Review of The Gate (1987) by Andrew H — 13 Oct 2010

"YOU'VE BEEN BAAAAAAD!!!!!" This is one of my favorite horror movies. I first saw it as a kid not long after it came out, and it's not really any less frightening today. The movie has a fairly slow build, with mostly suggestions of creepy things (walls beings stretched as if hands are pushing from behind them, weird insect behavior, a bug-zapper running while seemingly unplugged, an instance of levitation) until about halfway through the movie, when the geode really hits the fan.

The film features the following:

1). Creepy little demonic creatures running around and causing mischief, biting, grabbing, etc.

2). Dead dog, formerly buried in your backyard, ending up in your bed.

3). Freaky dreams of your dead mom morphing into aforementioned dead dog.

4). A demon impersonating your dad (with melting face).

5). Growing a new eye on the palm of your hand.

6). Decomposed, undead, walled-up construction worker breaking through the wall of your basement and dragging you off to a pocket dimension.

7). A simulacrum of your dead pal coming back from the grave to try to kill you.

8). Bottomless pit to Hell opening in your living room.

9). "Bogeyman" arms grabbing you from under your bed.

10). A phone call from beyond our world, terminating in said phone spontaneously combusting.

The movie's plot is fairly simple. A tree falls in Glen's (Stephen Dorff) backyard. Investigating the hole left by the fallen tree, Glen and his geeky, metalhead friend Terry (Louis Tripp) discover a geode. They take it inside and break it open on Glen's desk. The geode causes a magic spell to be imprinted on a notepad. The boys read the words aloud, not realizing what they mean. This begins the process of opening a gate from our world to the realm of the "Old Gods", beings who ruled the universe before mankind. Various unnerving events start unfolding--at first just vivid, disturbing dreams, but increasing unexplainable phenomena, culminating with the actual invasion of the Old Gods to our world. Drawn into this are Glen and Terry, Glen's sister Al(exandra)--played by Christa Denton, and Al's two friends, the Lee Sisters (played by Kelly Rowan and Jennifer Irwin). Glen and Al's parents are conveniently out of town, as per common 80's movie trope.

Fortunately, heavy metal comes to the rescue. Terry owns a metal album by the fictional band Sacrifyx ("my dad picked it up in Europe") that is basically a warning to mankind about the Old Gods. The album's jacket also contains the rituals needed to seal the gate and save humanity.

"The Gate" has interesting plot twists and unexpected shocks. You really don't see everything coming from a mile away, the way you do in some horror movies. The movie has Lovecraftian elements with the idea of a race of inhuman creatures who ruled Earth before the dawn of man (Lovecraft's "Old Ones", here the "Old Gods"). There are a few laughs too, like Glen's sister's friends hiding in a closet, terrified out of their minds, wearing garlic-bulb necklaces (where did they get those, anyway?) and when Terry is being dragged off by the zombie construction worker, screaming "I was only joking!!" (he had made up the story about the worker to scare Glen). This movie may also have a message about parental distance and abandonment. Terry's mom is dead, his never-seen dad is always out of town on business, and Glen and Al's parents leave them alone while all the otherworldly events are unfolding (though to be fair, they had no idea what was going on). The special effects are really good for pre-CGI effects. There's nothing amateurish about them. "The Gate" is definitely the kind of movie that captured 1987; the girls have awesome color-streaked hair and the pimple-faced guys dress like 'duckie' from "Pretty In Pink.".

This movie owes a bit to "Poltergeist" (which came out five years earlier). It also fits into what I call the "creepy little rubber creature" genre of horror, popular in the 1980's (Gremlins, Ghoulies, Troll, Critters, Cat's Eye, Hobgoglins, etc.). All in all a very solid movie with rewatchability. Four stars!