Cemetery Gates

"Cemetary Gates" is a movie that wants to be like 70's and 80's creature flicks like "Alligator" or "Prophecy". Well, it has a cool monster, and some nice gore effects, so where does it go wrong?

Well, for one thing, the comedy aspects of the movie really fall flat. Jokes such as the recording of a man's diarrhea, poorly done sex gags, and other such things hurt it considerably. Sure, horror and comedy can go together, but not when the jokes suck.

Also, the acting is pretty bad. Everyone seems unenthusiastic, especially Reggie ("Phantasm") Bannister as the scientist father. At least Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero are amusing as two stoner types.

Oh, and there are also the two annoying hillbilly characters that feel like a bad "MadTV" version of "Deliverence."

In the end, the movie is a major missed opportunity. If done with a better script and better characters, it could have been a winner. In the end though, that's all you get: Could have been.

The B horror movie lives! No, this isn't John Carpenter or Steven Spielberg … or even Tod Browning … but it isn't half bad. 'Cemetery Gates' is a slightly original variation on the traditional B horror theme. One variation is that the main group of protagonists are filming their own horror film when true horror strikes THEM.

Anyone who likes blood and gore will love this one. The plot isn't great shakes, but it holds up as well as any B horror plot. We have brain-dead college kids, including a girl with a bra size bigger than her IQ. One improvement in this film is that at least here the big-chested bimbo isn't pawned off on us as a 'graduate student' or someone who would have to have considerably more brains than she has. These are just friends of a college student wanting to make a zombie movie as his class project. One can imagine that three of the six students would probably have flunked out in another year, had they all lived. Of course one does wonder why he would entrust his film to dope-smoking bums and a bimbo.

The student making the film (Peter Stickles) is the son of an unprincipled scientist (Reggie Bannister) who has mutated a Tasmanian devil, turning it into something akin to the man-eating cartoon creature in Bugs Bunny cartoons. The beast, 'Precious,' is pretty cool and can really put the hurt on its victims, all of whom die much slower than they would like.

The film is not without some interesting background. The old cemetery where the kids are filming their zombie film contains a memorial marker for 200+ miners killed when nearby tunnels were flooded in 1925. Apparently the bodies were never recovered and our teens fall through sinkholes into the labyrinth of tunnels that includes skulls and mummified bodies. Naturally Precious makes this her home after being released in a nearby state park.

Without giving the plot away, you could say 'Many are called; most are eaten.' For B horror fare, this is a pretty satisfying production, with good special effects, plenty of blood shooting, dripping, spurting, flowing, etc. The acting from the no-name cast is solid and the handful of attempts to move the plot away from a stale B horror formula appreciated. This isn't the one to do a major term paper on in a film theory class, but is perfect for relaxing with on a late Friday or Saturday night!

I can't believe this has been rated so high - and average 4/10? This movie was terrible. I love gore and bad horror movies, and this was surely that, but it still sucked. The 'blood' in this movie looked exactly like the blueberry syrup I put on my waffles every morning. And I HATED every single character in this film. These people should never act again. The stupid pot-smoking teenage actors gave the worst most annoying performances ever captured on film. So maybe that is the only thing this movie achieved, because it didn't really do much else. It certainly didn't scare me, and it wasn't funny or amusing, except possibly with the way some of the people were unbelievably killed.

i had my share of bad movies,well that what i thought but when i think they have done enough one more comes out.The movie is so awful that i believe it is a disgrace to the art of cinema. The women are cute but overall the movie is just awful i don't have words to describe.PLEASE PLEASE do not waste your time on this.But yes you can recommend it to friends if u want them to suffer.The thing created to scare you is so funny and beside 1 or 2 murders you will not be scared of the murders ,but yes you will laugh till u drop dead.The story line is also very bogus and nothing new is there not even something old in a new bottle,i cant believe people had spent money to see it in cinema. HATE THE MOVIE AND SO WILL YOU JUST Don't WASTE YOUR TIME

When two ecologists break-in the laboratory of Dr. Belmont (Reggie Bannister), they find a box with a subject and they decide to set the experiment free in the woods. During the transportation, the box opens and releases the mutant Tasmanian Devil that devours the two activists and escapes to the woods. Meanwhile, Dr. Belmont's son Hunter (Peter Stickles) travels in a van with four friends to film a horror movie in the cemetery in the woods, while Belmont and his associate Dr. Christine Kollar (Aime Wolf) seek their deadly experiment called Precious.

The underrated trash "Cemetery Gates" is a cheesy, funny and gore B-movie with a silly story, average acting and a stereotypical stupid blonde with hilarious lines and nice breasts performed by the sexy and hot Kristin Novak. I have had lot of fun watching Precious tearing apart her victims, the quantity of blood and the dialogs of August and her friends. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Portão do Cemitério" ("The Cemetery Gate")