Filmdoom: The Gate (1987)

The Plot: An ancient evil lives in prepubescent Stephen Dorff's backyard. Can he seal the gate of evil and live to become pubescent, turn into a Dracula and beat up Wesley Snipes? I hope so.

Kickass: The movie starts right off with a creepy scene and zips right along after that. We only have to deal with the parents for about 5 minutes before they're kicked out the door. There's almost no boring downtime in this picture.

Sacrifyx seems like a badass band. I wish I had their album. Especially in case an evil god portal opens in my backyard.


Prepubescent Stephen Dorff's friend Terry's room reminds me of my room in 1986. Iron Maiden rulez! Actually Terry looks pretty much exactly like me in 1986.


There's a lot of great dialogue in this picture. Especially the insult fights between prepubescent Stephen Dorff and the evil Lee sisters. At one point one of the Lee sisters says, "Eat my feet, dwarf!" To which prepubescent Stephen Dorff replies, "Suck my nose til my head caves in!" Awesome.

The special effects in The Gate are pretty top notch for the most part. The tiny little demon guys are bananas. They look so freaking cool, I wish they were in the movie more. Most of the time they look totally real, it's hard to tell how they pull off the effect. They're all like "rowr!" and grabbing that kid's leg and shit. Sweet.


I love in movies when the house gets totally fucked up and the house in this gets totally fucked up. It's so annoying in movies where, once the evil magic is destroyed, the house goes right back the way it was, like in Jumanji or Weird Science. But not in The Gate. The house stays good and busted. I always liked to imagine what the kids in these movies say to their parents when they get home.


Dude, there's this one part where this guy's face explodes and shoots slime out and then his head falls off and splatters on the ground. Seeing that might have been the best moment of my life so far.


The big bad evil god thing looks amazing. I want him for a pet. I don't care if he covers the Earth in darkness and enslaves and tortures humanity. I'll be like, "Want to go outside, Pickles?" And he'll go, "Grraaaaarr!!", and eat someone. And then we'll play fetch.



Meh: Prepubescent Stephen Dorff has this hideous bright red jacket with shitty NASA patches all over it. I hate that jacket. It makes me feel even worse knowing that in 1986, I would have killed someone to own a jacket like that.



Shitass: There's this one part where prepubescent Stephen Dorff sees a bunch of moths on his window. It's supposed to be scary, but the effects guys decided, to keep the moths from flying away, to GLUE THEM to the window. That's fucked up. I know they're just moths, but it's not just cruel, it's unimaginative. I could think up a better way to get that effect in about two minutes.


Speaking of moths, there's only a few times in this picture when the special effects kind of suck, and the suckiest times are when they try and show moths flying around in front of prepubescent Stephen Dorff. It looks like ass.


The music during the end credits really sucked. I mean super sucked. How could they have gone so wrong? They should have played a Sacrifyx song or something.

The End: It was a pretty kickass ending. Mostly because the evil main god guy looks awesome, and partly because he dies in a fireworks display. The house stayed fucked up and the evil was destroyed. At least until part 2. Good times.



Verdict: The Gate is a wicked awesome movie. Non-stop kickass. I loved it when I was in junior high and I love it even more now. I might marry it. I can't wait for the Alex Winter remake. I hope post-pubescent Stephen Dorff is in it. That would be like a dream come true.


[CLICK HERE to read my kickass review of The Gate 2: the Trespassers!]