What not To Watch – Gallowwalkers

Westerns can be great as well as Sci-Fi/Horror but the mixture of the two is as bad as peanut butter and dog mouth. In all seriousness the term Sci-Fi Western makes most people cringe as well as the other terms like Weird West and Space Western. Serenity is the exception and not the rule. For every Firefly, there is a Wild Wild West, Cowboys & Aliens, and Jonah Hex. I’m sure it can be done correctly but it hasn’t really happened yet. Gallowwalkers is at the bottom of an already shallow gene pool.

The plot is one you’ve seen overused in Hollywood. Basically, a bunch of dudes raped his adoptive sister and he killed them all then they all return as zombies and he has to kill them again in order for them to be dead again. Of course, he needs to recruit a stranger with no obvious skills to help him as opposed to finding bounty hunters or men with any kinds of abilities that could be applicable. I can’t even tell you how many times I have seen this story. It’s practically the plot from The Notebook. My favorite scene from The Notebook was when Rachel McAdams fought that weird Master Blaster looking zombie in the shed with the hook.

Wesley Snipes ‘stars?’ in this zombie vomit alongside a bunch of unknowns. No terrible movie would be complete without one of the actors being a current/former athlete or professional wrestler. In Gallowwalkers, we get none other than Diamond Dallas Page. The bang-man himself. Not even the practitioner of the Diamond Cutter himself could alchemize a decent movie out of this heap of Space-ghetti Western. I suppose they were doing the best they could with such a bad story. It was easy to be taken out of the ‘story’ by Snipes’ lack of emotion and Riley Smith’s overacting. Their onscreen chemistry was that of a nerd that paid just enough for a really attractive hooker to pretend that she is into him but not enough to ensure she tries to be believable. Let that be a lesson, always tip well for good service.

Gallowwalkers is a great example of a movie that became terrible due to being in production hell. Mad Max: Fury Road is the exception to this rule (you can read it when you’re done I promise). Gallowwalkers started production in 2006 and wasn’t released in the UK until 2012 and the US in 2013 on DVD. The long production was partially due to Snipes’ tax problems, which I feel would make a much better movie. Apparently Snipes should add The Untouchables to his Netflix queue.

So the curse in the movie is as follows: The Devil? brings him back to life but all the people he killed are brought back as zombies that will seek revenge until they are killed in more definitive way. They raped his sister and deserved what they got but Snipes’ character killing all those men while they are locked up in jail doesn’t make him a good guy. It practically makes him a glorified version of Billy the Exterminator. Everyone in this is deplorable in their own way. This movie was definitely made a gothic pre-teen that just watched the first Mad Max after watching Investigation Discovery for two straight days. I think Smith is the only real protagonist but even he is a murderer in his own right and eventually becomes a zombie as well thanks to Snipes curse. Now does this mean that every fly he ever swatted comes back too? What about animals he killed for food? Plants are alive, do they count? This plot point is so dumb and vague that I find it hard to buy into.

I would love to remake Gallowwalkers into something that makes some kind of sense. I feel like the real key here would be to keep the revenge element without keeping the nonsensical curse and other major plot points. I would want to take the main character and keep his look and a chunk of the backstory. In my story the sister and mother would get raped by the gang and Snipes would attempt to kill the gang and is killed by them easily due to him being ill prepared for the situation. He is sent to hell and is given the opportunity to come back to life and extract revenge by a demon. After his revenge is extracted you find out at the end of the movie that he has signed up to be the leader of the undead. Yes, this is the plot from Spawn. I really just want to see Snipes as Spawn. He can be the Spawn for the old west and the Michael Jai White movie would still stand.

As always I am Tim McDonald, your movie watching stunt double. Hit me up on Twitter or Facebook to make suggestions or comments. I have a good sized list of movies to review but I am always open to recommendations or requests.