The Gate (1987)

Directed by Tibor Takács. Starring Stephen Dorff, Louis Tripp, Christa Denton, Jennifer Irwin, Kelly Rowan, Scot Denton, Sean Fagan, Deborah Grover, Ingrid Veniger. [PG-13]

Young Dorff’s backyard has a mysterious hole in it that serves as a portal for vicious demons looking to wreak a little havoc, sacrifice a few innocents. Don’t you hate it when that happens? Slight but marginally effective mashup of Poltergeist, Gremlins, Explorers, and several other 80s suburban horror/youth-market flicks features sub-par acting and a tiresome first half-hour, but the film’s chief failing is insufficient momentum; the film plods from incident to incident, providing fairly low stakes and sloppy logic. Redeemed somewhat by pretty good effects and a few creative touches (heavy metal lyrics as a weapon against the forces of evil?). Kids might find enough scares here to rate it as a satisfactory diversion, but they’d be better served watching the films that served as inspiration instead.

43/100