Since debuting nine (!) years ago, Stranger Things has been regularly dubbed “Amblin-esque,” despite the show expanding beyond E.T. and Poltergeist pastiche to incorporate riffs on Terminator and Die Hard. The Duffer Brothers’ series has its unique lore-driven high points — season 3 sings as a Russian-conspiracy-fueled romp — but it tends to work more as a 1980s pop culture Easter-egg-a-thon than a skin-crawling horror mystery. In fact, I would say the experience the Duffers have aimed to replicate over 35-plus hours (with more to come when season 5 debuts in November) is accomplished in a mere 85 minutes in the 1987 movie The Gate.
Starring a young Stephen Dorff (Blade) as Glen, The Gate packs about 18 different childhood nightmares into one family’s brush with Hell. When Glen’s parents leave town for a long weekend, his 15-year-old sister Alexandra is left in charge, and in true ’80s teen fashion, throws a party. It’s terrible timing because Glen and his dorky pal Terry have accidentally opened a portal to a netherrealm in the backyard. Oops!
Despite its TV-movie sheen, there’s really no confusing The Gate for a very special Growing Pains Halloween episode — director Tibor Takács lets it rip from the opening scene, in which Glen wakes from a dream where he’s trapped in a tree-house and struck by lightning. When it dawns on the kids that the negative psychic energy plaguing Glen is actually the result of an accidental incantation performed in the void of a destumped tree, well, things only get worse for the 12-year-old from there. The night after the party, Glen, Terry, and Alexandra find little imps — truly one the most grotesque rubber creations in movie history — running amok in the house. Glen lacks the skills of Kevin McCallister, but does his best.
Dorff, bless him, is as tortured in The Gate as a Hitchcockian blonde, screaming, cold-sweating, and on occasion getting thrown around by gimbal-enabled special effects. Though we know he grows up to be a career movie star for the likes of Sofia Coppola and Oliver Stone, as a kid he’s a down-to-earth natural, which separates him from the theater-kid energy of the Stranger Things cast. Perfect to throw to the demons.
Separating The Gate from low-budget Gremlins knockoffs — or even today’s big-budget nostalgia plays like Stranger Things — is a dedication to varied and vile creatures. Takács and screenwriter Michael Nankin don’t just stop at the pint-sized demons. As the kids throw ideas at the wall on how to close the portal, including tossing a Bible into the chasm after reciting a few Psalms, Hell fights back with zombies, possessed kids, and a towering monster that would make Ray Harryhausen proud. The look of The Gate is full of the kind of shadows and smoke that allows pure ’80s lighting to beam through window shutters, but Takács is never afraid to shoot his monsters up close either.
In my rewatch of The Gate, I debated if Takács’ movie was “good for kids.” Technically it’s PG-13 and features little gore, other than a few gushes of blood during the movie’s non-realistic eye-puncturing finale. So why wasn’t The Gate up there in the kid-peril pantheon with The Goonies and Honey, I Shrunk the Kids? The final third pretty much answers the question: these kids scream with genuine terror. A claymation demon might look silly if it weren’t played with a self-aware wink. Takács doesn’t waver; if Terry is going to fall down a pit to Hell, actor Louis Tripp is going to shriek in absolute horror like he’s really falling down a frickin’ pit to Hell.
It’s that palpable tension that the Duffers think they can conjure in Stranger Things by cribbing from the classics. The referential tone turns the Netflix series into more of a wax museum than a wild ride. The Gate, on the other hand, is the Mad Max: Fury Road of ’80s kid horror. Takács, summoning the spirit of Hieronymus Bosch, turns an everyday suburban house in the middle of Toronto into an infernal tavern. The spirit is devilish.
Hmm… maybe parents should make their kids watch The Gate. I certainly would never throw a party when my parents left town if I knew that could happen.
Where to watch: The Gate is available to stream on Prime Video or for free with ads on Tubi.
