Everyone starts somewhere, and while not every debut is always a winner (as Park Chan-Wook stated earlier this year his first few features were complete failures) Edward Shimborske the 4th tries his hand and writing and directing his first feature, at the ripe age of 24 (starting the project at 21) with On Gallows Hill, and potentially bit off a lot more than he could chew. The biggest issue here is the sheer fact that this is a feature – the concept is great for a short but the full drowned out concept into a feature is detrimental, his direction is admirable and there is *something* there but again needs a more refined touch and someone to dial him in. On Gallows Hill is an admirable debut feature, but there is a lot to take in and not all of it is good.
The movie focuses on Matthew (Rohan Maletira) and his friends as they go underage drinking in NYC to blow off some steam and enjoy their night. He has an unusual encounter with the bar bouncer, Stuart (Tim Pollack) who asks him all the usual questions, but ends with “whats your blood type” clearly trying to see if it’s a fake ID or not, but who knows that specific information off the top of their head either? However, as the night progresses Matthew gets thrown out of the bar for a fight, gets attacked on his way home and lo and behold when he wakes he is now suddenly and somehow a vampire.
What differs from Edward’s feature here, is that instead of being able to target anyone they want, to feed they have to specifically feed off of someone with the same blood type as them before they turned. Innocuous, but a fun little twist, however Matthew is O negative, so that is going to be a much harder task to try and accomplish. He meets an Australian vampire, Joseph (Sam Smiley) who wants to show him the ropes and what not, and introduces him to the Inner Circle (a vampire club) that is heralded by Ben (Noah Jacobs) who turns out to be a lot more menacing than anyone initially thinks or knows.
Without giving away too much more, Matthew has to figure out how to navigate his new vampire lifestyle, survive, and not kill people. It is an interesting concept, that has a convoluted way of being executed with performances across the board that are unfortunately questionable at best. The one stand out here is Sam Smiley whose interesting and provides a solid performance, but everyone else feels like they’re doing a high school production unfortunately – and if it’s intentional to tie into the campiness of it all it would work if it felt that way. It just feels poorly constructed and downright aggravating – there is a lot to admire and be interested by with On Gallows Hill but the execution overall is the weak point in script and direction, with poor performances. Overall, On Gallows Hill would’ve been significantly better with some less tuned out performances and half the running time making this interesting concept a short rather than a feature.
