{"id":24648,"date":"2017-03-13T03:23:11","date_gmt":"2017-03-13T07:23:11","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=24648"},"modified":"2024-05-29T08:26:50","modified_gmt":"2024-05-29T12:26:50","slug":"you-have-to-see-this-the-gate-1987","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2017\/03\/13\/you-have-to-see-this-the-gate-1987\/","title":{"rendered":"You Have to See This! The Gate (1987)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>There were a lot of movies about suburban unrest and the darkness of the suburbs in the mid to late eighties, and one of the most underrated is \u201cThe Gate.\u201d I did not see \u201cThe Gate\u201d when it originally appeared in theaters (I did see the sequel though!), but I did finally get to see it when it premiered on network TV in the early nineties. Back in the early nineties my family was much too impoverished to get a luxury like cable, so a lot of my time was spent watching network televised movies. The network I always watched was WPIX Channel 11 in New York, and it was once considered \u201cNew York\u2019s Movie Station,\u201d allowing me to see a diverse library of movies made between 1980 and 1991.<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

That said, my first viewing of \u201cThe Gate\u201d is still one of the most thrilling and chilling experiences of my life, as a movie that didn\u2019t just watch like an extended story from \u201cScary Stories to Tell in the Dark,\u201d but pretty much tackled just about every childhood fear I ever had. I remember first watching \u201cThe Gate\u201d and having absolutely no idea what I was getting in to. In the end I was left with a pretty excellent Friday night horror movie that stuck in my brain for years. Tibor Tak\u00e1cs horror fantasy has become so appreciated over the years, and for good reason. You have to admire \u201cThe Gate\u201d not only for its simplicity, but terror that veers very close to Amblin like wonder that films like \u201cPoltergeist\u201d and \u201cTwilight Zone: The Movie\u201d embraced.<\/p>\n

When his parents go away on a trip for the weekend, Glen and his best friend Terry begin experiencing unusual goings on in their backyard, including the discovery of a mysterious geode and a bottomless hole. After accidentally playing a Satanic incantation on one of their favorite heavy metal albums, events spiral out of control, as Glen, Terry, and big sister Al find themselves under siege by relentless demons that plan to drag them back to hell, and infiltrate Earth to invade. With the trio trying to survive the demonic invasion, they decide to fight back before hell opens up and swallows reality.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>\u201cThe Gate\u201d is a movie about children alone in their home, at the mercy of monsters at every corner, and still grieving the loss of a pet and family while being forced to face this inherent demonic terror. And lest we forget that yet again, we have a seemingly inconspicuous house become the center of truly heinous events. \u201cThe Gate\u201d begins innocently enough but like most great horror movies, the puzzle pieces all seem to fall in to place one by one before this trio of children realizes too late that they\u2019re living on top of a portal to hell that promises to suck them in and make them one of its brood. \u201cThe Gate\u201d mysteriously enough, feels like two movies, where we\u2019re subjected to something of a classic horror tale of teens being terrorized, and then writer Michael Nankin transforms \u201cThe Gate\u201d in to a very personal journey in to the hell dimension that characters Terry and Glen accidentally evoke.<\/p>\n

What helps \u201cThe Gate\u201d successfully flow as this awe inspiring but insanely menacing trip in to terror is that creation of the demons that are dangerous in their miniature forms and when they\u2019re working together as a unit. When we first see them they are absolutely haunting to gaze at, and director Tibor Tak\u00e1cs is very smart about zeroing in on what makes them so absolutely terrifying. Sure they can be taken down by stomping on them, but good luck being able to overcome them as they rush their victims in the dozens. Not to mention when they get together they end up kidnapping one of the key characters in the form of an undead construction worker. The demons are everything we hate and everything we\u2019re scared of.<\/p>\n

They\u2019re they boogeymen that creep in to the shadows and understand what we\u2019re scared of and why we\u2019re scared of them. We\u2019re never told how and why they\u2019re capable of getting in to the minds of these kids, we just know they do whatever it takes to play on their weaknesses to prey on them, even if they have to show up as one of the characters\u2019 long dead mother. Not only do they take down these children, but they take them down in the cleverest ways possible, appearing as the mythical undead worker who takes both Terry and Al in to their realm. Despite being released in 1987, \u201cThe Gate\u201d still spawns some pretty mesmerizing special effects, all of which are not CGI. Pretty much all of the effects implement stop motion, and forced perspective, as well as amazing editing that allows the monsters a sense of realism that CGI can\u2019t afford.<\/p>\n

\"\"<\/a>The scene of the undead construction worker dropping to the floor and breaking in to a dozen small demons is still a beautiful scene, and helps establish the sense of chaos present in the film\u2019s nightmarish narrative. There\u2019s also some commendable rubber suit work with the extras playing the miniature demons doing a convincing job wearing brutally detailed and grotesque monster designs. \u00a0And while \u201cThe Gate\u201d can definitely be considered a very menacing tale of the supernatural and satanic enemies, there\u2019s also a ton of dark humor, especially in the first half as main character Glen is forced to endure sister Al\u2019s obnoxious best friends. There\u2019s also the classic \u201cYou\u2019ve been bad!\u201d antagonizing from the demons involving a very well animated melting phone, and the deliriously creepy fake out involving Glenn\u2019s parents arriving in the middle of the demonic siege.<\/p>\n

I\u2019ve always insisted that the climax of the movie was another fake out and that Terry, Glenn and Al lost the battle with the demons. Maybe they were sucked in to hell or maybe the entire Earth is drenched in demons and the satanic, who knows? The climax just always seemed a tad too squeaky clean for my taste, especially when you considered their dog is suddenly revived to celebrate with them. Regardless, \u201cThe Gate\u201d has that menace, awe, edge, and adventurousness that puts it in the league of films like \u201cMonster Squad,\u201d \u201cThe Goonies,\u201d and \u201cPoltergeist.\u201d It\u2019s perfect gateway horror for younger horror geeks that want a dose of Spielberg, Lovecraft, and Barker.<\/p>\n

I envy the kids that get to see \u201cThe Gate\u201d for the first time, as it\u2019s one of the many horror movies I\u2019d suggest as a mid-way point between lightweight fodder and the really rough genre fare. \u201cThe Gate\u201d has held up shockingly well since 1987 and Tibor Tak\u00e1cs takes what is a considerably low budget film and spins a damn good horror tale with kids fighting demons both from hell, and from their own psyche. It\u2019s too bad the sequel never quite lived up to the promise this film delivered.<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

There were a lot of movies about suburban unrest and the darkness of the suburbs in the mid to late eighties, and one of the most underrated is \u201cThe Gate.\u201d I did not see \u201cThe Gate\u201d when it originally appeared in theaters (I did see the sequel though!), but I did finally get to see […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1717],"tags":[276,349,477,897,1087],"class_list":["post-24648","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-yhts","tag-demons","tag-fantasy","tag-horror","tag-satanic","tag-thriller"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24648","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=24648"}],"version-history":[{"count":6,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24648\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":43992,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/24648\/revisions\/43992"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=24648"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=24648"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=24648"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}