dumbest teenagers ever.

7. A school play puts a kid on functional gallows with a real noose around his neck and no safety harness. Right...

8. The same school puts on a reenactment of a play that resulted in the death of a student on its premises. Sorry, no way. Maybe at another school, but there is no way they would do it there. It's not like there aren't thousands of other plays to choose from.

9. Pfeifer doesn't know the kids are going to vandalize the set since she isn't in on the plan, yet she still knows they're at the school that night.

10. Her entire plan seems centered around getting Reese to the gallows, yet she had no control of anything to ensure he actually played his part and willingly sacrificed himself.

11. No one in that town felt the need to tell Reese that his father was in the original play and mention it was weird that Reese was taking over his old role. No one. Come on.

12. The school apparently had no security cameras outside or inside.

13. No one thinks to break into a classroom and bust out a window.

14. Why is Reese feeling the need to say his lines from the play (complete with archaic dialogue) before standing on the gallows and telling Pfeifer to stop acting like they're doing the production?

15. The school would seriously leave an exit broken for such an amount of time that most of the drama department knows about it. It takes less than an hour to fix.

Ugh...this movie.

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Wow, your post makes me want to see this movie. I didn't think it would be good, but I'm not sure I can pass up a disaster.

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16. There is a spot in the school where the original Gallows playbill and picture is shown. Reese never even bothered to look at it and recognize his own father?

Excellent points. It really bugged me that the ghost... just... had the powers to lock all of the doors and stop them from making any calls. What? Pretty magical ghost, if you ask me.

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16. There is a spot in the school where the original Gallows playbill and picture is shown. Reese never even bothered to look at it and recognize his own father?
And even if he is not observant enough to notice this, are we really meant to believe that nobody mentioned that he had been cast in the same role his father was cast in twenty years earlier? You'd think that would be something people would bring up to him in conversation at least once.

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17. How did Pfeifer, and her mother, co-conspire with a spirit? Or am I missing something?

I made a Darth Doody. I think I sithed my pants. my diaper has turned to the dark side.

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It's a horror movie. Supernatural happens.

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7. A school play puts a kid on functional gallows with a real noose around his neck and no safety harness. Right...
This would have been really easy to fix, too. Establish that there was a safety harness, but that it somehow, mysteriously, failed, making it so that it is ambiguous as to whether Charlie is haunting the school, or if Charlie was just the first victim of an evil spirit.

8. The same school puts on a reenactment of a play that resulted in the death of a student on its premises. Sorry, no way. Maybe at another school, but there is no way they would do it there. It's not like there aren't thousands of other plays to choose from.
And why did they even pick this play in the first place? From the dialog we hear, it sounds terrible.

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Exactly, I like your first suggestion.

It's ridiculous that they would allow a kid to be at the mercy of the other students and the prop they built, which obviously wasn't built well considering it malfunctioned. The only thing standing between the actor and death is the quality of their prop and the hope no kid makes a mistake or decides to go crazy and pull the lever.

It would be the same as letting a kid have a loaded rifle as a prop and trust it wouldn't discharge on its town or he wouldn't intentionally shoot someone.

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Ummmm actually that did happen. Google Tucker Thayer. True story.

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18. This movie takes place in 2013, I think. According to the case file, but that would make Pfeifer 19 or 20. Not 18. How is she in the high school?

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Maybe she's so into theatre that she gets bad grades in other subjects?

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19 is probably possible, depending on her birthday and when children were allowed to enter kindergarten in her area. 20 is stretching it, unless she was held back. She was more likely 19 though, since nobody mentioned Charlie leaving behind a girlfriend and a daughter, so she probably wasn't born yet.

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Basically what i gathered half way through was that pfeifer had something to do with it as she says "It's all my fault that you're here"

But at the end

i kinda figured i was right, it would be better if they were in college, It's 20 years after the first one, pfeifers mum was going out with charlie, Pfeifer is their child!![ spoiler][/spoiler]

It was really weird at the end but it does keep it open for a second which would be really *beep*

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9. Pfeifer doesn't know the kids are going to vandalize the set since she isn't in on the plan, yet she still knows they're at the school that night.


Not that I'm purposefully defending this movie, but I'm sure Charlie heard them talking about it in the auditorium and told Pfeifer at home.

11. No one in that town felt the need to tell Reese that his father was in the original play and mention it was weird that Reese was taking over his old role. No one. Come on.


This bugged the crap out of me!!! I literally rolled my eyes at the reveal.

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2. His power also extends outside the school, where he can prevent the fire department from receiving a fire alarm signal even when said fire alarm is going off in the school.

3. The kids are too stupid to wear gloves when vandalizing school property.

5. Same blonde guy is allowed to constantly film inside a school, even in classrooms.

7. A school play puts a kid on functional gallows with a real noose around his neck and no safety harness. Right...

8. The same school puts on a reenactment of a play that resulted in the death of a student on its premises. Sorry, no way. Maybe at another school, but there is no way they would do it there. It's not like there aren't thousands of other plays to choose from.

9. Pfeifer doesn't know the kids are going to vandalize the set since she isn't in on the plan, yet she still knows they're at the school that night.

14. Why is Reese feeling the need to say his lines from the play (complete with archaic dialogue) before standing on the gallows and telling Pfeifer to stop acting like they're doing the production?

2) That's not a plot hole. It shows how powerful he is. That's how he's able to kill the cops at the end.
3) I thought that was on purpose, considering their personalities.
5) At the beginning, we see CASSIDY using her phone in class. The teacher says "Stop using phones" and she keeps doing it. If she's not caught for that (she wasn't hiding the phone), RYAN wouldn't be caught either.
7) The filmmakers seemed to be inspired by classic horror movies where something bad happened decades before because a person or people didn't care about something important. However, it usually happens in a time period where it made sense. In 1993 there was enough safety meassures.
8) If they talk about it in a PTA meeting and everyone agrees, why not? Not everyone is supersticious. Besides, it seemed like it was a tribute to CHARLIE's death.
9) CHARLIE lives with her (and her mom). He told her about it and to go.
14) I assumed that he thought it would make CHARLIE kill him but not her. He wanted to save her.

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