...pray it's not too late

Ahhhh, The Gate. As a kid growing up in the 80's this movie terrified me and gave me nightmares for weeks. Maybe it's just nostalgia but watching it now still holds up as one hell of a fun movie, just not as scary as it once was. Released in 1987 written by Michael Nankin and directed by Tibor Takacs, the story is pretty simple, a tree is uprooted due to a nasty storm opening a portal to hell, the parents leave for the night and literally all hell breaks loose for the kids involved.
Starring a young Stephen Dorff as glen and his friend the metal head Terrence (played by Louis Tripp) who is mostly to blame for opening the gateway to hell, along with Glens sister and a few others it turns into a night of zombies, satanic records, little clay demons, a melting phone, ghosts, a nasty dead guy in the wall and demons disguised as their parents. This film is chock full of 80's cheese and cool practical special effects. One of my favorite things in the gate would have to be the little clay demons which look like something the great special effects master Ray Harryhausen (Clash of the Titans, Voyage of Sinbad) could have created. During one classic scene the demons disguise themselves as the parents and the kids quickly find out the hard way when the fathers face is peeled off and then the phone melts to the wall.
This film is filled with so much 80's cheese including the music, clothes and the lingo you just have to love it. When I was a kid I watched this movie just as much as the Goonies and in some senses it is a lot like the Goonies.
If any of this sounds good to you and you like those type of movies that could only have been made in the 80's than this is for you. I think that is a big part of what gives this film the charm it has, it's like a snapshot in time that could not be done today, along with a plethora of other 80's movies. There was a new Gate movie that was suppose to be made this year but was dropped by the studio, which I think is a good thing.Echo Bridge entertainment released The Gate on DVD in 2003 on an ultra bare-bones disc including no extras and an awful transfer that looks like it is straight from VHS. Hopefully in the near future we will get a good DVD release of this film and it gets the attention it deserves. Some may say that movies you loved to watch as a kid, good or bad, stick with you due to being blinded by nostalgia, all i have to say is if that is true or not The Gate is a great little movie and I will always return to it and the great memories I have of watching it in my youth.
Rating: C+
Posted by Jason