Director: Tibor Takács
Starring: Stephen Dorff, Christa Denton, Louis Tripp, Kelly Rowan, Jennifer Irwin
Tagline: "... pray it's not too late!"
Random Trivia: Director Takács is a Hungarian who got his start in Canadian television. He's done plenty of B-Movies since, but The Gate remains a classic. Stephen Dorff is young enough to be unreconizable now; this was his first film role.
Winding down the B-movie marathon, we have a classic: The Gate.
The Gate creeped me out as a kid, although looking back, it's pretty laughable, what with the CGI ghoulies and cheese effects. Still, this is the movie that made me want to dig a huge hole in my back yard to see what I could find. It's the movie that made parents yet again freak out about satanic messages on heavy metal records - which might actually open the gates to hell!!! Muhahahaha!
Wow this shit was fun back then. It's still pretty fun, but lets be honest, it hasn't held up the way some of its comtempories have.
You might know the story here, and if you don't, it's pretty self-explanatory: a bunch of kids led by Stephen Dorff open the gates to hell via a hole in his backyard. Well, technically, some idiot teenager does most of the damage - aren't the older kids always fucking things up for the tykes? This is the Stand By Me effect I think.
The entire thing is conveniently explained by the liner notes of a heavy metal record, and soon these tiny little stop-motion demons are chasing them. That's somewhat like being scared that Gonzo is going to go all muppet-badass and kill you, but hey, it's the 80s - stop motion/claymation monsters were scary, damn it!
The kids wind up on the run while their parents are away, of course, and at first the older crowd doesn't believe what's happening. Worse, they refuse to call the old farts for help. Please remember, this is before 12 year olds carried glocks...
Oh yea - and there's the classic freaky eyeball in a hand scene!
I adore this flick, no matter how dated, but I'll get to that in a sec. Basically, this movie is fun under any condition, and since it's not a hard R horror, it's a good way to introduce your little bro/sis/cousin to scary movies if you're stuck minding the brats.
I'm going to finish up by saying something that would likely piss a few people off: I love the Gate, have nothing but fond memories of it, but this is one of those rare films begging for a remake. It has no particular star. It's not dear enough to rape anyone's childhood - but it's a cool concept that could definitely be updated and become a little darker (note: after a little digging, it seems a remake is being mulled - by Alex Winter of Bill and Ted fame?!?).
Overall Rating: Half-Baked (3 out of 5)
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