‘Gallowwalkers’ Review
Stars: Wesley Snipes, Kevin Howarth, Riley Smith, Tanit Phoenix, Simona Roman, Steven Elder, Patrick Bergin, Hector Hank, Jonathan García, Alyssa Pridham, Diamond Dallas Page, Alex Avant, Jenny Gago | Written by Andrew Goth, Joanne Reay | Directed by Andrew Goth
Aman (Snipes) is on a mission of vengeance to kill the men who abused the woman he loved, resulting in her death. Or rather, he was on a mission of vengeance, and it was successful. The problem is, the men he hunter are back once again as the undead. They have now all become Gallowwalkers. So now he must set off again to finish the job he started and avenge the love of his life.
Zombies and Westerns. Two genres which you would think would go epically together. Gunfights. Undead. Horse riding. Dramatic slow motion. Epic fights for survival. Combined they could make a film of awesome proportions and as a zombie movie fan, I am all for it. To be fair, Gallowwalkers does have all of those things I just listed, and headed by Wesley Snipes of Blade fame, I had high hopes for this film.
Maybe I had too high hopes for this film. Perhaps I expected too much, but I do not think this film delivered what it could have been. The story itself is a little absurd, but that is forgivable. After all, it’s a zombie-western, that’s pretty crazy. Unfortunately, I wasn’t sure if the film was taking itself too seriously or it was being deliberately tacky. A lot of the “bad guys” in the film looked like they would have been more comfortable in a 90’s Power Rangers episode and the main bad guy even seemed to talk like he was from one too.
The fight scenes almost felt like they were trying too hard during a lot of the action sequence which led them to feel a bit boring, unrealistic and cringe worthy at times. Also it seemed to really want you to know it was a western. Every single person Aman meets, he seemed to have a slow motion, heart pumping, pistol drawing duel with. Except, the heart pumping seems to get a bit weaker every single time because you know he is going to win anyway so what is the point?
The premise for Gallowwalkers was cool, but by the time the old woman looks at Aman and whispers “He has the one thing a gunman needs to be great….. no reason to live” I was out. If the film was being deliberately cheesy, I think I could have handled it but that just didn’t seem to be the case. This film plays too hard on the clichés of both genres it tries to combine and sadly doesn’t succeed in creating a good mash up film.
Gallowwalkers is released on DVD on May 5th, courtesy of Signature Entertainment.
