Old-school board games become cool again when audiences press “Play” on Jackson Stewart’s Beyond the Gates, which will eject horror on VOD audiences this Friday, December 9th.

“In Beyond the Gates, two estranged brothers reunite seven months after their father’s disappearance to liquidate his anemic video store. While there, they unearth an old VCR board game that acts as an inter-dimensional hub to a nightmare world where their Father’s soul is trapped and can only be saved by playing the game.”

Described as throwback paranormal movie in the spirit of horror classics such as Phantasm, The Beyond, and Poltergeist, the film stars horror icon Barbara Crampton (Re-Animator, From Beyond, Sun Choke, You’re Next), as well as Graham Skipper (Almost Human, The Mind’s Eye), Chase Williamson (Siren, The Guest), and Brea Grant (Halloween 2, “Heroes”).

Before we dive into our chat with Jackson, here’s an exclusive clip in which Graham and Chase turn a key and blow a dude’s brains all over themselves…

JACKSON STEWART INTERVIEW

BLOODY DISGUSTING: Where did the concept of a haunted board game come from?

JACKSON STEWART (JS): My co-writer Stephen Scarlata (Jodorowsky’s Dune), had this idea about a VCR board game that leads to another dimension and I thought it was pretty brilliant. A lot of what we used in the movie was riffing on ‘Nightmare’ and ‘Clue’.

BLOODY DISGUSTING: How did Barbara Crampton come aboard?

JS: I met Barbara back at a performance of Re-Animator the Musical in 2011. We became fast friends and was interested in producing. She read it, loved it and came on pretty quickly after that. Needless to say, for someone who grew up watching Re-Animator, it was a dream come true. I wanted to stay in the constraints of how movies were made in the 1980s as best we could, so if something could be done on set, we’d have to do it that way rather than worry about it in post. It presented a lot of technical issues operating off a huge console TV and timing out her lines with the other actors. As far as fun stories, I can’t think of too many other than she’s a huge morale boost on set. Everyone was always really happy and excited to have her around when she was available.

BLOODY DISGUSTING: Who designed the board game? Is it playable?

JS: Brendan Wiuff who works for Neversoft (the people who made the Tony Hawk games) and he also did a huge chunk of the work on the poster. He’s insanely talented. As far as the game goes, we didn’t record enough footage with Barbara to make it playable but I have some ideas how to do that if we can get back together soon.

BLOODY DISGUSTING: Is the film an homage or throwback to any films in particular?

JS: The three biggest ones are The Gate, Phantasm and The Beyond. There’s traces of Poltergeist, Gates Of Hell, House by the Cemetery, and From Beyond as well. I wanted to take the things I liked about those movies while trying to tell a new, somewhat more modern story without directly lifting setpieces from those movies. Hopefully that comes through.

BLOODY DISGUSTING: What films inspired you as a first time filmmaker?

JS: The Gate was a big one. There’s a few more oddball influences in there like Buffalo 66, The Ipcress File, Straw Dogs, Black Narcissus, Black Sunday and The Onion Field. Those are pretty subtle.

BLOODY DISGUSTING: Can you talk about the cinematography, especially the cool lighting in the third act?

JS: Basically, we wanted to start things off in a more naturalistic style and introduce the backlight, blue night time lighting you see in movies like Poltergeist and Renny Harlin’s Prison before finally reaching this blue/purple amalgam that should feel like stepping directly into the neon 1980s. All of our camera moves were done on a dolly and we had a steadfast rule of no steadicam or modern camerawork. The whole lighting scheme is tied together in the opening titles.

BLOODY DISGUSTING: You have a couple of sweet gore gags in there too (see above video), who did them for you and how did that go?

JS: Josh and Sierra Russell — they’re a husband and wife team and I’m such a huge fan of their work. They did Dave Bruckner’s segment in Southbound and Padraig Reynolds Devils Dolls which has some rad gore too. Our big one was the exploding head which we started talking about six months before shooting the movie and they did an amazing job on that. I am so proud of how their work came out in the movie. Everyone should work with them.

BLOODY DISGUSTING: What’s next?

JS: I have a project called The Day After Halloween that I am working on with Zach Hagen of He Never Died and Mia Chang from It Follows that we are close to getting financed. There’s also some interest in a sequel to Beyond The Gates where John, Chase Williamson’s character, would come to the forefront along with his new girlfriend — that’s a little more in the vein of paranoia movies from the 1980s like The Stuff and Society. Barbara Crampton and Jesse Merlin will definitely be in that.