Movies That Scarred Me #4: The Gate (631 hits)
Category: Movies & TVRating: 1.6 on 15 reviews (Rate this item) (V)
Submitted by Dacin Adams <Dacin0828.at.yahoo.com> (View user info) at 2006-07-05 06:09:40 EDT
Movie #1--The Neverending Story http://www.ubersite.com/m/85547
Movie #2--The Dark Crystal http://www.ubersite.com/m/85589
Movie #3--Batman http://www.ubersite.com/m/85863
When I was a child, there came a blessed time every three months or so. This time was never known to children until one Monday, you flipped through the cable channels and noticed that you had an extra one. Your brain would orgasm in sheer pleasure of knowing that the time had come for the Channel Preview Week.
For those of you who never grew up with cable, I laugh at your sorry circumstances.
Channel Preview Week was what certain stations did to advertise. For one solid week, you would have free access to the Disney Channel, or Showtime, Cinemax, or HBO. Starz and Encore came along later. Knowing that it was free and your parents wouldn't shell out more money for the station, you watched it constantly. I saw the movie "Who's That Girl?" with Madonna and didn't have a clue what the movie was about, but it was on Showtime at 6 in the morning, and GI Joe was put on hold.
During one of these weeks, we had HBO, which had all the kickass movies. Many a video was recorded over in the Dacin home to make way for Short Circuit, Spaceballs, and 3/4 of The Last Starfighter because we caught it in the middle.
On a Saturday at 3 in the afternoon, while my parents were gone, HBO fucked with my childhood and played The Gate. My first horror movie ever.
I was 8 years old, and The Gate is an 80's horror movie rated PG-13. You get the memorable Stephen Dorff as a kid about 12, his geeky neighbor friend who reminds you of the kid in the Wonder Years, if the kid in the Wonder Years lost his mother and turned to satanic rock. And you also get the older sister, who's "hip to the 80's vibe." The movie's parents were gone for the weekend and the kids were home alone.
This movie was almost made for kids about 8-12 years old because it walks through all the shit needed to open up hell on earth by explaining it out. First, you need a gaping hole. Mr. Dorff's tree in the backyard gets struck by lightning and topples over opening (gasp) a gaping hole. Then the movie goes on to explain that you need sacrifice. Mr. Dorff's dog dies and "hip girl's" boyfriend deposits dog in said hole. After that, you need incantations. Where better to find them than little Satan-worshipper-next-door's black metal albums?? And everything is just stringing a little kid (me) along on his first bona fide horror movie and I'm naively following the storyline as well as I can and the scary shit happens.
Does anyone remember that game "light as a feather stiff as a board?" The meditation game that was supposed to levitate the poor sucker in the middle? It was a creepy game that never worked. Kind of like playing with a Ouija Board with your back up against your toy box. Can you imagine how scared you would be if the guy in the middle suddenly levitated up to the ceiling and you couldn't get him down? Mr. Dorff there does just that. And Dacin, watching, started to squirm a little bit.
Obviously, the gaping hole is the problem so our heroes set out with a Bible to say the Lord's Prayer and hope that religion works as well as German Satan Rock. After dumb Satan bastard falls in the hole and climbs back out, they throw the entire Book into hell and that seems to fix the problem. Little did I know that it was a false sense of security, made to calm me down before I pissed my pants.
Imagine someone told you that a construction worker, building your house, got caught and buried in the foundation. Keep it in mind folks because later on in the movie, Dacin got his glimpse of his first human zombie, dressed in blue overalls who bursts out of the wall in the basement and steals the satanic bastard friend! Dacin screamed like a bitch.
Gratefully, the parents show up and Mr. Dorff runs out to give Daddy a big hug. When you're eight years old, Daddy fixed everything and was salvation incarnate. In this movie, Daddy's a demon who grabs our hero and says in a demonic voice "YOU'VE BEEN BAD!!!!!!!!!" While Mommy throws her head back and cackles. Dacin cried.
Little pint sized demon fuckers show up through the house after that. Thanks to stop motion and claymation, they move in jerky little spurts and are scary as hell. In one scene, our heroes are huddled in a closet and the camera zooms clear to the second floor where one of those things was sitting there just staring at them through the banisters.
Eventually, they make off with the "radical sister" and a huge demon bursts through the living room floor. Mr. Dorff ends up with an eyeball planted in the palm of his hand. Little kids everywhere had nightmares when they watched him pick up a sliver of glass and stab the eye--and himself. After all that, you learn how a model rocket can pierce the hide of a demon from Hell.
Model rockets kick ass.
I didn't sleep for two days.
User Reviews
Submitted by jgreening (user info) at 2006-07-05 13:28:40 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I always fucked with people on Weeg... Oigi.... Og... Owee... That damn board.
And I'd always make it something stupid like "Your dog is gay" or "You will marry Brad Linzey" or shit like that.
Submitted by Anansie (user info) at 2006-07-05 13:18:07 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
No Comment
Submitted by Dacin (user info) at 2006-07-05 09:19:59 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Not only did I never get a ouija board to work, I haven't met one person who did, who wasn't lying out his ass about it
Submitted by Professional_Peon (user info) at 2006-07-05 09:00:52 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Here's a pity +2 since you couldn't get your Ouija board to work.
WeeeeeeeeeeeeeeeJeeeeeeeeeeeeeee!!!
Submitted by alwayspeach1 (user info) at 2006-07-05 08:46:27 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I remember life before cable AND VCRs <sigh> I am old. But it's been a good trip :>
Submitted by rad1101 (user info) at 2006-07-05 08:41:06 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
I didn't grow up with cable
Submitted by Bigmike (user info) at 2006-07-05 07:53:28 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Grew up with cable?
Let's see, besides me, Schlongy, Jack, and Bubba, I don't think there's anybody here that didn't grow up with cable, is there?
BTW, did VCR's come before or after cable tv. I can't remember because I am older than dirt.
Submitted by DeathJester (user info) at 2006-07-05 07:10:14 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Submitted by Method (user info) at 2006-07-05 07:05:17 (#)
Ranking: 2
One of the things that scared the shit out of me was that scene in one of the Superman movies where that chick fell into that chamber thingie and was turned into a robot-cyborg-monster.
HORRIFYING. I had nightmares for weeks.
--------------
This movie spurred my choice to go into IT, as Richard Pryor (BEST COMEDIAN EVAR!!!1) plays a HUGE geek, so I could build myself a zomie sex-crazed cyborg love slave.
Oh the disappointment...
Yes, i'm aware the grammar of that sentence is diaboical.
Submitted by Method (user info) at 2006-07-05 07:05:17 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
One of the things that scared the shit out of me was that scene in one of the Superman movies where that chick fell into that chamber thingie and was turned into a robot-cyborg-monster.
HORRIFYING. I had nightmares for weeks.
Submitted by DeathJester (user info) at 2006-07-05 07:02:20 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
Never seen it.
£5 on Cocoon being your first film with a naked chick.
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2006-07-05 06:26:21 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
Submitted by Dacin (user info) at 2006-07-05 06:22:46 (#)
Ranking: 0
Yeah, I forgot to write that, the sequal was terrible
=========================
Apparently there are plans for a third. God help us.
Submitted by Dacin (user info) at 2006-07-05 06:22:46 EDT (#)
Ranking: 0
Yeah, I forgot to write that, the sequal was terrible
Submitted by kaos-king (user info) at 2006-07-05 06:16:48 EDT (#)
Ranking: 2
I have never seen this cinematic gem.
Now I wish to...
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2006-07-05 06:16:36 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
The sequel, however, blew.
Submitted by HurtByTheSun (user info) at 2006-07-05 06:15:39 EDT (#)
Ranking: 1
This had a whole bunch of backmasking controversy didn't it? The claymation kicked ass!