bad/awesome flixxx review: The Gate (1987)

"May the old devils depart! May they burn in the fires of their own damnation! May they freeze in the infinite golden darkness of their own hideous creation! "- Terry

"Well... ever since I burnt a hole in the roof my dad says I can't launch any of my rockets without supervision."- Glen

"Demons aren't gonna ring the doorbell!"- Terry

I forgot about watching this for the review. I passed out watching it at Sadat Thorr's house right before we flew to Europe last month. Then I woke up and finished it. What a blast from the past. I don't think I ever put it together that it was Stephen Dorff as the kid! A super creepy flick that hasn't lost any of the real magic it had 24 years ago. Heavy metal, digging in the backyard, best friends who were the "bad" kids, and demons. Sounds just like my childhood. Ol Bill S Preston Esquire himself (Alex Winter) is currently filming a 3D(?) remake. Stephen Dorff, and the chick who plays Kenny Powers sister-in-law on East Bound & Down in THE GATE.





So, in the beginning, Glen (Dorff) is returning home from playing outside or whatever, and no one seems to be home. He's yelling but the house is abandoned. He goes out into the backyard, climbs into his treehouse and sees a doll. Then the tree gets struck by lightning and the treehouse starts to fall and then Glen wakes up. He looks out the window and there are workers cutting down the tree that he was just dreaming about. He finds this "geode" type rock in a hole left open in the backyard after the workers left. With nothing else to do, Glen gets his buddy Terry to help him dig down in the hole until they find another bigger geode.



As they seem to do in all of these movies, the parents decide to split on a vacation for the weekend. The last thing they tell Glen's sister "Al" not to do before they leave is---- you guessed it- NO PARTIES!!! But you also know the very next scene. Cut to the PARTY! Everyone is drinking AND smoking ciggies in the house(!) (the eighties). Al agrees to let Terry sleep over to appease Glen so he won't tell their parents. The next thing you know, some douche at the party starts telling "ghost" stories. Why anyone would sit around and listen to this guy completely baffles me. Meanwhile, Terry & Glen bust the bigger geode open and its gross, but it leaves these marks on a notepad. They read them aloud, unknowingly releasing the forces of evil from "the gate" to Hell out in the backyard. Then they go downstairs and some nerd girl is telling everyone how they can levitate people, but everyone is like- bullshit! Then they talk Glen into trying it, and immediately he levitates all the way to the ceiling, it scares him, he runs away crying and wants to call his mom, but Al won't let him.



Ok, so Terry sees his dead mother in a dream and goes to hug her but wakes up hugging Glen's huge dead dog!!! GROSS! He freaks out, listens to some heavy metal records and then sees the same incantation reprinted on one of the album's sleeve from the geode. He becomes convinced that the hole in the backyard is the same one talked about in the lyrics referencing some black book. Ok, so Al's friend is supposed to dump the body of the dog but he can't find anywhere, and he just dumps it in the hole out back and covers it up. Glen and Terry realize the only thing they can do is to try and close the gate by reading something from the black book before their is a sacrifice that would open the gate all the way. Too late.



So now the gate is open and the dead dog shows up again, and Al finally sees the demons, and moths come after them, and Terry gets sucked into a hole, and let's see: demon fake parents, the phone sets on fire and melts, there's all these claymation mini monsters crawling around and transforming... dead people fall out of walls, and grab Terry into them, Then they get a pistol but it doesn't do shit, and then a huge demon comes out and finally Glen has to use a remote control rocket to send them back to Hell. Plus he gets an eyeball in his hand- AND HE STABS THE EYEBALL!! Would you do that? I'd be afraid it would hurt like Hell... EXACTLY. Well, this one has awesome special effects for the time, it drags a bit, and is really aimed at little kids... So its bad and awesome. Let's say 6 out of 10.