The Gate (1987) Review & Ratings

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The Gate (1987) Review

He, he...sorry, I just couldn't resist using that title for my review....anyway, have you ever had the urge to dig a hole in the ground when you were a kid? I did and I did, have the urge, and dig a hole, that is...all I found was a ceramic pipe (which I accidentally cracked), but that was about it. Had I seen The Gate (1987) prior to digging that hole, I may have chosen not to, as there are things under the Earth best left undisturbed...
Directed by Tibor Takács, whose credits include mostly television work and a few films like I, Madman (1989) and Deathline (1997), a Rutger Hauer vehicle of little consequence (it was all downhill after his most excellent role as Roy Batty in the quintessential sci-fi film Blade Runner), The Gate stars Stephen Dorff, in his first movie role. His most notable appearance for me was in the vampire thriller Blade (1998), as the villainous, murderous Deacon Frost, who later became the Blood God (he was such a nice young boy, and now look at him...) . Also in the film is Christa Denton, who mostly appeared on television in the 80's, but also appeared in A Million Ways to Die (1986), a pretty good B-film worth checking out, and Louis Tripp, an actor of few credentials, but who can also be seen in the film Detroit Rock City (1999), as The Nerdy Kid (I'm not kidding, that's how it's listed).
The film opens with Glen (a very young Dorff) witnessing the removal of a large, old tree from the backyard of his parent's house. Soon after, Glen's friend Terry (Tripp) comes over, and the pair find part of a geode, a hollow, usually spheroidal rock with crystals lining the inside wall, in the up heaved Earth. Terry, ever the troublemaker (every neighborhood has one...he's the kid who kept bugs in jars to see how long they could live without air or tied firecrackers to cat's tails...we find out later the reason he `jest ain't right' is probably due to the fact his mother passed recently), talks Glen into digging up the yard to look for more geodes as Terry figures they could become rich as people paid good money for them, sometime `up to 100 bucks'. Ahh, to be young and ignorant...well, I'll settle for one as I'm loaded with the other...you decide which...anyway, as they dig, a huge hole opens up, and it turns out to be a portal to a realm of demons, but the portal has yet to be opened fully. That happens later, inadvertently, as certain events occurs, to which the boys determined this by reading the extensive liner notes on one of Terry's heavy metal albums (the band was called Sacrifix, with their main schtick being dabbling in the dark arts). Well, strange things begin happening, and activity from the hole increases, so I guess it's pretty lucky that Glen's parents are away for a few days, leaving him in the care of his sister, Al (Denton), short for Allison, I believe, because all hell is about to break loose, literally. So what do these pesky demons want? Why, to take control of the Earth, for their own nefarious purposes. Nice going Glen and Terry...I suppose you've doomed us all to eternal damnation and suffering with the pointy pitchforks to the nether regions and such, and I don't even want to think how you're going to explain all this to your parents when they come back...
The film was pretty well done, and much better than one might expect. The acting and dialogue seems a bit wooden and shallow at times, but there seems to be a real honesty and heart emanating from within the characters, and little or no attempt to `Hollywood' them up, trying to make them more than what they are...these are characters you could known, been friends with...the plot moves along nicely, and while there are a few holes here and there, I found none so large as to make me roll my eyes or drive a bus through. The movie has the effect of drawing you in, creating interest in the likeable characters (I felt empathy as Glen looked over some old photos of the family dog after it passed, reminiscing about a friend now gone. While meant to evoke an emotional response, it didn't appear to be an obvious attempt, which I appreciated). The special effects, while not state of the art, even back in 1987, were actually very professional, which is a bit surprising given the minimal budget I'm sure this film was working on...
I saw this film on cable back in the late 80's, and it kinda stuck with me. Why? It's hard to say. It wasn't terribly scary, or very bloody, but it does have its' charms. Maybe it's the sense that the movie isn't trying to be more than it is, forgoing the over-the-top theatrics for a bit of substance and its' general sense of overall fun. Also, I think the fact that most of the people working on and in this movie seemed to be at the beginning of their careers, and hadn't really had an opportunity to be subverted and perverted by the system, Hollywood, that is...there is a certain amount of predictability within the story, but it was easy to overlook, as the excitement the movie draws from the viewer is fairly constant, at least once the plot elements are established. The picture quality on this release is surprisingly good, but I was disappointed to see that only the full screen format was included on the disk. Also, there is nothing in the way of special features. All in all, this is a four star film, but given the lackluster release, I have go with a three star rating. By the by, there was a sequel to The Gate, released in 1992 called Gate II: The Trespassers, with only Tripp reviving his original role.
Cookieman108

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