THE GATE

Director: Tibor Takacs

Starring: Stephen Dorff, Louis Tripp, Christa Denton, Kelly Rowan

Demonic creatures unleashed when builders uproot a tree.

If you buy a copy of The Gate you’ll see a note on the back that states that the film has a “Projection Ratio [of] 1.85:1” Oddly enough, the copy that I was sent had this carefully inked-out, presumably so that I wouldn’t tell you that, while it may strictly speaking have been true of its theatrical presentation, it certainly doesn’t apply to the DVD, which is a horrible full-frame, VHS-quality transfer crawling with artefacts. This is a shame because Tibor Takacs’ 1987 film is very entertaining. It also features some truly ingenious special effects work, (including several terrific stop-motion shots and some superb forced-perspective miniature and matte work), that belie it’s modest budget. 

The film, originally released in Dolby Stereo, is presented in mono on the disc. The disc contains a theatrical trailer and a “photo” gallery of extremely blurry still-frames.