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The Gate

A severe storm brings down Glen’s treehouse, leaving a giant hole in his background. Discovering what looks to be precious geode rocks, Glen and his friend Terry continue to dig hoping to strike larger, more valuable, geodes. When they come upon a sizable rock, breaking it open unveils a crystalized liner of colorful minerals as well as a strange gas that unearths an incantation to open a gate to the underworld. With Glen’s parents gone for the weekend, he, his teenage older sister Al, and Terry must somehow reverse the opening of the gate but demonic-serving, pint-sized minions hunt down a pair of human sacrifices in order to unleash their powerful demon master, an old God reemerging from being locked away from Earth for billions of years. Serving the night is a fight for their very lives as the minions use their cunning tricks and supernatural powers to deceive the home alone kids into traps in order for there to be Hell on Earth.

Created in mind to appeal to children with the limitless possibilities of a child’s imagination, “The Gate” caters to a wide audience of all ages. Hungarian-born Director Tibor Takács and American-born writer Michael Nankin bring out of the shadows the scary corners of a young mind into the light with a demonic tale, a portal from another plane of existence, and a theme of growing up and being accountable in a context of taking head on a doomsday event without mommy and daddy. The 1987 released Canadian production, shot mostly around Ontario, is the first of two “The Gate” films under the studio flag of Alliance Entertainment. Presented by New Century Entertainment, as one of the company’s limited credits, “The Gate” is produced by fellow Hungarians in Andras Hamori, who went on to produce fellow Canadian filmmaker David Cronenberg’s “eXistenZ,” and “Quest for Fire” and “The Wraith’s” John Kemeny.

The Gate II: The Trespassers

Five years after narrowly surviving near Hell of Earth, Terry’s obsession to return to Glen’s abandoned and dilapidated home and resurrect the demonic powers of wish granting stems from his jobless father’s dwindling livelihood, drinking himself into a stupor every night at the bottom of a bottle. With equipment powered to project his incantations and protect him from evil, Terry is about to begin his summoning when interrupted by three teens led by bad boy John who mostly ridicules his fixation until one of the pint-sized minions comes out of the shadows and is quickly gunned down by John. The injured minion self-heals and is captured for wish granting exploitation but when the wishes turn into a disastrous chimera, Terry soon realizes that his summoning has not just been answered for selfish motives, but it also re-opened the portal for three power demons to transmogrify from within him and his friends.

The success of “The Gate” sought the fast tracking of a follow-up story produced within two years’ time after that spoke a different tone and came in a different approach to the nightmarish content and the age of the kids. Takács and Nankin reteam for “The Gate II: The Trespassers” who, at the authoritative behest of executive powers, had to take the fantastical lining of a child’s imagination to more extreme measures that evolved the original film’s grotesquely saturated PG-13 rating into a lighter, water downed R rating, removing a good chunk of the viewer base from a theatrical run. The 1990 released venture was also shot at some of the same sets in Ontario Canada as the first film with Alliance Entertainment returning as producing studio and Vision International presenting to the world. Andras Hamori and John Kemeny also return as producers.

Doesn’t take the understanding mechanisms of rocket science to discern “The Gate’s” cinematic victory. Demons were all the rage in 80’s from Italian eurotrash to American grindhouse and why shouldn’t the Canadians get into the action? Special and makeup effects, in themselves, are tremendously impressive, as aspect we’ll go thoroughly more into later in the review. Yet, the one golden ticket area that deems “The Gate” as an unsullied hero of PG-13 horror is the unaccompanied children misadventure narrative coupled with, or maybe elevated by, good dialogue sanctioned by even better performances. The 80’s saw scads of children in danger storylines that either had no responsible adult in sight or the adult party was the adversarial danger. “Explorers,” “Adventures in Babysitting,” “E.T.,” and, one of the biggest examples of all, “The Goonies,” caddied the action-adventure and thrills-and-chills long game for the better part of the 80s decade and “The Gate” teed up on the opportunity, bringing together a trio of varying degrees of adolescents to go toe-to-toe with an ancient evil in what would have been seen as a no-win situation. In his feature film debut, the barely teenage Stephen Dorff (“Blade”) lead the trio as the highly impressionable and model rocket enthusiast Glen, the youngest of the cast to be the one to save them all, including big sister Al, played by Christa Denton, and best friend Terry, played by Louis Tripp. Tripp would go on to be principal lead in the sequel that veered away from the fantastically supernatural misadventures of innocence into a more older teen intrinsic narrative that no longer saw the world warp through youthful eyes. While Tripp segues seamlessly in his role, he finds himself in new territory as the heavy metal and demonology aficionado sparks potential romantic interest in Liz (prolific voice actress Pamela Adlon, “Vampire Hunter D: Bloodlust”) and is seized by arrogant bullies with two pot smoking hooligans Moe (Simon Reynolds, “P2”) and John (James Villemaire, “Zombie 5: Killing Birds”), both instances a premiere example of the raw rite through to adulthood. Again, “The Gate II” keeps adults at an arm’s length away, forsaking youth the challenge of cleaning up their own mess. Both films fill out their respective performances from Kelly Rowan (“Candyman: Farewell to the Flesh”), Jennifer Irwin (“Another Evil”), Deborah Grover (“Rated X”), Scot Denton (“Murder in Space”), Carl Kraines (“The Slayer”), and Neil Munro (“Murder by Phone”).

Special effects by the team of Randall William Cook, Craig Reardon, and Frank Carere couldn’t have pulled off an ambitiously suburban horror hyper focused inside Glen’s home any better. Fashioning mind-bending illusions that are still marveled at to this day, Cook’s forced perceptions eliminates mostly the use of stop motion tactics for the miniature sized minions, replacing the rigid effect with a more lively physical man-in-suit option that smooths out the actions, attributing the creatures idiosyncratically with not only depth of perception to contrast sizes but also shot in a faster camera speed compared to which the seemingly normal sized actors would have to slow down their performances to become level with the creature. The whole process is crazily multifaceted and mind-boggling effective if pulled out in great detail and “The Gate” team does so, twice, in face, between the two films, with Reardon’s fleshy creature designs enhancing the hideous zeal in the bulbously decaying Workman zombie and even in Reardon’s blamelessly slapped together endgame demons for the ordered change of a quickly surmised climax in the sequel. As a collaborating unit, the special effects crew pulls off seamless transitions in what is captivatingly pure eye-candy of movie magic. The stories themselves, especially in “The Gate,” are enchanting, full of mysterious and unpredictability, and stretches the imagination beyond the confining limit as we’re led to inevitable showdown only to be pleasantly accosted on the optics. The sequel has a rougher go with the story as the narrative feels like a wound-up toy twisted tight to the threshold only to be released spinning in all different types of directions that ultimately lead to an exhausted stopping point. The stark contrast between the two films doesn’t offer a lot of subsequential continuity in narrative and even in some areas of the special effects but the silver lining in that last statement can be a sigh of relief in not receiving a rehashed product sought to recap or repeat off the back of the original’s success. Instead, “The Gate II” begs to be separated to be its own entity and does so while being a homage to the practical illusions that sparks awe, joy, and terror!

If looking to physically own both “”The Gate” and “The Gate II” in one deluxe package, the Australian based distributor Via Vision has set the bar high with their 2-disc, numbered limited edition, Blu-ray collector’s set. Both films, shown in a widescreen 1.85:1 aspect ratio, are AVC encoded with a high-definition, 1080p resolution on a BD50 (“The Gate”) and BD25 (“The Gate II”) and we’ll come to the reasoning to that split later on. Shot on 35mm and scanned into a 2K print, not many details are noted about what film negative or other print element is scanned to 2K but most of the bonus content on this particular release is Vestron produced, leading to believe the same Vestron print is also used here. Between the two pictures, “The Gate II” has a better saturated image whereas the original film almost seems ungraded with a slight gray concealer that somewhat mutes the hues. The forced perception shots are seamless yet are also delineated nicely that curves into a believable and pleasing symmetry without an inkling of divisional depths. Skin tones are natural looking and textures, such as practical prosthetic masks and molds, score high in all the nooks and crannies of the folds and surface level haptics. The English encoded tracks include a lossy DTS-HD 2.0 stereo codec on “The Gate” and an uncompressed, lossless PCM 2.0 stereo on “The Gate II.” These sole options provide suitable stereophonics without significant compression issues, other than “The Gate’s” minor fidelity data loss, or original source damage or technical gaffs, such as hissing or popping. Dialogue design sees the “The Gate” come out on top over the course of layering and projecting atmospheric augmenting. I don’t get that same sense from “The Gate II” that modulates the dialogue with a redounding heavy-handed echo effect in locations it does not make sense for reverberations. “The Gate” has English and Spanish subtitles with the sequel reduced to just English subs available. “The Gate’s” greater format capacity holds most of the special feature cards with a number of duplicated Vestron produced bonus content, including two audio commentaries: commentary one with director Tibor Takács, screenwriter Michael Nankin, and special effects designer/supervisor Randal William Cook and second commentary with Cook again along with his f/x crew Graig Reardon, Frank Carere, and Bill Taylor. Composer Michael Hoenig and J. Peter Robinson discuss the score with selected isolated tracks to enjoy, a conversation between Takács and Cook in The Gate: Unlocked, Craig Readon in an interview about creating the pint-sized creatures in Minion Maker, an interview with co-producer Andras Hamori From Hell it Came, an interview with actor Carl Kraines aka The Workman aka Terry the Demon The Workman Speaks!, an interview compilation from the local Toronto talent involved Made in Canada, a 2009, archival retrospective look and discussion from Reardon and Cook at their monstrous being handiwork From Hell: The Creatures & Demons of The Gate with Randall William Cook and Craig Readon, a 2009, archival retrospective look and discussion with director and writer Tibor Takács and Michael Nankin The Gatekeepers, a vintage making-of featurette, teaser and theatrical trailers, TV spots, and storyboard and behind-the-scenes galleries. In what is a David and Goliath size imbalance, “The Gate II” special features ultimately will not trump with smaller disc capacity and the lack thereof content but the second disc sequel does contain a new, 2023 audio commentary by Tibor Takács and film historian Jarret Gahan as well as a documentary with Takács, Nankin, and Cook Return to the Nightmare: A Look Back at The Gate II that discusses how and where the film strayed off the intended course, an interview with make-up effects artist Craig Reardon From the Depths, the theatrical trailer, and retain video promo. Via Vision’s limited-edition packaging is another world chic and cool with a rigid sleeve box and a lenticular “The Gate II” front cover art. Slipped inside from the right is a single Amary Blu-ray case with a center stationed second disc attachment. While the front cover on the sleeve box showcases the sequel cover, the Amaray’s reversible cover sports the original “The Gate” cover art with a Glen still image and film cast/crew credits on the other side. Also inside the sleeve box are six fully colored glossy photo cards! Both films are Australia certified Mature for moderate violence and moderate course language and have a runtime of 84 minutes (“The Gate”) and 93 minutes (“The Gate II”). The Via Vision release is region B locked (note: the release did play on my region A setting).

Last Rites: Digging a hole to open “The Gate” and the contradistinctive sequel unburies a pair of underrated underworld-creeping-toward-the-surface 80’s phantasmagorias, a regular doomsday fait accompli with children standing between Hell of Earth and saving the world, and what better wait to see the world potentially burn to the ground than with a beautiful new Blu-ray collector’s set from Via Vision!

Better Hurry! Amazon Has a 20% Coupon for This Very Release! Limited to 1500 Copies.

In the sleepy Californian desert town of Brownsville, the peaceful way of life has been upended and thrown into chaos when a savage murderer embarks on a path of a seemingly random killing spree. Previously apprehended and transferred to a psychiatric hospital by court order, the psychopath’s easy and violent escape places him back into an already frightened society to the likes the town has never seen. With no leads to pursue and the townsfolk fearfully blaming the ill-equipped police force, Captain Peters and his squad of deputies must establish a pattern of slaying in order to track his next move, but all kill sites lead to being arbitrary – a motel on the outskirts of town, a isolated gas station, and a suburban home. Are these killings at random or is there a path the killer is following?

Mixed martial artist Quinton “Rampage” Jackson lives up to his professional epithet in Rocky Costanzo’s “A Psycho’s Path.” The credited writer and director filmmaker from Huntington Beach, California follows up his 2016 germane, American social, malignancy teenage thriller, “Ditch Party,” with the 2019 horror-slasher birthed from the spirit of independent filmmaking and produced by Noel Gugliemi, Matthew King-Ringo, and David Ramak. Despite the title’s wordplay on A Psychopath,”A Psycho’s Path’s” gritty and dark tone is anything but a pun-wit delineation as should be presupposed judged by the Mill Creek Entertainment DVD cover of a bloodied and wild-haired Jackson garnishing a blank death stare in the foreground of a moon and neon-lit ominous motel that just screams the trope scenario of nothing ever good is going to happen to that lady standing just inside her motel room’s doorway and wrapped in wet bathroom towels.

The former UFC lightweight Champion Jackson is no neophyte when concerned with the acting world. The big screen’s “The A-Team” adaptation proves just that with his break through rendition of the rogue militant, B.A. Baracus, famously portrayed by Mr. T in the early 80’s series of the same title and established the kind of role types Jackson’s built for outside the ring – large and in charge. In “A Psycho’s Path,” Jackson just has to appear like a 6’1″, 270lb monster without so much of one word of dialogue; it’s a role without a name other than John Doe and it’s a role Jackson was born to play as his physical attributes are naturally inherited and, dare I say it, scary. Character linked on the opposite side of the behavior spectrum is Captain Peters, played by Steve De Forest in one of the few prominent performances of his career, but Captain Peters doesn’t have enough oomph as a character to size up to John Doe. Thus, enters Noel Gugliemi, also known as Noel G., one of the most famous support character faces in all of the film industry from “Training Day” to “Bruce Almighty,” “The Purge: Anarchy” to “The Fast and the Furious” franchise, Gugliemi has the big name and personality in a joint forces operation with Steve De Forest as his on-screen right hand deputy, sergeant Torres. Barely recognizable with a bad wig and without his trademark facial hair, co-producer Gugliemi spits the snake tongued, whip-cracking lines of a jaded officer, lines that have solidified him as an all time fan favorite in his credentials. “A Pyscho’s Path” rounds out with Steve Louis Villegas (also in a bad wig), Kassim Osgood, Derrick Redford, Rowan Smyth, and with a lighthearted cameo from “Different Strokes'” Todd Bridges.

For fans of Michael Myers and the “Halloween” franchise, “A Psycho’s Path” has starkly obtained familiarities to The Shape’s universe with Jackson’s stoic performance of pure, unstoppable evil escaping a psychiatric setting intending to kill, kill, and kill and in also Costanzo’s ambitious direction, especially the track and follow camerawork that’s complimented by the cold tone cinematography of Dylan Martinez (“Ditch Party”), but that’s where the positives seemingly part ways with the rest of the film as a schlocky and campy shadow looming over what could possibly drive all these lunatics to the prospect of committing mass murder. Throw aside the already aforesaid production wardrobes with bad wigs and also ill-fitting deputy uniforms, “A Psycho Path’s” has lost more at stake with little string to yarn a strong woven story together that necessarily elevates John Doe’s affixed obsession to follow a blood-shedding zig-zag path loosely in a little-to-nothing conveyed context. “A Psycho’s Path” becomes a shell of other film’s former selves.

No One is Safe as the tagline warns on the DVD and digital download release of “A Psycho’s Path,” a production from Entangled Entertainment, Hourglass Pictures, and Stroboscope Studios, and distributed ITN Studios and Mill Creek Entertainment, a division of Alliance Entertainment. Presented in it’s original aspect ratio, an anamorphic widescreen 2.35:1, the image can be lost in a shadow-heavy contrast. Though praising his dark tone earlier alongside some well framed shots, Dylan Martinez, at times, goes full midnight at moments that hide events and eventualities from being discernible. The uplighting motif helps with cutting the overly dark picture and creates a sinister mood as slithers of shadows give a hard edged appearance. There’s also a menagerie of tint that doesn’t hone a theme. The English language Dolby Digital audio track renders palpable with clarity in dialogue and a decent range of ambience; however, the lack of depth throws some shade as characters, no matter whether in the background or foreground, live on an equal degree of volume. The release clocks in at 84 minutes, is not rated, and includes option English SDH subtitles. “A Psycho’s Path” has adequate acting, indie charisma, and one hell of a kill scene with a head in a vice like death grip and squeezed to pop like a ripe tomato in one’s hand, but can’t reproduce the slasher mystique well enough to earn it the trait.