The Gate (1987)

“The Gate” is one of those late-1980s hell-is-rising horror flicks that, if I saw at age13, I can’t recall. With a then-new diet of HBO’s “Tales from the Crypt,” “The Shining,” “Alien,” and much other horror, I may have laughed myself silly. I did this viewing, age 38. This story is all pre-CGI smoke and rubber-suited demons and zombies chasing after a middle schooler (Stephen Dorff) and his sister and best pal, after a portal to hell is uncovered in their back yard. Naturally. Silly, harmless, with big hair, and big phones that melt to the wall, the real fear here isn’t hell or ghouls, but the reaction Mom n’ Dad will have when they come home and see a smoldering mess of a house. How do you explain that? “The devil made me do it!” Forget the plot, it’s not worth the hassle. Dorff, sweet and innocent, has since carried a career playing vampires and guys who go thump in the night. Love the stop-motion effects. B