Chase Williamson, Brea Grant, Graham Skipper. Dir. Jackson Stewart, IFC Midnight/Scream Factory
I missed the whole mom'n'pop video store era. The iteration of said in our neighborhood earned my ire when they never had PINK FLOYD THE WALL. Yes, we have it. No, it isn't stolen. We have no idea what time is good to check back. Sorry. Month after month. Bite me, local video store.
Life intervened before that relationship had a chance to develop. Not long after graduating high school, I went into freefall, which sounds better and more succinct than "drank my way out of college after six months-moved home-got a DUI-went to treatment-went to AA-tried school again but dropped out and got a job and started drinking again-dropped acid for the first time-got evicted and fired and tried to kill myself-went to treatment again-moved home and got kicked out-got another place and had one of first prolonged depressions-got evicted again-moved home again-got a job again-and repeat until 1996, adding "went to psych ward and got on meds" after 1992."
By the time I stabilized in the late '90s, Blockbuster dominated the neighborhood, the local place dying a slow, grim death. I missed out on things like video board games, the subject of Jackson Stewart's no-budget 2016 gorefest BEYOND THE GATES. I knew they existed, but never played one. By the time our neighborhood place opened I was almost 18, probably a little old to pay them much attention. Since so much of the fun and nostalgic charm of BEYOND THE GATES trades in memories of those indie video palaces the movie wasn't a natural fit for me, apart from feeding my growing love of el cheapo horror.
Fortunately, director Jackson Stewart nourished my hunger in the form of a minimalist demonic-video-game story that alternates from the drama between estranged brothers to the gore soaked set pieces as they play the evil game, intent on redeeming their lost father's soul. Stewart builds the tension until the first kill, a splattery, ridiculously gory death indicative of what's ahead, that grossed me out even as I giggled at the deliberate excess.
Like the old games, the story is simple and elemental, connect-the-dots to the next bloodlettings. All of which require brothers John and Gordon kill a friend or loved one in as savage a way possible. That's the movie, pretty much. Dialogue intensive passages exploring the emotional fallout of their mom's death and now their dad's disappearance punctuated by over the top, demented, hilarious carnage.
Though not an aficianado of those old stores and their VHS treasures, I found the scenes featuring John and Gordon navigating their past and present, including Gordon's girlfriend, Margot, affecting. It's not Masterpiece Theatre, but my younger brother and I haven't spoken in two years. The awkward hugs and overemphatic handshakes, the way John just has to needle Gordon, the sense of longing for reconciliation in them both, could be the last time I hung out with my brother, in 2012, or anytime since we left home. Their slow, tentative reunion touched me, something I never expected from an indie bloodbath like BEYOND THE GATES.
If I had a complaint, I'm not sure it's about something that wasn't done on purpose. Brea Grant, playing Margot, disappears from scenes which ought to feature her, reappearing later without explanation, but I suspect that's part of Stewart's homage, as is the disjointed dialogue with its long, strange pauses which reminded me of the other homage to z-grade horror I wrote about recently, ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW.
Soap opera matriarch-turned-horror queen Barbra Crampton exec produced BEYOND THE GATES and plays a demonic, dead eyed game narrator who grows more loquacious as the bodies stack up. Graham Skipper, who reminded me a little of Elijah wood in his post-LoTR days, spectacled, pale, and restrained, and Chase Williamson, who plays John Wong in JOHN DIES AT THE END (even though he doesn't) play the awkward brothers with stumbling sincerity, Gordon so closed off and affected he refuses "Ambien-sex" with Brea Grant's Margot when she jumps on him in bed. While her absences may be deliberate, I wondered if the producers could only afford her for a few days and had to shoot scenes without her. A former star of HEROES, she turns in the most actorly, or at least emotive, performance, making for a nice contrast with the remote, sometimes catatonic brothers. Pretty much everyone else either dies in fountains of gore and grue or gets inundated thereby.
BEYOND THE GATES may not speak to my memories of the golden age of home video, but it did speak to my love of movie podcasts, many hosted by onetime video store workers, particularly the Pure Cinema Podcast, Just the Discs, and the horror-themed Shock Waves. I wouldn't know about a movie like BEYOND THE GATES, or be interested in it, without those shows talking it and others of its ilk, up. I like horror movies, but don't always pursue them in the wild as I do westerns or Oscar-bait dramas. Podcasts help me level up and stay open to little gems like BEYOND THE GATES. Good fun for a stoned, sleepless, short attention spanned midnight movie. Worth findin
Fortunately, director Jackson Stewart nourished my hunger in the form of a minimalist demonic-video-game story that alternates from the drama between estranged brothers to the gore soaked set pieces as they play the evil game, intent on redeeming their lost father's soul. Stewart builds the tension until the first kill, a splattery, ridiculously gory death indicative of what's ahead, that grossed me out even as I giggled at the deliberate excess.
Like the old games, the story is simple and elemental, connect-the-dots to the next bloodlettings. All of which require brothers John and Gordon kill a friend or loved one in as savage a way possible. That's the movie, pretty much. Dialogue intensive passages exploring the emotional fallout of their mom's death and now their dad's disappearance punctuated by over the top, demented, hilarious carnage.
Though not an aficianado of those old stores and their VHS treasures, I found the scenes featuring John and Gordon navigating their past and present, including Gordon's girlfriend, Margot, affecting. It's not Masterpiece Theatre, but my younger brother and I haven't spoken in two years. The awkward hugs and overemphatic handshakes, the way John just has to needle Gordon, the sense of longing for reconciliation in them both, could be the last time I hung out with my brother, in 2012, or anytime since we left home. Their slow, tentative reunion touched me, something I never expected from an indie bloodbath like BEYOND THE GATES.
If I had a complaint, I'm not sure it's about something that wasn't done on purpose. Brea Grant, playing Margot, disappears from scenes which ought to feature her, reappearing later without explanation, but I suspect that's part of Stewart's homage, as is the disjointed dialogue with its long, strange pauses which reminded me of the other homage to z-grade horror I wrote about recently, ROCKY HORROR PICTURE SHOW.
Soap opera matriarch-turned-horror queen Barbra Crampton exec produced BEYOND THE GATES and plays a demonic, dead eyed game narrator who grows more loquacious as the bodies stack up. Graham Skipper, who reminded me a little of Elijah wood in his post-LoTR days, spectacled, pale, and restrained, and Chase Williamson, who plays John Wong in JOHN DIES AT THE END (even though he doesn't) play the awkward brothers with stumbling sincerity, Gordon so closed off and affected he refuses "Ambien-sex" with Brea Grant's Margot when she jumps on him in bed. While her absences may be deliberate, I wondered if the producers could only afford her for a few days and had to shoot scenes without her. A former star of HEROES, she turns in the most actorly, or at least emotive, performance, making for a nice contrast with the remote, sometimes catatonic brothers. Pretty much everyone else either dies in fountains of gore and grue or gets inundated thereby.
BEYOND THE GATES may not speak to my memories of the golden age of home video, but it did speak to my love of movie podcasts, many hosted by onetime video store workers, particularly the Pure Cinema Podcast, Just the Discs, and the horror-themed Shock Waves. I wouldn't know about a movie like BEYOND THE GATES, or be interested in it, without those shows talking it and others of its ilk, up. I like horror movies, but don't always pursue them in the wild as I do westerns or Oscar-bait dramas. Podcasts help me level up and stay open to little gems like BEYOND THE GATES. Good fun for a stoned, sleepless, short attention spanned midnight movie. Worth findin
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