Editorials
7 Best Gateway to Hell Movies
With ‘Baskin’ re-opening the doors to damnation, we look at some of the best horror films involving gateways to Hell!
“Abandon all hope, ye who enter here.”
As a people, we have an inherit fascination with Hell. The idea of there being some dominion where not only the evilest amongst us end up, but also a place where demons and monsters run free spreading havoc. With Hell being an appropriately frightening place, most of pop culture’s association with the purgatory is in regard to avoiding the place; to escaping the prison; to never ending up there in the first place. That’s why it’s so fascinating when a literal gateway to Hell opens up in some horror story. The idea of this impossibly cursed world just rubbing up against our own and spilling out is truly terrifying. It’s an idea that’s so jarring there are even a number of sites in the real world that people are quick to designate as actual Hellmouths.
The recent Turkish horror film, Baskin, shows fascination with similar concepts as police officers doing a routine investigation of a house end up stumbling into an opening to Hell in its basement. Baskin explores this exploration into the unknown with a stunning, disturbing poignancy. In honor of Baskin reminding us all how effective a good encounter with damnation can be, here are some of the best horror movies that involve a gateway to Hell!
7. As Above, So Below
As Above, So Below gets points right from the start for being loosely based on the alleged “actual” gateway to Hell rumored to be within the Paris catacombs (the film was actually shot within the catacombs too, which is pretty impressive). The film might ultimately fall short in comparison to other similar cavernous horror like The Descent, but this is the only one of the lot that ends up tying into Hell. The film sees a team braving the Paris catacombs on a rather ridiculous mission to find this Holy Grail of alchemy, a stone that will turn lead into gold or silver. The film goes one step further with the relic also granting eternal life and it being a constant beacon to heal people throughout the film. It’s one thing to stumble into Hell, but that’s some rather fantastical business.
As the team treks deeper into the darkness, disturbing images like fanatical cultists, visions of demons, and their worst fears personified come out. This is very much the version of Hell that tests your mettle and tries to get inside your head. As the crew gets deeper underground a rather familiar greeting appears, “Abandon all hope, ye who enter here,” which will either have you pleasantly smirking or rolling your eyes.
John Erick Dowdle’s picture does decide to go the found footage route, but it’s at least got some creative spins on the format, with touches like mounting cameras on the group’s helmets going far. Dowdle is someone that’s shown he knows what he’s doing and while many people will bring up his films Quarantine or Devil as deterrents, As Above feels much more reminiscent of his underrated The Poughkeepsie Tapes. While a flawed film, it’s still one with plenty of character and it’s ending is one that will no doubt stay with you.
6. Amityville 3D (AKA, III: The Demon)
Okay, full discretion, Amityville 3D isn’t winning any awards. It’s certainly one of the blander outings in the Amityville series and the body count is much lower and infrequent than it should be. While these misgivings paired with some unfortunate 3D effects give the film a campy charm, it still does manage to do a number of things right. One of those elements being its incorporation of its door to the underworld. The film’s final act reveals that all of the house’s demonic activity is courtesy of a well in the basement that’s actually a gateway to Hell. The film is a little vague with the specifics of it, but with the monsters that come out of the hole paired with the flames that later shoot out of it, it feels like a logical conclusion. I also really dig the idea of a haunted house’s activity being due to a doorway to another world rather than the typical murder leading to ghosts situation.
In spite of the interesting take on Hell gateways that is hinted at in the film’s end, it’s a real spectacle to get to that point. The story sees a journalist who’s been trying to debunk the Amityville legend (loosely based on real-life Stephen Kaplan) ending up acquiring the house and moving in. The things you’re probably going to remember the most here are that ridiculous death courtesy of a swarm of flies, a homemade Ouija board, and the fact that a young Meg Ryan and Lori Loughlin (Full House, Fuller House) round out the cast of precocious teens. The Amityville has such a bizarre litany of sequels that this one is still worth checking out for the curiosity factor, but barely. If nothing else may this film make you imagine a Full House series going on in the Amityville house. Start writing that fan fiction, guys!
5. The Sentinel
The Sentinel is an odd little horror film from the ‘70s that you might have never even heard about, even though it boasts the likes of people like Jeff Goldblum, Christopher Walken, and Burgess Meredith in its cast. It even has one of the more original plots from out of these films where a model moves into a brownstone apartment in Brooklyn that turns out to be owned by disgraced priests with the building being a gateway to Hell. It’s something that almost feels downright Polanski-esque or verging on Argento’s work in its execution, which is never a bad thing either.
The Sentinel actually goes to some pretty bizarre places. Alison, the model, continues to pry into the building’s history, which results in her learning that the blind excommunicated priest who owns the building is actually a gatekeeper. His job is to police the Hell opening and make sure that no demons escape, but now that his life is coming to an end, the gateway is in need of a new Sentinel, with Alison being their selection. That’s actually a concept I’m super into and The Sentinel doesn’t shy away from tapping into how bleak of a story this is (it also taunts Alison over her past suicide attempts, turning it into an even more grim survivor’s guilt parable). The passage towards the end where Hell literally breaks loose and chases a desperate Alison through the apartment building is also an effectively frightening high note—not to mention controversial one (people with real deformities were cast as these demons)—for the film to go out on.
4. The Gate
Honestly, this selection just as easily could have been Polanski’s Johnny Depp vehicle, The Ninth Gate, but these films are about the same in quality, and you’re probably more familiar with Polanski’s entry. If not, it’s one of the more unfortunate outings from the later stage of the director’s career that involves assembling the right relics and conducting a ritual to open the ninth gate to Hell and pass over into the purgatory. Besides, you don’t want that melodramatic mess; this film has rambunctious pre-teens encountering a doorway to Hell in their very own backyard!
This film is all over the place in the best possible way. After an unusual combination of lightning, geodes, and bloodletting, the hole in the backyard starts to become suspicious to our protagonists. After it’s given up a sacrifice, the gateway activates and everything starts to go wrong. And I mean everything in the truest sense. There are shape-shifting demon dopplegangers here, swarms of locusts, run of the mill giant monster snakes, Old God references, dog corpses in your bed, and so much more. This film throws a lot at you and really takes advantage of the sort of unusual disturbance that a gateway to the underworld could be capable of causing. For those eager for more of these heightened antics, there’s also (thankfully) a Gate II: Trespassers out there.
3. The Beyond
Lucio Fulci’s The Beyond is the title getting the spotlight here, but really any of the films from the directors “Gates of Hell” trilogy (City of the Living Dead and House by the Cemetery being the other two) qualify quite nicely, aptly enough. Fulci’s picture begins in the ‘20s where a murder by a lynch mob (of someone who might be a warlock) within a hotel ends up opening one of the Seven Doors of Death, a Hell gate conduit for the dead to cross over. Decades later when the hotel is reacquired and reopened, the recent activity stirs up the inevitable and soon the separation between Hell and the land of the living is tenuous at best. At the film’s climax a hospital is literally overrun with zombies so things get out of hand.
Fulci is known for his over-the-top gore and giallo sensibilities with The Beyond not disappointing in that regard. There’s of course the now famous “eye splinter” scene, but other creative takes on the gateway to damnation keep the film entertaining. Deaths courtesy of things like spiders, acid, and renegade dogs all add a very specific voice to the film that isn’t afraid to show off what it’s capable of. As it also seems to be tradition with these films, The Beyond also sports a real downer of an ending where nobody wins and yet another chilling reminder of how vacuous and powerful Hell can be.
2. Event Horizon
Colloquially referred to as “Hellraiser in Space,” it’s a more than fair comparison point and it’s not hard to see how Paul W.S. Anderson was eventually given the keys to the Resident Evil cinematic franchise due to work like this. Event Horizon is surely the most creative concept on the list, ditching contemporary trappings like hotels, apartment buildings, or suburban homes for its Hell gates and instead taking this madness to outside the Earth’s atmosphere. Set in the year 2047, the film sees a standard rescue mission being initiated upon a wrecked ship, the Event Horizon. It’s learned that the ship’s purposes was to test a new sort of gravity drive that essentially creates an artificial black hole allowing transport between two vast distances. The brilliant development that’s fallen upon here is that this black hole is actually an opening into Hell itself.
This strong concept more or less morphs into the space ship becoming “possessed” by this demonic force and waging war with the susceptible crew that’s inside. Anderson does strong work illustrating the space madness that strikes everyone. The performances are all great and it’s not hard to believe that this film was one of the prime influences for the popular survival horror video game series, Dead Space.
What I love about this movie (which is more than worth a re-watch at this point if you’ve been lukewarm on the endeavor) is that the glimpses of Hell that it shows you are so detailed and graphic, but they assault you at such a quick, visceral level it’s almost connecting on more of a psychological level. Your brain is completing the images for you as this horror just seeps in your mind and doesn’t get a chance to properly process. There are lengthy deleted scenes that are set within the Hell-verse that are some beautiful work and show off Anderson’s early ability, and yet he shows restraint by removing them from the picture. Less is more a lot of the time, and Event Horizon becomes more powerful by hinting at the horrors shown in Hell rather than full-out splashing around in its puddles of blood.
1. Hellbound: Hellraiser II
And speaking of puddles of blood…Clive Barker’s original Hellraiser is a classic, but its sequel does exactly what it should by actually going to Hell and doubling down on all of the delicious cenobite lore. Barker’s world is truly a disgusting, unsettling one with Hellraiser II embracing all of that in such a loving way. There are likely just as many characters without skin in this film as there are with. The murders are all grisly in a very vicious sort of way, and Dr. Channard’s metamorphosis into the new de facto Pinhead is the stuff of nightmares.
Hellraiser II does an excellent job at continuing Kirsty’s tragic story, just like the follow-ups to Halloween and A Nightmare on Elm Street respect their original Final Girls. What’s kind of cool about Hellbound though is that there are essentially two gateways to Hell that are present here. The first being the bloody mattress that Kirsty’s mother killed herself on in the original film—and really, what’s a more evocative gateway to Hell then a mattress soaked in blood? The other doorway being the result of the Lament Configuration puzzle box being completed successfully and literal openings to the afterlife appear so that the cenobites can deal with this disturbance.
Hellraiser II is a crucial stepping stone for the franchise and a rather formative work in terms of representations of Hell, too. Not to mention that the idea of Hell merely being one small dominion (and cenobites just being one species amongst many) amongst a larger Hellscape is such a rich premise. What’s my pleasure? That’s my pleasure.
Let it also be clear that all of these selections feature specifically a gateway to Hell. There are many more capable films that simply take place in Hell, feature scenes in Hell, or some other variation on the idea, but this list is looking at a very specific qualifier. With Baskin seeing rave reviews, hopefully it will reignite people’s interest with telling these interesting sort of horror film where the impossible ends up invading the ordinary.
Let’s just hope that whatever’s waiting on the other side looks a whole lot more pleasing than a cenobite.
Twice a month Joe Lipsett will dissect a new Amityville Horror film to explore how the “franchise” has evolved in increasingly ludicrous directions. This is “The Amityville IP.”
A bizarre recurring issue with the Amityville “franchise” is that the films tend to be needlessly complicated. Back in the day, the first sequels moved away from the original film’s religious-themed haunted house storyline in favor of streamlined, easily digestible concepts such as “haunted lamp” or “haunted mirror.”
As the budgets plummeted and indie filmmakers capitalized on the brand’s notoriety, it seems the wrong lessons were learned. Runtimes have ballooned past the 90-minute mark and the narratives are often saggy and unfocused.
Both issues are clearly on display in Amityville Karen (2022), a film that starts off rough, but promising, and ends with a confused whimper.
The promise is embodied by the tinge of self-awareness in Julie Anne Prescott (The Amityville Harvest)’s screenplay, namely the nods to John Waters’ classic 1994 satire, Serial Mom. In that film, Beverly Sutphin (an iconic Kathleen Turner) is a bored, white suburban woman who punished individuals who didn’t adhere to her rigid definition of social norms. What is “Karen” but a contemporary equivalent?
In director/actor Shawn C. Phillips’ film, Karen (Lauren Francesca) is perpetually outraged. In her introductory scenes, she makes derogatory comments about immigrants, calls a female neighbor a whore, and nearly runs over a family blocking her driveway. She’s a broad, albeit familiar persona; in many ways, she’s less of a character than a caricature (the living embodiment of the name/meme).
These early scenes also establish a fairly straightforward plot. Karen is a code enforcement officer with plans to shut down a local winery she has deemed disgusting. They’re preparing for a big wine tasting event, which Karen plans to ruin, but when she steals a bottle of cursed Amityville wine, it activates her murderous rage and goes on a killing spree.
Simple enough, right?
Unfortunately, Amityville Karen spins out of control almost immediately. At nearly every opportunity, Prescott’s screenplay eschews narrative cohesion and simplicity in favour of overly complicated developments and extraneous characters.
Take, for example, the wine tasting event. The film spends an entire day at the winery: first during the day as a band plays, then at a beer tasting (???) that night. Neither of these events are the much touted wine-tasting, however; that is actually a private party happening later at server Troy (James Duval)’s house.
Weirdly though, following Troy’s death, the party’s location is inexplicably moved to Karen’s house for the climax of the film, but the whole event plays like an afterthought and features a litany of characters we have never met before.
This is a recurring issue throughout Amityville Karen, which frequently introduces random characters for a scene or two. Karen is typically absent from these scenes, which makes them feel superfluous and unimportant. When the actress is on screen, the film has an anchor and a narrative drive. The scenes without her, on the other hand, feel bloated and directionless (blame editor Will Collazo Jr., who allows these moments to play out interminably).
Compounding the issue is that the majority of the actors are non-professionals and these scenes play like poorly performed improv. The result is long, dull stretches that features bad actors talking over each other, repeating the same dialogue, and generally doing nothing to advance the narrative or develop the characters.
While Karen is one-note and histrionic throughout the film, at least there’s a game willingness to Francesca’s performance. It feels appropriately campy, though as the film progresses, it becomes less and less clear if Amityville Karen is actually in on the joke.
Like Amityville Cop before it, there are legit moments of self-awareness (the Serial Mom references), but it’s never certain how much of this is intentional. Take, for example, Karen’s glaringly obvious wig: it unconvincingly fails to conceal Francesca’s dark hair in the back, but is that on purpose or is it a technical error?
Ultimately there’s very little to recommend about Amityville Karen. Despite the game performance by its lead and the gentle homages to Serial Mom’s prank call and white shoes after Labor Day jokes, the never-ending improv scenes by non-professional actors, the bloated screenplay, and the jittery direction by Phillips doom the production.
Clocking in at an insufferable 100 minutes, Amityville Karen ranks among the worst of the “franchise,” coming in just above Phillips’ other entry, Amityville Hex.
The Amityville IP Awards go to…
- Favorite Subplot: In the afternoon event, there’s a self-proclaimed “hot boy summer” band consisting of burly, bare-chested men who play instruments that don’t make sound (for real, there’s no audio of their music). There’s also a scheming manager who is skimming money off the top, but that’s not as funny.
- Least Favorite Subplot: For reasons that don’t make any sense, the winery is also hosting a beer tasting which means there are multiple scenes of bartender Alex (Phillips) hoping to bring in women, mistakenly conflating a pint of beer with a “flight,” and goading never before seen characters to chug. One of them describes the beer as such: “It looks like a vampire menstruating in a cup” (it’s a gold-colored IPA for the record, so…no).
- Amityville Connection: The rationale for Karen’s killing spree is attributed to Amityville wine, whose crop was planted on cursed land. This is explained by vino groupie Annie (Jennifer Nangle) to band groupie Bianca (Lilith Stabs). It’s a lot of nonsense, but it is kind of fun when Annie claims to “taste the damnation in every sip.”
- Neverending Story: The film ends with an exhaustive FIVE MINUTE montage of Phillips’ friends posing as reporters in front of terrible green screen discussing the “killer Karen” story. My kingdom for Amityville’s regular reporter Peter Sommers (John R. Walker) to return!
- Best Line 1: Winery owner Dallas (Derek K. Long), describing Karen: “She’s like a walking constipation with a hemorrhoid”
- Best Line 2: Karen, when a half-naked, bleeding woman emerges from her closet: “Is this a dream? This dream is offensive! Stop being naked!”
- Best Line 3: Troy, upset that Karen may cancel the wine tasting at his house: “I sanded that deck for days. You don’t just sand a deck for days and then let someone shit on it!”
- Worst Death: Karen kills a Pool Boy (Dustin Clingan) after pushing his head under water for literally 1 second, then screeches “This is for putting leaves on my plants!”
- Least Clear Death(s): The bodies of a phone salesman and a barista are seen in Karen’s closet and bathroom, though how she killed them are completely unclear
- Best Death: Troy is stabbed in the back of the neck with a bottle opener, which Karen proceeds to crank
- Wannabe Lynch: After drinking the wine, Karen is confronted in her home by Barnaby (Carl Solomon) who makes her sign a crude, hand drawn blood contract and informs her that her belly is “pregnant from the juices of his grapes.” Phillips films Barnaby like a cross between the unhoused man in Mulholland Drive and the Mystery Man in Lost Highway. It’s interesting, even if the character makes absolutely no sense.
- Single Image Summary: At one point, a random man emerges from the shower in a towel and excitedly poops himself. This sequence perfectly encapsulates the experience of watching Amityville Karen.
- Pray for Joe: Many of these folks will be back in Amityville Shark House and Amityville Webcam, so we’re not out of the woods yet…
Next time: let’s hope Christmas comes early with 2022’s Amityville Christmas Vacation. It was the winner of Fangoria’s Best Amityville award, after all!
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