I heart this film. I'm very happy to have experienced it again, a truly important film from my youth, with you all. It is a true example of many creative forces working together, most people doing multiple jobs for not a lot of money, to tell a story they all care about. This movie is a true gem. It's a horror movie for children, thus the happy ending and children protagonists, but one that has the "guts" (pun intended) to put some seriously scary stuff in. One that respects the fact that children can handle fear, that they are braver than adults often give them credit for. Plus, it makes for a horror film that you can still love every bit of as an adult (I'm going to be watching this one with my own kiddos one day, that's for darn sure). I don't think scary movies made for kids have the same bravado anymore. Do they even make scary movies for children anymore?
I'm leaving this one very open ended. I just want to hear your
thoughts. What did you think of The Gate?
I love how campy this is. It's definitely 80's! The special effects were really cool and it was interesting to hear about how they used forced perspective to make the little demons. I think it would be awesome if we made a campy film like this here at EHHS!
ReplyDeleteI don't think they make children's horror anymore like they used to. For some reason everyone feels the need to shelter children as if they can't handle a little fear.
I totally agree, I think that (while not going overboard) kids definately need a little bit of the scary, so they know how to deal with it. Surefire anti-wimp protectant. Though, if gone too far with that, some kids will react in a bad way and then become more sensitive to it. But I think that people are too protective, and need to lighten up and watch some good-ol horror movies.
DeleteIt was amazing. it made my soul happy. I really appreciate movies with a low budget that come out as amazing as this. I agree, children horror movies are nothing like this anymore. I wish they still were.
ReplyDeleteI would definitely recommend this movie to everyone.
"...pray it's not to late."
I love this movie so much. It's just awesome. Over the years, child horror films have become more and more mild. The last scary child horror movie I saw was Monster House. After that they have been toned down. I do recommend this film to everyone. I agree with Naomi, everybody thinks that they need to shield their children from the horrors of the world. Making them be easily hurt when they grow up. Bring back the scary!
ReplyDeleteLets kidnap everyone's children and make them watch campy horror films. Afterwards we'll return the children and they'll have more backbone.
DeleteI love love love how good the child actor was in this movie, something we don't generally see these days. You can definitely tell tons of hard work, time, and heart went into this movie. Definitely inspiring seeing how low their budget was and how much they were able to accomplish.
ReplyDeleteI saw this movie for the first time when I was about 8. I absolutely loved it then, and I loved it even more the second time around.
ReplyDeleteThere was a lot of stuff that I didn’t remember, but the stuff that I did has stuck with me hardcore. I was always really intrigued by the effects. They were done so well, and I still cant wrap my head around of some it. The forced perspective? It looked so good, and I still don’t really understand how they did it. It still leaves this magical and supernatural sort of feeling with it, because its all practical effects, but I don’t understand them!
After I saw it for the first time I had hardcore nightmares about the thing in the walls, and I tried forever to find out how they did it, and I could never think of how it would look good. It was also scary as hell. I loved the suspense with the light outside, and how it came on after it was unplugged, and all the moths, it all added to the sort of childlike wonder and scariness that the movie left you with.
I also thought that levitation was real for the longest time because of this film. I thought, “It happened there, and I don’t know how they could possibly fake it, it must be real.” Trippy as hell, man.
Besides all the gnarly effects, the writing is also really good. It was obviously very well thought out, and it was executed so awesomely.
I might be immune to the campiness that everyone is mentioning, probably because I just accepted it as fact when I was little, so the mood and clothing and execution of the film was never any different from what I was/am used to, and you can only recognize campiness if what you’re used to isn’t campy. So it probably is super cheezy, but I totally dug this movie all the way through.
This was a very good movie, I really got absorbed into it, I didn't even care how cheesy and 80's it was.
ReplyDeleteI did get extremely pissed off in the movie when they kept playing around with the dog and I thought I was going to wind up hating it for that reason, but then the dog lived and I was happy, they finally left it alone.
Like Sydnie, I remember seeing this when I was really little, the moving wall scene was embedded into my memory.
It's a very great movie, it's really fun and fantastic.
I'm very curious about they way they filmed it, with the forced shots etc I really want to get more into this, this movie is opening a window for me.
The cheesiness and the 80s are what got me into it. 80s is such a good time period
DeleteAmazing I loved the whole movie from beginning to end. I also loved how the charactors develop. My favorite part is propably when the dog came back to life I was so relived.
ReplyDeletedallas has no hands
DeleteThroughout the whole movie my favorite character was the dog even though well he died early on in the show but none the less. And Will was right the parents acting was bad. Overall though all the CGI's were good for that era until the kid was blown from the house, that made the movie so corny for me. But still really good.
ReplyDeleteit was bad hahahahahahahahha just kidding gatcha lulz fooled you it was such good much wonderz
ReplyDeleteI enjoyed this movie. its very different from the movies i tend to watch and the campy-ness was a little hard to get use to but once i was over the cheesiness i really liked the movie and the work they put into it. the forced visuals were really good. and i really liked the wall parts. i would be so scared of this movie if i were still a child.
ReplyDeletei really enjoyed this movie especially the effects i thought those were brilliant. i think that growing up as child in the 80s would have made this film even better since it was so campy. while this movie wasn't very scary to me i imagine that as a child it would have made me cry a little. overall i really liked this movie.
ReplyDeleteI LOVED this movie. As has already been said multiple times, the effects were fantastic and creative. I can’t even imagine how long it took them to plan out the forced perspective scenes… Let alone build the sets to execute them. All of the effects just made me really happy because I wanted to try and figure out how they did them all. The story was really engaging as well even if the acting wasn't the best at certain moments. The little creatures were adorable and creepy all at the same time. I just don’t have any major complaints about this movie and I plan on recommending it to a lot of people. Overall, it was a fun film that I probably would have enjoyed even more as a child.
ReplyDeleteAlso, as a metal head, I appreciated all of the references to metal music in this movie. I smiled when I noticed that Terry had what I believe to be a Venom patch on the first jacket he wears in the movie. I love that band… I also think that the band from the movie, Sacrifyx, is a reference to a thrash metal band from Canada called Sacrifice because the names and logos are very similar. I'm not positive on that one though… It’s not really relevant but that’s one of the things that made me happy about this movie.