It's terrible. Simply terrible.
The premise is sound, and it should be, it's over 100 years old, borrowing heavily from Robert W. Chambers 'The King in Yellow', wherein a Stage Play by the given name drives readers mad and sometimes has supernatural and dire consequences.
The Gallows Act II toys with the idea, using it to craft a relatively generic ghost story, where the readers of the so-named play are haunted and eventually killed by the ghost of Charlie, the specter of the play's author.
However, as one reaches the twist at the climax, the film unmakes itself. It turns out to be a conspiracy involving many of the victims of Charlie's curse, who have been perpetrating a ruse to convince our main character to take her own life. Of course, I suppose the audience is supposed to forget the telekinetic strangulations, the phantoms appearing and disappearing, and other supernatural phenomenon, as well as dismissing the capacity of the police to arrest the crew, who addresses the final hidden camera with faces uncovered, at the end of a young girl being hanged. It's a bafflingly stupid decision.
The premise is sound, and it should be, it's over 100 years old, borrowing heavily from Robert W. Chambers 'The King in Yellow', wherein a Stage Play by the given name drives readers mad and sometimes has supernatural and dire consequences.
The Gallows Act II toys with the idea, using it to craft a relatively generic ghost story, where the readers of the so-named play are haunted and eventually killed by the ghost of Charlie, the specter of the play's author.
However, as one reaches the twist at the climax, the film unmakes itself. It turns out to be a conspiracy involving many of the victims of Charlie's curse, who have been perpetrating a ruse to convince our main character to take her own life. Of course, I suppose the audience is supposed to forget the telekinetic strangulations, the phantoms appearing and disappearing, and other supernatural phenomenon, as well as dismissing the capacity of the police to arrest the crew, who addresses the final hidden camera with faces uncovered, at the end of a young girl being hanged. It's a bafflingly stupid decision.