Movies
Vestron Video Bringing ‘The Gate’ To Blu-ray For the First Time
“Demons aren’t gonna ring the doorbell!”
Little kids battled little monsters in director Tibor Takacs’ 1987 creature feature The Gate, which we’ve just learned will finally arrive on Blu-ray come February 28th, 2017. The release is the latest under Lionsgate’s recently relaunched Vestron Video banner; the film joins other cult faves already in the series such as Chopping Mall, Blood Diner, and Return of the Living Dead 3.
As a kid, I remember catching parts of The Gate on TV over the course of several years, and I never knew what the title of the film actually was… I just knew that I totally loved it. It wasn’t until years later that I found a VHS copy (from Vestron!) at my local Blockbuster and I was finally able to put a title to the movie. Needless to say, this Blu-ray is one I can’t wait to get my hands on.
In The Gate, which starred a young Stephen Dorff:
After an old tree is removed from the ground, three young children accidentally release a horde of nasty, pint-sized demons from the hole in a suburban backyard. What follows is a classic battle between good and evil as the three kids struggle to overcome a nightmarish hell that is literally taking over the Earth.
The Blu-ray will be packed with new features, and Coming Soon got the full scoop…
Special Features:
- Audio Commentaries:
-Director Tibor Takacs, Writer Michael Nankin, and Special Effects Designer & Supervisor Randall William Cook
-Special Effects Designer & Supervisor Randall William Cook, Special Make-Up Effects Artist Craig Reardon, Special Effects Artist Frank Carere, and Matte Photographer Bill Taylor - Isolated Score Selections and Audio Interview with Composers Michael Hoenig and J. Peter Robinson
- Featurettes:
-“The Gate: Unlocked”
-“Minion Maker”
-“From Hell It Came”
-“The Workman Speaks!”
-“Made in Canada”
-“From Hell: The Creatures & Demons of The Gate”
-“The Gatekeepers”
-“Making of The Gate” - Teaser Trailer
- Theatrical Trailer
- TV Spot
- Storyboard Gallery
- Behind-the-Scenes Still Gallery
The trailer for Ti West’s upcoming adaptation of A Christmas Carol raised a lot of eyebrows when it dropped earlier this week. While plenty of folks initially dismissed Ebenezer as a derivative project meant to cash in on the recent wave of unnecessary prequels that expand the backstory of beloved characters (such as 2023’s Wonka), Charles Dickens’ original novel already made a point of exploring Ebenezer Scrooge’s origins in detail – meaning that this new film is likely just a particularly faithful adaptation of the source material under a different name.
Couple that with the fact that the movie is being helmed by a genuine horror auteur and I think it’s safe to say that the latest iteration of the first modern ghost story is in good hands.
That being said, one detail that immediately jumped out at me during the brief teaser (other than a blink-and-you’ll-miss-it nod to Johnny Depp’s iconic bedroom death scene from the original A Nightmare on Elm Street) is the fact that many of Ebenezer’s ghosts appear to have been directly lifted from the iconic John Leech illustrations that accompanied the first edition of Dickens’ novel.
Here are a couple of stills from the trailer compared to the original artwork:
The Ghost of Christmas Yet to Come in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
The Phantoms in ‘A Christmas Carol’ and ‘Ebenezer’
Marley’s Ghost in ‘Ebenezer’ and ‘A Christmas Carol’
Mainly working with old-school wood and steel engravings that would later be transferred to print, Leech was instrumental in crafting the iconic look of history’s most influential phantoms – especially since Dickens is said to have been deeply involved with the creation of these so-called “comic illustrations.”
And since the novel is commonly said to have popularized spiritualism in Victorian England, much of the ghostly iconography that we still see in genre media to this very day (including some of Ti West’s previous films) can be traced back to the author’s partnership with Leech.
Ebenezer won’t be the first A Christmas Carol adaptation to borrow heavily from these designs, but I can appreciate how Ti West is incorporating an important part of horror history into his latest film.
Ebenezer will be available in theaters starting November 13.
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