Editorials
The 3D Remake of ‘The Gate’ That Was Never Made
Today, May 15th, 2017, marks the 30th anniversary of The Gate!
Horror films centered on and geared towards young kids aren’t very common here in the present day, but they were all the rage back in the 1980s – and one of the very best “kids vs. monsters” films of them all is director Tibor Takacs’ The Gate, released in 1987. The film, which starred a young Stephen Dorff, told the story of young friends Glen and Terry, who accidentally unleash a horde of tiny demons from deep beneath a suburban backyard. If you’ve never seen it, we strongly encourage you to pick up Vestron Video’s Blu-ray, released earlier this year.
What you may not know about The Gate is that a 3D remake was at one point in the works from director Alex Winter. Does that name sound familiar? Yes, we’re talking about the very same Alex Winter who played beloved character William “Bill” S. Preston Esq. in the Bill & Ted films! It was announced back in 2009 that Winter would be directing The Gate 3D, a passion project that had been penned by Kerric Macdonald. Winter, who directed 1993’s Freaked, was set to begin the shoot for H20 Motion Pictures in either late 2009 or early 2010, and if you look back through the BD archives you’ll see that we were incredibly excited about the project.
Like the ’87 original, Winter’s remake of The Gate was to revolve around two kids, “Miles and Terry, who live in a typical suburban tract. One day, they discover a mysterious crystalline rock in Miles’ backyard, and they quickly dig up the lawn in search of more. But instead, they unearth The Gate – the opening to an underground chamber containing terrifying evil. The boys soon realize what they have unleashed, as one dire event follows another. With supernatural fiends invading suburbia, it’s up to the kids to find the secret that will forever lock THE GATE… if it is not too late.”
A more detailed plot rundown also hit the net back in 2009, revealing that it’s Miles who inadvertently opens up the gate to Hell with a makeshift rocket that was originally intended to blow up a Barbie doll. Like in the original, Miles and Terry are tasked with cleaning up the hellish mess while Miles’ dad is away for the weekend – the two boys are left in the hands of Al, Miles’ “emo-clad elder sister.” In addition to the tiny Minions, the original film’s “dead workman” and “Demon Lord” were going to make appearances, along with all kinds of other monsters – including a possessed garden gnome!
From the lengthier plot synopsis…
The ground heaves and stretches before exploding with thousands of minions that rain down onto the earth. They are not alone: a rotting skeletal monstrosity bursts through the wall. It’s the Dead Workman! But this is just a taste of the pure evil that is to come…
The earth cleaves in two as the Demon Lord rises to the surface: a fossilized nightmare come to life. Its tentacles slither across the ground as all manner of evil beasts are disgorged from the hole and run howling into the night.
Essentially, Winter hoped to channel the spirit of the 1980s for his remake, which was at the time described as “a PG-13 children’s fantasy that will provide the emotional rollercoaster ride of a horror film, without the blood and guts.” And get this. The remake’s newly-updated creatures were set to be designed by Academy Award winner Randall William Cook and H.R. Giger! Giger, who unfortunately passed away back in 2014, was of course the artist who designed the titular villain in 1979’s Alien.
A press release further described the project as “a children’s fantasy with soul, humor, and excitement, with the underlying tension of great danger, like THE GOONIES and GREMLINS, where the kids almost get bitten, almost get swallowed by the Gate, and almost get killed by the Demon Lord, but ultimately escape with the help of ingenuity, imagination, innocence, and teamwork.”
So what happened? Despite some early concept art (seen throughout this article) being done on the project, The Gate 3D never ended up getting off the ground. And it’s a bummer, because Winter seemed to be a huge fan of the original film and incredibly passionate about bringing kid-friendly horror back to the big screen. He even expressed a desire to use the remake as the jumping off point for an entire franchise, which could’ve been a really fun way to get a whole new generation of kids into monster movies.
After all, The Gate did just that for many of us back in 1987.
Having grown up in a religious family, Christian movie night was something that happened a lot more often than I care to admit. However, back when I was a teenager, my parents showed up one night with an unusually cool-looking DVD of a movie that had been recommended to them by a church leader. Curious to see what new kind of evangelical propaganda my parents had rented this time, I proceeded to watch the film with them expecting a heavy-handed snoozefest.
To my surprise, I was a few minutes in when Denzel Washington proceeded to dismember a band of cannibal raiders when I realized that this was in fact a real movie. My mom was horrified by the flick’s extreme violence and dark subject matter, but I instantly became a fan of the Hughes Brothers’ faith-based 2010 thriller, The Book of Eli. And with the film’s atomic apocalypse having apparently taken place in 2024, I think this is the perfect time to dive into why this grim parable might also be entertaining for horror fans.
Originally penned by gaming journalist and The Walking Dead: The Game co-writer Gary Whitta, the spec script for The Book of Eli was already making waves back in 2007 when it appeared on the coveted Blacklist. It wasn’t long before Columbia and Warner Bros. snatched up the rights to the project, hiring From Hell directors Albert and Allen Hughes while also garnering attention from industry heavyweights like Denzel Washington and Gary Oldman.
After a series of revisions by Anthony Peckham meant to make the story more consumer-friendly, the picture was finally released in January of 2010, with the finished film following Denzel as a mysterious wanderer making his way across a post-apocalyptic America while protecting a sacred book. Along the way, he encounters a run-down settlement controlled by Bill Carnegie (Gary Oldman), a man desperate to get his hands on Eli’s book so he can motivate his underlings to expand his empire. Unwilling to let this power fall into the wrong hands, Eli embarks on a dangerous journey that will test the limits of his faith.
SO WHY IS IT WORTH WATCHING?
Judging by the film’s box-office success, mainstream audiences appear to have enjoyed the Hughes’ bleak vision of a future where everything went wrong, but critics were left divided by the flick’s trope-heavy narrative and unapologetic religious elements. And while I’ll be the first to admit that The Book of Eli isn’t particularly subtle or original, I appreciate the film’s earnest execution of familiar ideas.
For starters, I’d like to address the religious elephant in the room, as I understand the hesitation that some folks (myself included) might have about watching something that sounds like Christian propaganda. Faith does indeed play a huge part in the narrative here, but I’d argue that the film is more about the power of stories than a specific religion. The entire point of Oldman’s character is that he needs a unifying narrative that he can take advantage of in order to manipulate others, while Eli ultimately chooses to deliver his gift to a community of scholars. In fact, the movie even makes a point of placing the Bible in between equally culturally important books like the Torah and Quran, which I think is pretty poignant for a flick inspired by exploitation cinema.
Sure, the film has its fair share of logical inconsistencies (ranging from the extent of Eli’s Daredevil superpowers to his impossibly small Braille Bible), but I think the film more than makes up for these nitpicks with a genuine passion for classic post-apocalyptic cinema. Several critics accused the film of being a knockoff of superior productions, but I’d argue that both Whitta and the Hughes knowingly crafted a loving pastiche of genre influences like Mad Max and A Boy and His Dog.
Lastly, it’s no surprise that the cast here absolutely kicks ass. Denzel plays the title role of a stoic badass perfectly (going so far as to train with Bruce Lee’s protégée in order to perform his own stunts) while Oldman effortlessly assumes a surprisingly subdued yet incredibly intimidating persona. Even Mila Kunis is remarkably charming here, though I wish the script had taken the time to develop these secondary characters a little further. And hey, did I mention that Tom Waits is in this?
AND WHAT MAKES IT HORROR ADJACENT?
Denzel’s very first interaction with another human being in this movie results in a gory fight scene culminating in a face-off against a masked brute wielding a chainsaw (which he presumably uses to butcher travelers before eating them), so I think it’s safe to say that this dog-eat-dog vision of America will likely appeal to horror fans.
From diseased cannibals to hyper-violent motorcycle gangs roaming the wasteland, there’s plenty of disturbing R-rated material here – which is even more impressive when you remember that this story revolves around the bible. And while there are a few too many references to sexual assault for my taste, even if it does make sense in-universe, the flick does a great job of immersing you in this post-nuclear nightmare.
The excessively depressing color palette and obvious green screen effects may take some viewers out of the experience, but the beat-up and lived-in sets and costume design do their best to bring this dead world to life – which might just be the scariest part of the experience.
Ultimately, I believe your enjoyment of The Book of Eli will largely depend on how willing you are to overlook some ham-fisted biblical references in order to enjoy some brutal post-apocalyptic shenanigans. And while I can’t really blame folks who’d rather not deal with that, I think it would be a shame to miss out on a genuinely engaging thrill-ride because of one minor detail.
With that in mind, I’m incredibly curious to see what Whitta and the Hughes Brothers have planned for the upcoming prequel series starring John Boyega…
There’s no understating the importance of a balanced media diet, and since bloody and disgusting entertainment isn’t exclusive to the horror genre, we’ve come up with Horror Adjacent – a recurring column where we recommend non-horror movies that horror fans might enjoy.
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