User reviews

A classic in the eighties genre of horror. It features goofy heavy metal music and demons. Stephen Dorff plays young Glen, who discovers a hole in his backyard is a doorway for demons. After his friend Terry plays his metal album backwords and they coincidently bury the family pet(you always need a sacrifice) in a hole in the backyard, they awaken demonic spirits which destroy the home and try to kill them. A funny take(even if not meant to be) on back masking and the influence of rock music on children. This film features some classic stop motion in the lines of Jason and the Argonauts. They are attacked by reanimating dead, droves of tiny demons and a head demon the size of a bus, which bares a strong resemblance to a Clash of Titans creature. This all stemming from a movie that would normally be a dud given the time period. It shouldn't be taken too seriously, but will amuse you for about 85 minutes. This is yet another underrated, hardly seen eighties gem.

The Gate is a bit of fun for adults and pre-teen kids alike.

Its a nice adventure story that draws you in, keeping you entertained throughout.

The effects are pretty cool, low budget but effective.

Far from award winning but even further away from terrible, The Gate will give you a giggle and keep the kids hiding under the bed :)

The boy Glen (Stephen Dorff) and his best fried Terry (Louis Tripp) accidentally open a gate to hell when a rotten tree is removed from the backyard of Glen's house. When his dog die and a friend of Glen's sister, the teenager Alexandra (Christa Denton), buries the animal in the hole, demons from an ancient civilization are released, seeking for two human sacrifices to dominate the world. Glen, Al and Terry, who are spending the weekend alone in the house, fight to save their lives and close the hole.

I do not recall how many times I have seen "The Gate" on VHS and now on DVD. The funny story has a terrible conclusion, but the special effects were amazing in 1987. This cult-movie is very underrated inclusive in IMDb but who cares? I still love this little gem of the fantastic cinema. My vote is seven.

Title (Brazil): "O Portão" (VHS) / "O Portal" (DVD) ("The Gate")

Don't let the PG-13 rating and the "if it's not gory and new, it's no good" critiques fool you. This could possibly get an R today, and is a great horror-fantasy that I loved as a kid and still love now. All of the actors turn in great performances (including a very young Stephen Dorff who proves here that he was a great actor from the start), and I have no idea how anyone could dare to criticize the quality of these great special FX. To me, "The Gate" is an example that sometimes a low-budget film, if done well, looks much better than big-budget swill could ever wish to be. The only less than totally impressive special effect is the big monster that shows up, but it's no better or worse than the computer-generated monsters we're accustomed to today, plus the fact that it WAS done on a low budget should make it more worthy of respect when it probably looked state-of-the-art back then. All of the rest of the creatures are great. Like in "Return of the Aliens: The Deadly Spawn" (another great movie with even lower budget creature FX), if I were to run into some monsters in real life, I would expect them to look as real as this! Another thing I loved about this was the fact that, despite idiotic people who write all the time that this movie is making a comment against heavy metal, "The Gate" actually poses an interesting idea that sometimes the knowledge of some of these heavy metal rockers can be positive and helpful, no matter how "evil" their image might be. If you watch this movie, you might see what I mean. This is definitely a PG-13 horror movie that deserves a lot more respect than it's gotten.

Overall, I liked The Gate because of it's weirdness. Plus, the special effects were eye-catching. Especially when the handyman tumbles over then transforms into tiny demons that scatter about. My favorite scene is when the parents return home late at night and Glen's father says "You've been baaaaaad!" and tries to strangle him while slime drips out of his face. Weird stuff. My only complaint is how it ended. But I won't give it away. I recommend seeing this one but keep in mind that those dwarf demons are "older than the Bible".

Considering the large debt it owes to 'Poltergeist', this Canadian horror film stacks up remarkably well to repeat viewings with a similar plot about a house where odd things begin happening after forces are inadvertently summoned from below. One thing that really works in 'The Gate''s favour is the lack of adults with the film instead focusing on two young boys and a teenage sister warding off demons and goblins and protecting their family home while their parents are away on vacation. Their experiences give the brother and a sister a chance to really bond for the first time as well as wrestle with the responsibilities of adulthood, left in charge of the house and expected to take care of it. The best aspect of the film though is unquestionably the special effects; the film achieves a refreshingly different sort of creepiness by having tiny demons to fend off as opposed to more traditional large and ferocious monsters. Sequences in which a human head falls off and smashes and in which the boy discovers an eye inside the palm of his hand are very well done too. It is not a particularly frightening film, with many scenes that feel as if they have been toned down to achieve the film's PG-13 rating, but it is unsettling to watch all the same, full of moments (Louis Tripp realising he is holding the dog) that are still effective even when one knows that they are coming.

It's a nice watch, should provide some genuine scares for younger audiences. Aside from a few frightening images, it's pretty kid-friendly has a very Goosebumps/The Haunting Hour feel . I'm not entirely sure how it got stuck with a PG-13 rating in the 1980s aside from hearing the word "fag" twice. I've heard heard much more coarse language in '80s PG films.

Believe it or not, this was much better than I initially anticipated. I expected one of those God-awful, cheesy special effects, mindless eighties horror films - a decade I think was a low ebb for that genre in general. I got to see a 35mm print of The Gate and was impressed with several things. Now before I get out of control here, make no mistake, this is not a great film even in terms of the horror genre, but it is a bona-fide campy, cult favorite from the eighties with good reason. The story is ridiculous about some hole, as a result of an old tree being destroyed in a family's backyard, having demons living down deep in its bowels. A rock band that died tragically also is involved, or at least the record album on hand complete with a huge history of demonology attached. Add a couple more-than-precocious boys, a bunch of teens, looking dreadfully eighties-style, attending a party while the parents are away, and some freaky little demons and you have much of The Gate. The little demons are cute and spooky and the director Tibot Takics actually visualizes them rather nicely - particularly in an era when special effects for horror and science fiction films were quite low in terms of quality. The director was also able to create some suspense and some interesting characters with the 2 small boys in particular. Stephen Dorff and Louis Tripp play Glenn and Terry respectively and give the film some heart. There is not much to recommend as far as the remaining cast is concerned, but The Gate delivers some solid scares, some atmospheric settings and direction, and some surprisingly good special effects. Good campy fun!

Glen and Terry (Stephen Dorff, Louis Tripp) inadvertently open a gate to hell in Glen's backyard, releasing ancient demons. The boys and Glen's sister Al (Christa Denton) must find a way to send the demons back and seal the gate. Very fun kids horror movie from the '80s. The cast is likable. The special effects are very cool. The script is good. The '80s had some great movies with kids as the heroes fighting against the forces of evil. Despite some inevitable cheese, these movies were way smarter and more "real" than similar movies of today. The kids seemed authentic and not overly precocious or popping off pop culture references right and left. The Gate's a fun movie that anyone should enjoy, except maybe gorehounds.

Possibly after being struck by lightning, a tree in young Stephen Dorff (as Glen)'s yard is removed. Possibly, this was a gateway to Hell. After Mr. Dorff, neighbor Louis Tripp (as Terry), and sister Christa Denton (as Al) unwittingly perform a succession of rites and incantations, demons surface. The youngsters' parents are conveniently away from home; and, the demons want to do mean things. Mr. Tripp is dealing with the loss of his mother; and, Ms. Denton is discovering young womanhood. The monster demons are cute, but the story really doesn't pass muster. Made, apparently, to scare 1980s pre-teens.

***** The Gate (1987) Tibor Takács ~ Stephen Dorff, Louis Tripp, Christa Denton

Demons? Metal Music? Steven Dorff? Why not!!!

So... the gateway to hell or whatever is in the backyard of Steven Dorff's suburban home... and a metal band foretold all of this... and Demons threaten this world... Doesn't that sound great?

As a kid this was scary watching this with a baby sitter and such but now it just seems campy. But I still love it every time!

OK... it is a bit cheesy, and the DVD quality is awful.... but come on...it's like 5 bucks at Best buy!

Seriously... if you haven't seen this movie and your into cheesy horror flicks just give it a try... keep the classics alive!

I have such fond memories of 'The Gate'. Thankfully, I enjoyed it just as much as an adult as I did way back then.

Hungarian director Tibor Takacs brought us the unforgettable horror thriller 'The Gate'. I'm not sure whether to call it a classic, but it certainly is a memorable film. It is a very well made film in the time before CGI. Sure, most of the visual effects doesn't hold so well by today's standards, but whenever I watch an old movie, I view it for what it is and envision it for what it must have been back in the day. In the 80s they had to rely on practical effects - real film making as opposed to doing everything on computer in post production nowadays! They also made use of stop-motion photography, as you'll clearly notice when the giant demon makes its appearance.

The acting is very good, and the little demons especially are well made (in a time before CGI, that is). Some of the practical effects are truly amazing and its wonderful how total chaos ensues during the final act. The film also delivered a few really funny moments, without the humor being out of place or being slapstick. Then there's also the more serious moments, like Glen (Dorff) dealing with the loss of the family dog. These were emotional moments I'm certain everyone who has had to bid farewell to a furry family member can relate to. I enjoyed the characters and the character development. Interesting to see a very, very young Stephen Dorff here...

I absolutely love 'The Gate' and will easily rate this among my many favorite 80s horror films. A real gem of a movie.

Charming and unscrupulous 80's horror, mainly aimed at younger audiences that outgrew the childish monsters of "Gremlins" but that are still a little too fragile to watch the real demons of "Hellraiser". Even for adult viewers, "The Gate" can be enjoyable as long as you can get past the silly plot and typically teenage acting performances. The story centers on three teenagers, Glen (Stephen Dorff was a better actor at age 14 than he is now) who's obsessed with toy-rockets, his sister Alexandra (busy discovering boys and slumber parties) and pal Terry (obviously having issues). They discover a deep hole in Glen's backyard and, for no particular reason; ancient demons decide to make this their passageway to take over the world. "The Gate" is a well-intended and often professionally made film, with subtle parody (towards metal music, abandoning parents…) and imaginatively animated demons. Its only flaw is that director Takács takes it all too seriously. The screenplay desperately tries to be convincing while it clearly doesn't make the slightest bit of sense. Make-believe bogeymen suddenly turn out real, dead dogs keep on moving from their place, etc etc… I'm sure that, if Takács had focused on the irony more, his film would now be regarded as a minor classic. Instead, it's just a bit of forgettable fun.

Ah, the pleasures of horror movies and nostalgia. I was about 18 or so when this was first released, and I wandered to the theaters with my friends to watch this movie based on all the TV ads. Yeah, ads that included those little dwarfed demons with mean faces and sharp teeth. Hey, for 1987 that was seriously cool - and done very well! But at the time, I came out of the theater thinking, "Eh, it was okay." Years later, sick and not in the mood to move, I flipped through the channels late at night and found "The Gate" about to come on. I thought, "Eh, for nostalgia, why not?" I was surprised by how much I loved the movie! I'd forgotten it starred Stephen Dorff (he was unknown back then), and I was disappointed to learn that his sister in the movie (Christa Denton) didn't really go on to do much else. She was cute. Whatever happened to her??? Besides the cool suburban and 1980's atmosphere (not to mention the clothes and hair - oh yeah!), the movie's story is the fun type of cheese that still keeps your eyes glued to the TV. Cool effects, a no-brainer but engaging story, and the kids are fun to watch. It's also on DVD at a cheap price, and I bought it the other day. Not bad. It's full screen (bummer), but the picture is pretty good. No extra features though (bummer again). But still, very worth of owning. I just watched it again lastnight. And yes, it's still so fun!

Three young children (including Stephen Dorff and Christa Denton) accidentally release a horde of nasty, pint-sized demons from a hole in a suburban backyard...

This is a film many people of my generation grew up with. Certainly the movie takes a place in my heart. Whether it is a good film or not is open to debate. I think it is good, but maybe my judgment is clouded by the nostalgia, the fond memories of the film. I just watched it for the fourth time, and it still seemed good to me. The special effects are pretty strong for their time, and really should be praised.

The film is a 1980s film, clearly, with its bright colored clothes and unusual love for heavy metal music. But it really is something more -- a timeless story of kids and monsters (very different from, but in the same spirit as, "The Monster Squad"). The film is scary in many ways (the workman, the demon king, the eye) but yet still has that childlike sense of fun and adventure. You never really feel anyone is in danger.

A modern classic? Perhaps. "The Gate" is the high point of Tibor Takács' career, who made "Gate II" and "I, Madman" before moving to television and cheesy SyFy movies. This was also a great feather in the cap of visual effects master Randall William Cook, who went on to work on those other two films, and then bigger things like "Ghost Busters" and the "Lord of the Rings" franchise (where he won three Academy Awards).

While Stephen Dorff went on to bigger things, Christa Denton faded away. She appeared in a handful of television episodes before retiring from acting in 1992 at age 20. Louis Tripp came back for "Gate II" an then he, too, faded away...

"The Gate" is definitely the kind of movie that captured 1987. It's cheesy and ridiculous for the most part. The girls have awesome color-streaked hair and the pimple-faced guys dress like 'duckie' from "Pretty In Pink." Two kids dig a hole in the backyard and open up a gate to hell. These awesome little demons come out and wreak havoc on the house. Lots of freaky things happen in between the great scenes with the Lee Sisters, young Dorff and Tripp and a dog coming back to life. The little demons are pretty well done. The whole movie is a lot of fun to watch, but do so with a grain of salt. You won't be disappointed.

7 out of 10, kids.

The boy who is the lead character is played by a chubby, pug-nosed Stephen Dorff. He and his friend Terry (Louis Tripp) open up the gates of hell when his dog dies and another friend, Al (Christa Denton), buries the animal in the hole.

Demons come up from hell, seeking for human sacrifices so they can take over the planet. Glen, Al and Terry, now must fight to survive, and close Alexandra's hole.

The Special Effects were by Randall William Cook, who won three FX Oscars, one for each of the Lord of the Rings movies. Here the stop-action / clay-mation monsters look like they were done by Ray Harryhousen. The eye in the hand is fun to watch, the demon that gets his eye blown out by the Barbie doll is fun too. There are some fun special effects in this movie.

Al (Alexandra) is an interesting character. Terry plays a dork, and he is kidnapped by the demons pretty early in the movie. The movie is fun, except for all the close-ups of Stephen Dorff' pug-nosed face and nasal cavities. The movie would be a lot better if about 90 seconds of close-ups of Dorff looking shocked or scared were edited out.

Saw this film when I was younger and I have now seen it when I am older and it was an okay movie, but nothing too terribly great. Nice premise and good acting, just not enough bang for the buck, though it does feature some nice effects there just is not a high enough body count, no on screen kills and a plot with too many coincidences. Still, if you want to see Stephen Dorf in one of his earlier roles it has that going for it and a nice short run time so the movie does move quickly, but just not quick enough to get over some of the strange coincidences that make this film an eye roller at times too.

The story has a boy returning home to an abandoned house. He explores and soon goes to the tree house which is promptly struck by lightening with him inside and soon he plummets to his bed as it was all a dream. Well, the tree in the dream is being torn done leaving a hole and a geode. The little boy's friend comes over and they dig up the covered hole in the hopes of finding another geode and do. Well the parents leave the sister in charge which is always a mistake as she immediately has a party where they levitate the boy and soon strange things begin happening as the hole may in fact be a gate to another realm where the old gods reside and they wish to enter our world once more and make it their own!

The story has promise, but quite a number of oddball occurrences too. The whole party was pointless if things were not going to happen that night as I would rather have seen all those annoying teens hunted by demons. The fact the boy's friend Terry just happens to have an album that literally tells them what is happening is laughable. The chances anyone having this album is going to be slim, the chances of someone having it near the place where the gate has opened, super slim and none!

So, I do not want to bash the film too much as it does have some nice scenes going on within; however, it just needed a bit more horror and less fond remembrance and rockets. I would have much rather the scene when the demons first appear to have lasted longer so those two annoying sisters could have gotten a bit more payback as they were mean to the boy, the sister was annoying too, typical older sister always brushing off her younger brother. In the end, I nice quick horror film, with a few good scenes as the one where the dad's face melts off is a bit over the top for a PG-13 film! There would be a sequel featuring the neighbor boy Terry and I saw it once, but for the life of me I cannot remember it, I don't think it was nearly as good as this one though.

Some time ago I watched a 2009 movie called "The Hole" in which kids/teenagers find a mysterious hole in their garage, and then weird things start to happen. Now I watched "The Gate" and noticed a lot of similarity. Here too the main characters are very young, and they find a hole in their yard.

My problem with this movie was that it doesn't decide whether to be a children's movie or a horror movie. I mean, if you have kids as main characters then the horror level probably isn't going to be very extreme. But there are some scary looking things, so it's not a children's movie either. I just wonder to whom is it intended for?

I didn't care about the characters, and the plot also didn't go where I wanted it to go. Same thing as with "The Hole", it was not enough about the gate (to hell) itself like the dvd case promises. Seems like the hole is just an excuse for supernatural things starting to happen. But the special effects are quite good and that's probably the best thing about this film. Some surprisingly gruesome monster moments for a cutesy teen-fantasy-horror flick.

There is something charming about how very 80s the movie looks. So even though I didn't like the movie that much, I believe there are certain people who will love it. If such movies as Poltergeist, House, Lost Boys, and Gremlins belong to your favorite things in life, then you might be the chosen one to open this gate.

A horror that does not fully convince. Only at the end we understand something but otherwise the characters are dull and stereotyped.

Strange the final monster that looks a lot like a mole and despite this it is quite scary.

If you are ever in the mood of seeing a funny and thrilling 80's horror movie, please watch The Gate! Don't trust IMDb with the 5 rating it's much better than that! I love the opening scene, the monsters and the thrilling scenes it contains.

The movie is about a Gate to hell or something which lies in a young boy and his sisters garden. Suddenly when it's dark, monsters emerge from the gate and attack the boy and the girl. The monsters are small latex beasts which also like incredible good and monster like. And there are some scenes with a zombie dude which are totally outstanding! I'm not going to spoil the end because this is a special effect extravaganza! Must see!

This movie itself is like the Evil Dead meets Poltergeist, and it's definitely worth checking out and wouldn't watch it alone even little kids wouldn't want to see this which give them nightmares for years to come.

"The Gate" certainly plays like a nightmare from hell gone terribly wrong. Eventually you would hope to wake up, but "The Gate" just goes on and on piling nonsense on nonsense. The big question is, who is the intended audience? This is certainly too scary for children, teenagers will abhor the lack of sex and gore, and adults are not likely to enjoy a movie that has virtually no adults. In addition it takes forever to get going after the hole initially appears. Plus, the whole thing is extremely claustrophobic, taking place entirely in and around one house. Of course another question is, why didn't the kids just run out of the house, and away from all this nonsense? I give up, and so will you. Not recommended. - MERK