Dorff Goes to Hell: Tibor Takács’s ‘The Gate’ (1987) Retro Review

This year is the 35th anniversary of the kid-friendly horror classic, The Gate, written by Michael Nankin, directed by Tibor Takacs, and released on May 15th of 1987. It is a cautionary tale of every parent’s worst nightmare: their child accidentally performs a Satanic ritual and opens up a gateway to Hell in the backyard. What will the neighbors think?

Oops, I Summoned Demons

Long before he was starring in Brittney Spears videos, running hip vampire nightclubs in Blade, and looking cool in e-cigarette commercials, Stephen Dorff was the baby-faced star of The Gate. He played 12-year-old Glen, his first acting role. Glen and his cool as hell, metal-loving friend, Terry (Louis Tripp), inadvertently summon a horde of demons who attempt to unleash Hell on earth. 

The story starts when lightning strikes a tree in Glen’s backyard. After it’s cut down, a large hole is revealed. Glen and Terry investigate the spot and find a geode, AKA the coolest rock any kid could find. Glen gets a splinter which causes him to spill a drop of blood into the hole, the first step in an ancient ritual that opens the gateway to Hell. Glen’s parents leave town, leaving Glen, his sister, Al (Christa Denton), and Terry home alone for the weekend. Chaos ensues.

The Gate’s 8 Step Guide to Opening a Hell Portal

1. Dig a hole or find an existing hole.
2. Spill a drop of blood in that hole.
3. Find the geode hidden in the hole and crack it open. This will cause an incantation to appear on a nearby notepad. 
4. Read the incantation.
5. Levitate at a party until you hit the ceiling and come crashing back down to the ground. Cry and take note that none of the people in attendance seem overly impressed that they have just witnessed a miracle.
6. Play a heavy metal record with hidden messages.
7. Throw a deceased family pet into the hole as a sacrifice.
8. Enjoy your new demon friends.

This Is My Boomstick

I love The Gate because it feels like Evil Dead movies but for kids. One of the steps in the ritual involves playing a heavy metal record by a fictional band called Sacrifyx who died in a plane crash after releasing their record. The liner notes for the album (the most in-depth liner notes in the history of liner notes) are pretty much The Necronomicon. They involve summoning a horde of demons, random, horrific things like melting objects, possessed friends and family, ancient chants, portals, weird shit happening to hands, and an unlikely hero. Glens to rise to the occasion to defeat the ultimate evil, but he must use model rockets because he’s all out of chainsaws. 

The Gate(way)

The movie’s title is fitting because this film is an excellent gateway for kids wanting to dip their feet into the horror genre, similar to The Monster Squad (1987 – our retro review). The characters in The Gate are mostly kids. There is very little gore except for a Cronenberg-esque face-melting scene and a Fulci-like eye stabbing scene (Who knew Barbie legs made such great weapons?). It’s a horror movie you can watch with the whole family as long as you are okay with all of the magical things in ’80s movies like kids smoking (not e-cigarrettes, sorry Stephen Dorff), drinking, and playing with guns. What can I say; ’80s kids liked to party.

Special Effects

While the kids are the main characters of The Gate, the minions are the movie’s real stars. They look like short, hairless, body-building rats with baboon faces. They are small, but their strength is in numbers. Plus, they can all mash themselves together into large creatures like a grotesque Voltron.

Some of the minion effects were done with claymation, but the most effective shots used forced perspective. They built giant sets and had actors run around in full body suits, making their movements more lifelike and believable. While it may look a little dated, the practical effects are still better than the modern CGI. 

Rating

As a kid, I would have given The Gate a perfect ten, but watching it objectively as an adult, I give it 7 out of 10. The effects are fantastic as a whole, and the movie is a lot of fun. The only drawbacks are that the story doesn’t make complete sense, and it does take a little bit for the action to get going (you don’t see your first minion until about 40 minutes in). If you’re a seasoned horror fan watching this for the first time, it’s not going to be the same magical experience as you would have had watching it as a kid, but it’s still an enjoyable movie. 

10 Random Thoughts and Facts About The Gate

1. The dog in this movie gets put through the wringer. Does anyone have it worse than poor Angus? Imagine being hugged to death by a kid, carried around like a sack of groceries, thrown into a pit filled with demons, and then used as a jump scare prop by said creatures. 
2. Michael Nankin originally wrote the film as an R-rated movie with abundant blood, gore, and deaths. The studio made him tone it down because they didn’t think they could market a movie predominantly starring children to adults.
3. Glen’s metalhead friend, Terry, is my kindred spirit. In his room, you can see posters for Slayer, Iron Maiden, and one that simply reads “metal” to help hammer home the point that Terry is metal AF. However, there’s a “one of these things is not like the others” poster is hanging up amid the leather and spikes… Duran Duran. It’s nice to see that Terry likes to change it up. If you can’t bob your head to Hungry Like the Wolf, are you even alive?
4. Cutting down healthy trees was illegal in the region of Canada where this was filmed. At the movie’s beginning, the tree shown being cut down had to be transported to the set from another area.
5. The scene with the man in the wall was based on a childhood fear that Michael Nankin had. As a child, he lived in a building which was home to a creepy urban legend. His friend, Terry (just like Glen’s friend, Terry), convinced him that a workman had fallen between the walls during construction and his body was still sealed inside. 
6. Terry is wearing a denim battle vest with a back patch for the band Venom. They were pioneers in both the thrash and black metal genres and had as a song called The Seven Gates of Hell.
7. This movie contains the line, “Suck my nose until my head caves in,” which wins the award for the most confusing insult in the history of confusing insults.
8. Actor Louis Tripp reprised his role as Terry in The Gate 2: Return to the Nightmare. The sequel was originally shelved after its completion but was debuted three years later when the popularity of the original prompted its release.
9. The special effects supervisor, Randall William Cook, went on to be one of the key designers of Gollum in Peter Jackson’s Lord of the Rings trilogy. He also worked with Jackson on his King Kong remake.
10. The Gate is one of those movies that would make a great remake/reboot, and this almost happened. The Gate 3D was in the works and was going to be directed by Alex Winter (AKA Bill Preston, half of the band Wyld Stallyns and world-saving time traveler). Sadly, the project never came to fruition.