Headlines

Sunday, October 20, 2013

HMM '13: The Gate

It's October!  The doorway to not only the start of the greatest food season (early October to Christmas), but also to sexy nurses, zombies, and grown men dressing up like ponies.  That also means it is time once again for Halloween Movie Madness!  This year, I'll be taking a look back at the movies of my youth.  Every movie this year was released before I turned eighteen.  These are the Halloween movies that shaped me into the man I am today.  Some of them are scary.  Some are funny.  Some are fantastical.  Some are just weird.  And not all of them are good.  But to me, they are all Halloween movies.  Now, stand back, for your own safety!   


The Gate
1987


This movie is about some kids who are on their own in their house while the parents are out of town for a few days.  The big sister is put in charge, there is some partying, and some demons are accidentally raised from a portal in the back yard.  The kids then fight the demons, yadda yadda yadda.  


Even though The Gate came out the same year as A Nightmare on Elm Street 3, it didn't quite scare me in the same way.  This one made me shy away from the weird "games" that people used to play at parties.  Especially the one they play in this movie.  I think it was just how freaked out the kid in the movie got over it.  Seeing someone my age getting freaked out over it really pushed it over the edge for me.

Now, I don't know what kids these days do at parties, but around the time this movie came out, they seemed to be into all this stuff.  What is portrayed here in The Gate, Bloody Mary, Ouija boards, things like that.  I get the appeal behind it when you are that age, but I never enjoyed the idea that we might have been messing around with things we had no business with.  In fact, there was only one time I ever participated in using an Ouija board, and that was right before we watched the movie Witchboard (I wish I had that movie, because it would fit this year's HMM theme perfectly).  That movie scared all of us so bad that as soon as it ended, we grabbed the girl's Ouija board, took it outside, and burned it. 

I'm getting off track a bit.


The whole "light as a feather, stiff as a board" thing they do in this movie is the part that sticks out to me the most.  Other than that, the only other thing I remember is that the demons are these little albino looking things. 

This movie is good for those who want to get their tweens/teens into scary movies without jumping right in to the Freddy and Jason types.

Now, feast your eyes upon today's Gifs Without Context.