The Gate (1987)

I remembered watching this movie at my childhood-best-friend's house when I was 9 or 10. Other than that though, I didn't really remember anything else about it prior to walking into the Alamo for Terror Thursday. It's a shame too, because I probably would of grown up a lot cooler if I revisited it from time to time.

“The Gate” stars a very young Stephen Dorff as Glen, a normal little boy living in suburbia who discovers a hole in his backyard that is actually the gateway to Hell. After Glen and his best friend, Terry, play a Heavy Metal record backwards, they accidentally unlock the gate and let loose a ton of little demons. With their parents out of town, Glen, his sister Al, and Terry must survive the weekend alone while the depths of Hell crawl out of the backyard.

For starters, “The Gate” is a lot of fun, but it's also a rather well-made movie. I imagine it would play just as well on a small screen in your living room by yourself as it did in a sold out theater. They simply don't make enough Horror movies nowadays that involve kids-in-peril. Too often, the potential victims in Horror movies are annoying lame-ass adults that you just want to see die. Rarely do they make the protagonists someone you can actually root for like Terry, the black-leather-jacket-wearing, back-masking-Metalhead-nerd with dead-mommy issues.

Another awesome thing about this movie is that the kids are actually smart, and have to deal with extraordinary situations in “realistic” ways. In other words, they don't have to rely on the assistance of a charming supernatural being or the use of a magical weapon (unless you count the power of Metal) to ward off the evil demons. They are also pretty realistic kids; they're resilient in the way kids tend to be (Terry deals with his Mom's death the only way he knows how), but they still frighten easily and have real childlike fears.

The scare-factor was pretty high in the film as well (especially for a PG-13 movie from 1987), and it also included quite a bit of weird-hallucinogenic-sequences that I imagine traumatized a fair amount of little kids in the 80's. By far though, the real star of this film was the stop-motion demons. I actually got shivers at times due to the uncannily life-like movements of some of the creatures.

Anyway, good 80's flick with a Metal Heart!!!

“The Gate” screened at midnight on 9/11/08 at the Alamo Ritz and was presented by Terror Thursday.