It all started with some home video footage from 1993, where a young lead actor named Charlie puts his head in an on-stage noose in the final act of his high school play The Gallows. We know something bad is about to happen.

Twenty years later, the school'€™s drama class opts to revive the play in an attempt to commemorate the tragedy '€” a strange and terrible decision that leads to a night of horror at the school.  

The movie, also titled The Gallows, is the latest attempt at a found-footage horror movie, boasting a premise that surely entices teens and makes them jump out of their seats.

The movie'€™s suspense is built on a series of banging doors, a cheerleader'€™s shrieks, sudden ghostly attacks and occasional appearances of a hooded hangman.

With its young cast and high school-centered story, The Gallows is a good movie for a date night. However, serious
horror buffs may see it as merely the latest botched attempt at found-footage horror movie.

Taking the lead is a handsome football jock, Reese (Reese Mishler), who opted to do the play simply because he has an eye for drama nerd Pfeifer (Pfeifer Brown), who plays the leading female role in the play.

 Although he can barely act, Reese is willing to take the leading role in the performance. It is a ludicrous decision considering that he has to stick his head around the rigged noose as Charlie did two decades before '€” but his admiration for Pfeifer has apparently paralyzed his ability to think.

Reese'€™s best buddy is Ryan (Ryan Shoos), who takes his video camcorder everywhere '€” making him the principal videographer of the film. He is an obnoxious boy who is fond of picking on geeky stagehands, makes fun of Ryan'€™s terrible acting skills and ultimately comes up with a plan to ruin the theater set a night before the premiere show.

Reese agrees to take part in the plan, to save face amid stage fright and a likely poor performance that would disappoint Pfeifer.

Ryan'€™s cheerleader girlfriend Cassidy (Cassidy Gifford) tags along with the two, simply to have some fun.

After school hours, they break in through a broken door and start destroying the set and props '€” including the gallows and its stairs in the center of the stage.

Unexpectedly, Pfeifer shows up after discovering Ryan'€™s car parked outside the school.

The audience is plunged into the typical teenage movie shenanigans and romance from here, with Ryan breaking the locker of his bullying victim and Pfeifer getting mad at Reese after learning about his plan to sabotage the play.

Then, the suspense starts to build '€” the stage gallows are put back in position and Cassidy gets rope burn around her neck. All the doors are locked and no phones are working.

In this dangerous situation, the teens exhibit the type of stupid behavior generally carried out by horror movie characters '€” leaving a friend alone, climbing onto a precarious ladder and mocking Charlie'€™s ghost, which of course, is responded to furiously by the poltergeist.

Interestingly, writer-directors Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing used the lead actors'€™ first names as character names to keep things feeling even more genuine for the cast. They also kept the script open to allow a good deal of room for the actors to improvise.

The 81-minute film delivers scores of jumpy shocks '€” bangs on the door and the victims being pulled in an abrupt fashion. In the first half of the film, the audience waits in anticipation for something shocking to happen.

The suspense starts to weaken the minute Charlie, taking the form of a hooded hangman, shows up. With a rope as his only weapon, there are not many creative murderous methods he can apply when menacing the students.

The film unfolds mainly through Ryan'€™s camera lens, which gives slightly too many shaky shots and at one time a prolonged shot of the actors'€™ shoes. Later on, more cameras show up, which enables the directors to rewind with the timeline to give different perspectives on the same occurrences. That footage, however, will barely tingle the spines of true horror fans.

Through a secret door connecting to a dark corridor, news footage of the play'€™s tragedy plays on an old television alongside an original Gallows cast photo. The Gallows builds an urban legend that aims to be the catalyst of the film. However, it lacks in-depth and convincing details.

Given its half-baked legend and heavy reliance on jumpy surprises, the film, which hit theaters on July 10, is the latest entry on a long list of mediocre found-footage horror films. But with its attractive young cast and its school-centered theme, The Gallows offers a sufficient dose of horror to amuse teenage viewers.

'€” Photos courtesy of Warner Bros. Pictures

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The Gallows
(Warner Bros.; 81 minutes)

Written and directed by: Travis Cluff and Chris Lofing
Cast: Reese Mishler, Cassidy Gifford, Ryan Shoos, Pfeifer Brown, Price T. Morgan and Alexis Schneider