A twelve year old boy fears a strange hole that lately appeared in his backyard, leading to a crisis that can only be solved by his rocket of love. Anyone care to interpret 1987's The Gate? It was one of the many '80s horror and fantasy films about junior high schoolers that went on to inspire Stranger Things, but not one of the best. It has professional quality filming but as bland as you can get for that.
Every scene seems to be shot at noon or on a sound stage for night. Daytime scenes are so devoid of any sense of style, it's kind of amazing. The conspicuously large house interior set looks like a cheap sitcom.
Stephen Dorff isn't bad as Glen, the lead character. Christa Denton is fine as his older sister, Al, and Louis Tripp is actually pretty good as his death metal fan best friend, Terry. It's Terry who recognises the threat of the hole, which he diagnoses as an attempt by a demon, referenced by one of his record albums, to find a way into the world. He reads text from the vinyl record sleeve taken almost directly from Lovecraft, stuff about old, resentful gods returning when the stars are right.
When demons do show up, they're stop motion and kind of neat. Eventually, it turns out the solution is to use an artefact of perfect love, which Glen decides is his big white model rocket stashed in the closet. But is it big enough for this hole?
The characters never seem to react with emotion proper to any situation. It was kind of a cosy viewing, though, I could imagine myself at 12 watching this at a slumber party with a lot of pizza and coke.
The Gate is available on Amazon Prime.
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