You know the definition of a Popcorn Movie. It's a movie that you know you shouldn't take seriously. It's little more than an excuse to sit in front of the screen together with your friends and have a laugh.
If that's the approach you take to watching Carver's Gate, you might not be disappointed. The props are obviously smoke machines, black light, and rubber masks. The characters are decidedly one-dimensional. And the inspirations for the plot are something less than inspirational, even for 1995. And yet, there's something about this movie that makes you want to like it.
That something is Michael Pere. Pere has the most important (though not all) qualities of a leading man: a handsome face, a resonating voice, and an ability to appear cool in the most ridiculous situations. If James Bond were an American, Pere might be the next Timothy Dalton.
But, alas, this movie was made for television, and like so many other attempts at TV-movie greatness, this one has but a single attraction. (Take William Hurt in the SciFi Channel's take on Dune, for example.)
The rest is a throwaway story about a virtual-reality video game called Afterlife that makes its players feel as though they really are in another world, fighting demons and ghosts and whatnot. Inevitably, some people become addicted to the game, and a policeman of sorts (Pere's Carver) is needed to bring them back out.
The monsters are so real indeed that some of them cross over into the physical world, don rubber masks, and start attacking everyday folks, who inhabit a dark, misty environment not unlike dozens of others in the annals of sci-fi. (Picture Blade Runner on a made-for-TV budget.)
Throughout it all, Pere remains the focal point of our attention and hope for better entertainment. He is cool, collected, and cute, and if your company happens to be a gaggle of teenage girls, you might have a squealing good time. Otherwise, just turn down the lights and turn your mind off for ninety minutes' worth of dumb, low-budget fun.
