Travis Cluff
9 connections found
Filmography
View:
Connections, in both directions
What started as an interesting concept back in 1999 with the overrated “The Blair Witch Project,” quickly became old hat as a multitude of writers and directors tried to put their own spin on it, leading to numerous terrible knock-offs that flooded the market for about the next decade.
The stylistic trick – hey, here's a bunch of video we just happened to dig up! – got its first big exposure in 1999 with "The Blair Witch Project" and has ruled low-budget horror movies ever since.
Discovery: The Blair Witch Project pioneered the found footage genre in 1999.
Sixteen years after “The Blair Witch Project,” movie studios continue their love affair with found-footage horror movies, almost guaranteed profit centers that can be ground out for next to nothing since they don’t require name actors, elaborate location shooting, careful camera work or much in the way of a coherent story.
And so, unfortunately, for every truly chilling examples of the genre (The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, [REC]), there are several sequels, imitators, and remakes (Paranormal Activity 4, [REC] 3: Genesis, Quarantine) that continue to dilute the potential of the format.
There is exactly one truly creepy sequence in the entirety of The Gallows, the latest in a string of exhausting horror flicks courtesy of producer Jason Blum (Paranormal Activity, Insidious, Ouija).
And so, unfortunately, for every truly chilling examples of the genre (The Blair Witch Project, Paranormal Activity, [REC]), there are several sequels, imitators, and remakes (Paranormal Activity 4, [REC] 3: Genesis, Quarantine) that continue to dilute the potential of the format.
A quick $5 million spent and you can reap untold, Paranormal Activity-esque rewards — and for some reason, the gullible genre crowd buys into it every time.
That’s about the only thing working for “ The Gallows ,” a routine found-footage chiller of interest mostly to those who weren’t yet old enough to catch “Paranormal Activity” in its theatrical release a mere six years ago.
The movie is never as ingenious as the first Paranormal Activity movie, and it doesn’t resonate with any deeper themes like Unfriended , a better film that’s scarcely more sophisticated in its techniques.
And some of the "Paranormal Activity" movies have found new ways to exploit it (particularly by using a fixed-viewpoint camera that involves audiences, making them search the frame for frights).
After 2009’s “Paranormal Activity” took the world by storm (grossing $193 million worldwide on a tiny $15,000 production budget), producing it paved the way for Jason Blum and his Blumhouse Productions to produce and put his stamp on “Insidious,” “Sinister,” “The Purge,” “Ouija,” “The Lazarus Effect,” “The Boy Next Door,” “Jessabelle,” “Unfriended,” “Oculus” and all of their follow-ups.
Some would add “Insidious” and “Paranormal Activity,” which shows just how low the bar can be set.
Blumhouse Productions produced that film, and continues churning out sequels (the sixth one drops this fall) as well as producing the Sinister and Insidious franchises.
Though the movie was bankrolled by Blumhouse Productions, which has made millions from micro-budgeted horror flicks like the “Insidious” and “Paranormal Activity” series, “The Gallows” is just the latest in a long line of amateurish junk that the studio has been cranking out for years.
Blumhouse Productions (the “Paranormal Activity” and “Insidious” franchise, among others) picked it up, gave the guys some dough to spruce up the scares a bit, and here we are.
Picked up by "Paranormal Activity" and "Insidious" producer Jason Blum and distributed by Warner Brothers, this minimally clever addition to the existing pile of scares, fright and videotape doesn't seem likely to become a "Paranormal Activity"-type phenomenon.
Dismal found-footage films like The Gallows resort to nauseatingly shaky camerawork and murky, uninvolving images…
This may sound satirical, but the mashup of Demon Seed and Saw is pretty humorless, even more so when it begins to add heavy-handed elements from The Stepford Wives and The Handmaid’s Tale .
Producer Jason Blum has made a lot of profitable but forgettable horror films like "The Gallows" and "Ouija," but we have to give him credit for terrific films and TV shows like "Get Out," "Whiplash" and "The Good Lord Bird."
While it evolves into the paranormal in ways I would have expected, it’s not nearly as ridiculously forced and artificial like how many other recent horror films have done it including the critically panned movies “The Lazarus Effect,” “Tusk,” “Jessabelle,” 2014’s “Deliver Us From Evil,” “Annabelle,” “The ABCs of Death” and 2015’s “Poltergeist”.
Blumhouse Productions has given the horror genre a jolt in the arm with such films as "Paranormal Activity," "Split" and "Get Out," but they've also delivered duds like "Unfriended" and "The Gallows."
But failing to live up to The Invisible Man doesn’t make Held a bad movie, just a mediocre one.