Cody Hamman shares Film Appreciation for the 1987 gateway horror film The Gate.
Directed by Tibor Takács from a screenplay written by Michael Nankin, the 1987 horror film The Gate lives up to its title in multiple ways. Not only does this exceptionally creepy movie deal with young kids accidentally opening a gateway to Hell in their back yard, but it also served as a gateway horror movie for me at the start of my genre fandom. I became a horror fan at the age of 3 in 1987, the same year this movie made its way out into the world, so it was among the first horror movies I ever saw... and I remember watching it a lot, so it must have gotten a good amount of play on cable. I can’t imagine all of those viewings were through VHS rentals.
The original draft of Nankin’s script had been darker, nastier, and much more violent, but the producers felt that, since the lead characters were children, the movie should be more family friendly. So Nankin removed the bloody violence, but he was still able to retain every bit of creepiness that went along with the idea – and that was enhanced by Takács’ approach to the material. Takács wanted the movie to have the feeling of enchantment throughout, to make it feel like the characters and the audience was under a magical spell, and he was absolutely able to achieve that. There’s a thick atmosphere of strangeness and dread from the moment The Gate begins, and things only get weirder and more unnerving as the movie goes along.
At the heart of the story are 12-year-old Glen (Stephen Dorff), his best friend Terry (Louis Tripp), and Glen’s 15, almost 16-year-old sister Alexandra (Christa Denton), who he calls Al. When an old tree is removed from the back yard of Glen and Al’s suburban home, it leaves a large hole in the ground – and when Glen and Terry find a geode in that hole, they decide to dig around in search of more geodes, which they hope to sell for money. Unfortunately for them, a series of circumstances happens to turn that hole into a gateway to Hell. First, Glen gets a splinter in his hand that spills blood at the hole. Then an unearthed geode splits open, and when it does, some odd writing appears on Glen’s Magic Slate board. Glen and Al’s parents leave on a three-day trip very early in the running time, leaving Glen in the care of Al for the first time in their lives. And, of course, the teenager decides to throw a party. During this party, the kids decide to try a levitation trick... and it works a little too well.
By now, the evil forces within the hole are able to manipulate the world around the kids, messing with their minds and emotions. That’s why the levitation trick works too well. That’s why Terry sees a vision of his mother, who passed away a year earlier... and when he embraces his mother, he realizes he’s actually holding Glen and Al’s dog, who has died in the night. Al asks a friend to dispose of the dog’s body for them. And when this friend just dumps the corpse into the hole in the yard, it counts as a sacrifice. And officially unleashes demonic forces on the household.
The Gate features some incredible special effects that were masterminded by Randall William Cook, with the most memorable being the appearance of the demons themselves. The demons we see the most of are tiny terrors, little minions that run around freaking people out, and these things were brought to the screen through a mixture of people in costumes on force-perspective sets, puppetry, and stop-motion. The demon lord that eventually emerges is a giant beast that was brought to life through some very cool stop-motion animation. The evil forces are able to tap into the characters’ deepest fears, toying not only with Glen’s fear of abandonment and putting him through a troubling scene where the evil forces make him think he’s being attacked by his father while his mom just stands by and laughs, but also with a fear Terry planted in his head: Terry told him that his house is haunted because a worker died while the house was being constructed. Instead of notifying the police, the guy’s co-workers just sealed him up in the walls of the house. So the evil has a zombified worker emerge from the walls of the house and attack the kids – and one of the most mind-blowing effects in the movie involves the zombie falling to the floor, where its body scatters, becoming a bunch of the demon minions.
Since this was the ‘80s, the kids are able to learn the secrets of the demons, old gods, and how a gate to Hell works through the liner notes and lyrics of a heavy metal album from a band called Sacrifyx (whose members died in a plane crash after the release of their only album). Getting some of the information requires playing the album in reverse. Once the dog corpse “offering” has been made and the demons are running loose, the demons only need to make two human sacrifices to establish Hell on Earth. The situation in Glen and Al’s home turns into a living nightmare while the demons try to achieve those sacrifices – and the demons can only be stopped by good spirit wielding energies of pure love and light. By the end of the film, Glen will have to figure out exactly what that means.
The Gate is a great movie for aspiring monster kids to check out, as it’s accessible for kids while still being really creepy, no matter what your age is. This is truly a classic that doesn’t get as much respect as it deserves and doesn’t get referenced as often as it should, but it does have a strong cult following and was successful enough to spawn a sequel. I have loved this movie ever since my first viewings of it when I was 3 or 4 years old, and it still holds up as a great horror film all these decades later, making it just as enjoyable to watch at age 40 as it was at age 4.
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