{"id":18457,"date":"2014-10-17T03:32:47","date_gmt":"2014-10-17T07:32:47","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=18457"},"modified":"2016-01-11T03:35:39","modified_gmt":"2016-01-11T08:35:39","slug":"the-gate-1987","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2014\/10\/17\/the-gate-1987\/","title":{"rendered":"The Gate (1987)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"gate\"<\/a><\/p>\n

It\u2019s really tough to separate my bias for \u201cThe Gate\u201d and be objective about the entire film. \u201cThe Gate\u201d is one film that was on constant rotation for me as a child, and it was a pure favorite of mine in the days when my only source of movie viewing was the WPIX primetime movie during the week. \u201cThe Gate\u201d is almost like Lovecraft for the Goonies audience that thankfully hasn\u2019t worn much in its old age. It\u2019s tonally uneven, granted, but still such a damn fun horror fantasy.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

Stephen Dorff plays Glen, a seemingly normal suburban boy whose life changes when construction workers cut down the tree in his back yard that oddly enough lies at the gateway of a hellish dimension. By a series of coincidences and circumstances (involving a geode and a dead dog), Glen and his friend Terry accidentally complete a ritual that opens the gate allowing its demonic beings to breach our reality. Over the course of one night Glen, Terry, and Glen\u2019s sister Al have to do battle with its assorted minions including dwarfish demons, apparitions, and hellish hallucinations. \u201cThe Gate\u201d constantly jumps back and forth from a \u201cGoonies\u201d-esque fantasy horror film to pure horror that drips with dread at every turn.<\/p>\n

Director Tibor Tak\u00e1cs summons the mood and atmosphere of HP Lovecraft, leaving elements of the villainous demons ambiguous while also revealing their abilities to wreak havoc on our trio of heroes. We\u2019re given a clear insight in to their power to touch on people\u2019s greatest fears and personal demons, and forming a hive mind to combine their strength. As well, there\u2019s the unveiling of the master being in the finale, but we\u2019re never quite given a full glimpse in to the dimension the demons originate from. That\u2019s kept mysterious until the sequel. I still love the design of the small demons and have always enjoyed how vicious they are, in spite of their size.<\/p>\n

In either case, \u201cThe Gate\u201d forms some truly interesting characters with their own issues and complexities, all the while forming a three pronged narrative that ends in a final scene I\u2019m still convinced is a deceptive fantasy. \u201cThe Gate\u201d can be funny, surreal, and often times really creepy, especially during the scene where sister Al is dragged away by a zombie. There\u2019s also the great moment where Glen\u2019s parents (out of town for most of the movie) arrive during the chaos to embrace him, only to reveal themselves to be demons. \u201cThe Gate\u201d is a tough sell, but still a very entertaining and raucous mind trip in to a horrific night that never seems to end. It\u2019s great nostalgia, and still holds up as a horror fantasy hybrid.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

It\u2019s really tough to separate my bias for \u201cThe Gate\u201d and be objective about the entire film. \u201cThe Gate\u201d is one film that was on constant rotation for me as a child, and it was a pure favorite of mine in the days when my only source of movie viewing was the WPIX primetime movie […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,12],"tags":[71,276,349,385,477,678,897,1008,1087,1221],"class_list":["post-18457","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-halloween-horror-month","category-movie-reviews","tag-adventure","tag-demons","tag-fantasy","tag-g","tag-horror","tag-monsters","tag-satanic","tag-supernatural","tag-thriller","tag-zombies"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18457","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=18457"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18457\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18459,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/18457\/revisions\/18459"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=18457"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=18457"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=18457"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}