Fantasy Zone: The one with a kid and stop motion demons

 

Title: The Gate

What Year?: 1987

Classification: Irreproducible Oddity

Rating: It’s Okay! (3/4)

 

I’m back with the second entry in a new feature, and the thought that’s been on my mind for a long time is that there are a lot of films that make me think “fantasy” that most people wouldn’t. The context for my way of thinking is that I grew up reading stuff from the pulp era, when magazines like Weird Tales and Unknown could publish the predecessors of everything from sword-and-sorcery to supernatural horror to science fiction, often from the same writers. What really revitalized horror and to a certain extent fantasy from the 1970s onward was new variations that blurred or bent lines that had really only emerged in the intervening decades, especially in the “urban” subsets of both genres. Horror was no longer centered on shenanigans in spooky mansions, and fantasy was no longer limited to swordsmen and wizards in pseudo-Medieval invented worlds. I offer the present selection as an example of the old made new brought to cinema, as a new angle on a film that those who would come here will likely be familiar with already. Here is The Gate, a film with demons, rock and roll, and surprisingly, no sex to speak or.

Our story begins with a spooky, moody shot of a kid returning home and finding himself alone in a rising storm. It turns out to be a dream, but on waking, he discovers that a tree in his back yard has fallen over, and his beloved dog has just died. We then meet his sister, whom he calls Al, and his friend Terry, who talks frequently about death and the occult with the air of someone who definitely isn’t afraid to pull things out of his posterior. Unsettling events continue to crop up, and Terry freely suggests that a portal to the netherworld has opened, literally based on a booklet included with a rock and roll album. When the parents leave the kids alone, things get spookier, as dozens of rodent-sized demon creatures pour out of the pit. As the final act draws near, the little group are captured by the unseen forces of evil, until the kid is left alone against a colossal monster that’s either the leader of the demons or the amalgamation of all of them together. His only hope is to find the perfect totem of light and life, before the portal brings Hell on Earth!

The Gate was a 1987 horror film directed by Tibor Takacs from a script by Michael Nankin. The film was produced by the Canadian company Alliance Entertainment, with filming mainly at a residence in Toronto, Canada. The film starred Stephen Dorff as Glen and Christa Denton as Al, with Louis Tripp as Terry and Scot Denton (apparently unrelated…) as the father. The film’s effects were provided by a crew led by William Randall Cook, known for Ghostbusters among other films. The demons/ creatures were created with a combination of stop-motion and suited actors. The film was an immediate if moderate success, earning $13.5 million against a $6M budget, and went on to enduring popularity on home video. The film received a sequel in 1990, with Takacs, Cook and Tripp all returning. Stephen Dorff went on to appear in Blade. The Gate has remained readily available, including free streaming in recent years.

For my experiences, this is another of many 1980s “cult” movies I didn’t see until college in the 2000s. I had considered reviewing it back when I started Space 1979 (see my Critters review), but never saw a way to reviewing it until I started Features Creature, which this feature is a spinoff to. Even then, I still went back and forth, particularly on the question of genre. It will be evident that I am very inclusive with what I consider fantasy versus horror, and there are a lot of works usually considered horror that I tend to view as “dark”, surrealist or urban fantasy. A few representative examples outside film are Lovecraft’s “Dreams In The Witch House”, King’s Rose Madder, and for that matter my own misbegotten tales of Carlos Wrzniewski. To me, tone alone makes a world of difference. Horror is characteristically pessimistic, full of passive, flawed or wholly unlikable characters as well as grim scenarios. Fantasy is about dynamic characters who resist heroically whatever the odds and ultimate outcome. In those terms, this movie is a definitive cinematic example, transforming the trappings of horror into a surprisingly poignant and ultimately hopeful story.

With that laid down, what I have long since admitted after many a viewing is that this is a cult movie people remember as much better than it is. It has a slow start, to put it mildly, with a lot of unnecessary asides along with a good amount of character development. Even as the supernatural events get in gear, there’s plenty of random supposed shocks that usually just annoy me. What’s easiest to forget is that there are a number of characters besides the main trio who remain long after any useful purpose had been fulfilled. Then when they do finally and mercifully leave, it just begs the question why the characters we care about don’t follow their example and get the Hell out (which per the lore might have been less of an issue with the original, possibly darker script). Still, these issues are standard for genre films then and now, often far worse in films with far higher budgets and profiles than this, and only prove that the film is part of its time.

On the other side, the strongest points of the film are the kids, the demons and the interplay between them. With the main characters, it will suffice to say that they are for once both likeable and well-acted by the genuinely young. There’s extra fun from Terry, handily generating loads of exposition that we certainly aren’t obliged to take at face value. There’s a good laugh in his casual remark, “You’ve got demons,” and an extra layer of sacrilege in his comment, “They’re older than the Bible.” There’s further room to wonder if his credulous belief is somehow feeding the enemy, especially as the group try to exorcize the evil presence with his input. The demons themselves appear surprisingly late yet immediately dominate. They’re eerie, agile little things brought to life with some of the latest and finest stop-motion animation, like an upgrade of the homunculi Harryhausen brought to life for the Sinbad movies. In their creepiest moments, they do little more than stare, and their appearance and not-quite-glassy eyes are utterly unnerving. What’s most unusual, and a major reason I favor putting the movie in the fantasy column, is that there’s never any serious doubt of their physical reality. It’s somewhat ambiguous whether they are individual entities, as we see a piece of one dissolve into worn-like pieces and later see them combine into the zombie-like workman. Yet, unlike certain other entities, they never simply appear or disappear, and when they attack, they grab, bite and are struck and thrown around in turn. The true masterpiece is the final monster, whose true nature I find ambiguous, which in its finest moment simply casts the kid aside before returning when he chooses his weapon.

That still leaves the “one scene”, and my personal favorite is early and random even by this movie’s standards. A bit past the 20-minute mark, we get are one sample of the rock and roll album, not music but a narration from a gleefully grim narrator. Terry wraps himself in a blanket as an improvised hood or shroud as he lip syncs the words. It’s a Lovecraftian creation myth, telling of the demons of primal chaos, pushed grudgingly aside by the creation of the world we know. Of course, they are ready to return, as the speaker declares with a flourish, and “reclaim what is theirs!” It’s good, bonkers fun, disconcertingly in line with the proto-Semitic myths that we now know underlay the Old Testament, and it tells us just as much as we need to know about an artifact that will figure large in the events ahead.

In closing, I come as usual to the rating, and this is one where I am genuinely conflicted. It might seem like I’m saying this movie is overrated, and in a sense I am. However, I am doing this to counter the danger of expectations, which aren’t going to do any favors. On a certain level, the film’s flaws only weigh it down because its beloved status makes it easy to be unpleasantly surprised, especially as either a newcomer or an old fan coming back to it after a long time. The film’s real strength is that it builds from an awkward start into something different and far improved, complete with an affirmation of faith, friendship and family values. That’s more than enough to keep it on my good side, as both a unique movie and a good one. And with that, I’m done, and happy.

Image credit VHS Collector.