Open Wide - THE GATE

I’m a parent, and as a parent, I’ve been putting a lot of thought into the most essential task every parent must face.  Obviously, I’m talking about introducing my offspring to horror movies.  It’s a challenging endeavor.  Start off too lightweight and they can’t get invested.  Go too strong, they have nightmares, and your wife has another reason to kill you (your significant other's reactions may vary).  

Picking the right decade is key.  PG horror from the ‘70s—GRIZZLY, for example—is a poor choice as entry level horror.  “See Timmy, the big bad bear didn’t eat the little boy, it just tore his leg off.  As long as he gets quick medical care, there’s a good chance he won’t die of massive blood loss.” 

Go for the sweet spot, the ‘80s.  For my money, the '80s had the best balance of chills and adventure, nail-biting moments without the permanent psychological scars.  GREMLINS is the gold standard, of course, but along similar lines is the tale of innocent, preteen demon summoning gone wrong, 1987's THE GATE.

The Capsule:

Glen (Stephen Dorff) is going through a rough patch.  His older sister, Al (Christa Denton) wants to spend more time with her lame teen friends than with him.  His parents confiscated all his model rockets after a miscalculated launch almost sets the roof on fire.  His treehouse got demolished in a storm.  And now a gate to hell is opening in his backyard.  Luckily, his best friend, Terry (Louis Tripp), has the answer to closing the gate, thanks to his substantial understanding of heavy metal music.  Unluckily, Terry isn’t very good at incantations, and soon freaky little demons are prowling Glen’s house, looking for a couple of sacrifices to finish the ritual.  When the big boss demon wakes up, the only thing standing in the way of hell on Earth is one grounded 11 year old.

Man, I love THE GATE.  At the time it came out, it was just what I was looking for.  Though I had a taste for horror by then, it hadn’t grown into a full obsession.  I wasn’t too jaded to be insulted by the notion of PG-13 kid’s horror movie.  There’s nothing explicit about it, no gore or nudity, very little swearing.  You could call it wholesome, even.  Glen (lil’ Stephen Dorff, long before he tried to ice skate uphill as Deacon Frost in BLADE) is just a regular kid with a bowl cut.  Terry (lil’ Louis Tripp, back when his teeth were way too large for his tiny mouth) tries to be all metal and dark, but he’s still 100% a suburban dweeb.  Big sis Al initially seems to be gravitating towards the teen tropes of boys and booze, but her close relationship with Glen steers her back to Team Dork. All the wholesomeness works in the movie’s favor, because you don’t want to see these kids get hurt. 

Between all the demons, zombies, and beasties under the bed, there is no shortage of things to hurt them.  In addition to the standard monster movie scares,though, THE GATE also mines more relatable childhood fears, like abandonment, and not being able to protect those you care about.  Sometimes the anxieties are obvious, like the scene when Glen’s parents show up at a stressful moment.  The dad is all smiles when Glen runs up and hugs him, but then yells “You’ve been baaaad!” and starts to strangle the kid.  That is your first clue that it might not really be Glen’s real dad.  The next clue is when Glen pushes his fingers through his dad’s face and goo ruptures out like it was a month old jack-o-lantern.  I think we've all had this dream before.

Other times it can be subtle, like when the family picture Glen passes several times eventually changes to show the rest of his family as bloody corpses.  Glen notices, but chooses to keep it to himself.  Not a great morale booster.

The whole premise relies on some startling coincidences. Terry just so happens to own the super rare Sacrafyx double LP fold-out album with a booklet that describes the exact events that are about to happen, along with instructions to prevent the demon apocalypse.  It is also worth noting that on Terry’s wall covered in heavy metal posters and pentagrams is a lone Duran Duran poster.  I’m not certain this has anything to do with demonic visitations, though.

A lot of the plot conveniences could be chalked up to the mystical influences seeping out of the gate.  There is a higher—or lower—power at work, and each step of the rather lengthy and detailed gate opening ritual falls into place like a Rube Goldberg machine.  The kids first crack open the gate by digging out a geode.  When they take it back to Glen's room and crack it open (it’s filled with smoke and pink neon, as all things in the ‘80s were), it rolls over one of those old magic slate toys, etching an ancient incantation into the surface.  Glen dumbly reads it aloud, just like a kid's version of EVIL DEAD.  (There is also a nod to the Room 237 scene from THE SHINING, when Terry thinks he´s hugging his thought-to-be-dead mom, but it turns out to be Glen’s very dead sheepdog, Angus.)  

Eventually the visions and illusions give way to more physical threats, as a hoard of one foot tall demon minions crawl out of the gate.  I don’t want to be one of those guys who goes on and on about the virtues of practical effects, but this shit is pure magic.  The effects team used a combination of stop motion, guys in suits, and perfectly blended forced perspective to pull off some stunning creature work.  I challenge anyone who even remotely digs monsters not to fall in love with these ugly imp bastards.  

These nether realm half-pints aren’t much of a threat individually (their mouths are even smaller than Terry’s), but when they work as a group, they are full of surprises.  When Al knocks over a zombie workman, the body bursts into a half dozen minions when it hits the floor, like the monster version of kids stacked up under a trench coat pretending to be an adult.  It goes the other way too.  When one minion gets its arm stuck in a door, the arm falls off and breaks into a bunch of maggots that wiggle under the door.  To this day, these are some of the most inventive effects gags I've ever seen.  

Using such an ordinary kid like Glen as the main character really emphasizes the feeling of helplessness and insecurity.  Al is the brave one, taking the danger head on (she even shotguns a zombie).  Terry is the smart one, or at least the one with the ideas.  Glen is powerless to save them, and you can feel his desperation when he’s left all alone.  It’s almost like the demons purposefully ignored him because he’s not worth the effort.  And just when he gets a spark of hope of how he can stop the demons…oh, shit, time to meet the big guy.

I have loved a lot of monsters in my day (metaphorically), and THE GATE’s Demon Lord holds a special spot in my heart.  It is gorgeously modeled, the most impressive stop motion creature this side of Harryhausen.  The design is original and beautifully detailed.  Just as the minions seem believably tiny, the Demon Lord feels massive.  Glen has to be on the second level balcony to even come eye to eye with it.  Four eyes, in fact, six arms, two tentacles, and that’s just the part jutting out of the living room sized hole it rose from.  Who knows how much farther down its serpentine body goes?  

Its interaction with Glen always fascinated me.  The big guy is terrifying and awe inspiring, but it isn’t vicious.  More than anything, it seems to simply be curious when it noticed the petrified boy quaking before it.  It grabs Glen’s hand and dangles him in front of its face, studying him like it never saw a human before.  Then it gently places its hand on Glen’s head for a moment, lets go of him, and withdraws back into its pit. 

I was puzzled.  Had I misjudged this creature?  Did its fearsome appearance belie a deeper intelligence, simply wanting to communicate with humans?  Was there something—HOLY FUCK, IT STUCK AN EYE IN GLEN’S PALM!!!  Okay, so it’s not misunderstood, it’s just an asshole.  Sparing the weakest person just to be its supernatural snitch bitch in the human world  is a serious dick move.   

Glen has no intention of being a seeing eye-hand dog, though, and after an appropriate amount of screaming, he politely declines the Demon Lord’s offer by way of stabbing a shard of glass into his brand new palm peeper.  The big guy doesn't think much of this decision, and soon a very pissed off demon is on his way back up.

Like Terry’s handy demon guidebook, Glen’s plan to close the gate is a bit contrived, but it’s so well executed that I don´t care.  In this case, it’s a reverse Rube Goldberg.  Every time the kid thinks he’s ready, he has to fix another problem, with an enormous, angry-ass demon getting closer every second.  Director Tibor Takács ruthlessly teases out the climax for all it’s worth.  Sure, the solution makes zero sense when you think about it, but it fits the movie's fairy tale logic.

It all wraps up with a [Spoiler] happy ending.  Al and Terry return unharmed.  Glen even gets his dead dog back, but no longer dead.  This isn’t one of those “was it all a dream” cop outs where everything returns to normal, though.  Their house is still totally fucked up.  I don’t know how Glen and Al are going to explain the giant hole in their living room to their parents.  Guaranteed, it’s the last time they let Al babysit.   

So instead of starting your kiddo off with TEXAS CHAINSAW MASSACRE or THE BABADOOK, ease them into bloody waters with something like THE GATE.  It's creepy, innovative fun that will teach them an important lesson: in an emergency, a Barbie doll leg makes an excellent eye gouger.  And also something about bravery or whatnot.  

C Chaka

Trailer Match: DEAD KIDS

Movie trailers can be beautiful things.  Two and a half minute diamonds, where each scene is a precisely cut facet meant to dazzle and catch the eye.  Not all of them are winners, of course, but when they are done just right, they can be more memorable than the movies they promote.  For decades I was sure I’d seen THE OUTLAW JOSEY WALES, until I picked up the Blu Ray and realized it was only the trailer, which I had seen a million times on HBO as a kid, that I was remembering.  That trailer was so perfectly contained and tidy, it was all I needed.  The full movie turned out to be pretty good, but the trailer was magic.  

Usually I don’t write about a movie unless I’ve seen it at least once before, but I wanted to see if this one would live up to my trailer expectations.   Can Michael Laughlin’s 1981 mind control horror DEAD KIDS work as well in 99 minutes as it does in 3:20?

The Capsule:

Strange things are afoot in the sleepy Midwestern town of Galesburg.  All the teens are eager to sign up for some harmless psychological experiments down at the local college, including Pete (Dan Shor) and his best friend, Jimmy Olsen (really named Oliver, but since the actor is Marc McClure from SUPERMAN, good luck calling him anything else).  The money is good, but Pete is experiencing a few side effects, like mood swings, black outs, and occasionally pissing blood.  Plus, his police chief dad, John (Michael Murphy) thinks the experiments might be connected to the string of teen murders that has cropped up recently.  Everyone thinks John is being paranoid, but the deeper he digs, the more he is convinced it all leads back to the long dead professor who ruined his life.  Paranoid or not, unless he’s careful, he might be the next person on the slab, possibly at the hands of his own son.

DEAD KIDS is better known in the states as STRANGE BEHAVIOR.  It’s not a bad title, but come on, DEAD KIDS is a showstopper.  That title gives you pause, regardless of what your reaction to it is.  It was the same thing for me with the DEAD KIDS trailer (the STRANGE BEHAVIOR one is nowhere near as interesting).  I first saw it a while ago in a 42^nd St. Trailer compilation.  It’s hard to say why I liked it so much.  There’s nothing revolutionary about it, just another slasher/mind control mystery type deal with little dashes of humor, but something about it seemed a little off.  It has a lot of strange, disturbing imagery thrown in with the lighter stuff.  The most memorable part is a musical bit where a bunch of kids in costumes are doing this dance number to Lou Christie’s Lightning Strikes.  The song is one of those ‘60s standards that you’ve heard a million times.  I never gave two shits about that song before, but it completely changes in this context.  It was weird and anachronistic and, like the title, it stood out.  I couldn’t quite figure out what its deal was.

I have to admit, my favorite things in the movie were also my favorite things from the trailer.  The costume dance party was only slightly less strange in context than out (I still don't know why they were all in costumes or why they made a whole synchronized number of a twenty year old song).  Thanks to the trailer, I had a good idea how the movie was going to play out.  There were a few surprises, though.  The biggest surprise was that the movie, set in a small town outside of Chicago, was really filmed in New Zealand.  You know, where they shot THE LORD OF THE RINGS.  One of the most cinematically beautiful places on Earth was used as a stand-in for Illinois.  I’m sure Auckland is just a normal town, and it did look dull and Midwestern enough for me to completely buy into it, but come on.  Turning New Zealand into Illinois is like hiring Ryan Gosling to play Michael Myers.  Seems like a waste to cover all that up.  No disrespect to Illinois, you are a lovely state and full of interesting things, but you’re no New Zealand.  

The movie uses some very standard slasher tropes, even for 1981.  There is a masked killer (in a Tor Johnson mask!), lots of stalking, nervous victims bumbling in the dark, killer POV shots, and a fair amount of literal slashing.  The unusual turn is that, for the most part, it pulls a gender swap.  Most of the victims are male.  One girl is chased after her boyfriend is killed, but she gets away and is never in danger again.  Someone’s mom buys it, but only because she is in the wrong place at the wrong time.  One of the killers (not a spoiler, that fact is established early on) is even a woman.  

Most shocking, the first (and possibly only) naked body the camera ogles is that of the main character, Pete.  There is a gratuitous butt shot as he heads into the bathroom were his dad is shaving.  So it’s both gratuitous and weird.  

I don’t think it was an attempt to be enlightened or fair to the opposite sex, though, because Pete can be a real jerk.  He blatantly flirts with a girl at the party right in front of another one that obviously has a crush on him.  His idea of making a good impression is to wait for the receptionist he likes, Caroline (Dey Young), to close up her creepy office for the night, grab her from behind and scare the shit out of her.  For some reason she decides to go on a date with him as opposed to macing him, kicking him in the nuts, and calling the cops.  He doesn’t get much better on the date, trying to order for her at the restaurant (she doesn’t let him) and stealing the cigarette she just lit.  Some of this may be due to the experimental drug he took earlier, but I think mostly he’s just a dick.

His dad isn’t that much better.  John’s been stringing along his girlfriend, Barbara (Louise Fletcher), for years.  She constantly cooks for him and Pete, trying to earn his love with pies, only to be barely acknowledged.  Instead of trying to calm her down when she is freaking out because he’s being so paranoid, John drags her to a graveyard and has her help exhume a body.  These are not the most sensitive cats around, is what I’m saying. 

The trailer does a good job highlighting the best character in the movie, the mysterious Professor Parkinson, who runs the experimental program at the college.  It is clear she has sinister intentions from the moment she is introduce, with her icy, wicked smile and perfect Sean Young in BLADE RUNNER hairdo.  Like a classic femme fatale, she has Pete wrapped around her finger from their first meeting.  She seduces him with the promise of quick and easy cash and drugs.  When Pete gets second thoughts about the procedure after being strapped down to a chair, Parkinson reassures him by explaining he is participating in a “very exciting experiment.” Then she injects a syringe INTO HIS EYEBALL!  He should have held out for more than 100 bucks for that experiment.

She handles John just as effortlessly.  She calmly listens to his rants about her predecessor, Dr. Le Sange (Arthur Dignam), which only makes him look crazier in front of everyone.  Parkinson is not the least bit concerned, even though she has his son restrained just down the hall.

It is fun watching Pete slowly get paler and more erratic, all the while trying to play it cool with his girlfriend.  Look, honey, people sometimes piss blood, it’s nothing unusual.  Strangely, Pete is the only kid from the batch of test subjects to have that kind of physical reactions.  The intent may have been to represent Pete’s resistance to the nefarious mental conditioning.  I guess his pal Jimmy Olsen didn’t have as much of a moral dilemma about offing the school bully, because he looked fine the whole time.

Things take a weird turn in the final act when it comes to the mysterious Dr. Le Sange.  Eventually, John’s obsession with the deceased doctor, which involves his late wife, is explained. However, we seem to be missing a lot of the backstory, like what exactly the doctor was doing years ago that caused such a scandal.   It's hard to understand why John makes him out to be some kind of war criminal when all we see him do is overwork some of the staff and perform brain surgery on a chicken.  

[Spoilers Ahead]  And when it is revealed that Le Sange isn’t really dead, things only become more confusing.  Pete, under the metal control of Parkinson, subdues his father and ties him down.  Then an old man in a wheelchair rises dramatically from the floor on an elevator platform, wheels over to John, and tears off his makeup.  It turns out that the old lab assistant from the beginning was really Le Sange all along!  Except, when we first saw the lab assistant, he clearly had both his legs, and Le Sange is now a double amputee.  He mentions something about having to sacrifice his legs for his plan, but there is zero explanation about why or when that happened.  There is nothing in the story that connects with this; it is just a bizarre detail thrown in for fun.  Is there a separate movie out there following the adventures of Le Sange that converged with this one at the end?

So how does the full film match up to my beloved trailer?  Pretty well, I'd say.  The off-kilter tone of the trailer carries through the entire running time, and surpasses it in places.  I love an oddball ending, which this certainly delivered.  Director Michael Laughlin created something just different enough to stand alone.  He would go on to make the similarly skewed STRANGE INVADERS (actually filmed in Illinois this time, but sadly not pretending to be New Zealand), but he never followed up on his planned STRANGE trilogy, which is a pity.  DEAD KIDS doesn't come together perfectly, but it provides a unique take on a traditional story.  Now if I could just get that damn Lou Christie song out of my head.

C Chaka