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.

Cemetery Gates can't be seen like a real movie. You must be drunk or doped so that you could not laugh about it. Terrible acting and lousy editing complements with a stupid story, dumb teens, dumb persons but with a good FX. Gore abounds and sometimes is really cheesy, other pretty good. Nevetherless you can't take this movie in consideration and the best way to see it is to make fun of it and to spit up a good dose of laughs... nothing more. The acting is beyond mediocre, the dialog is abominable and the only positive thing is the creature itself... even then you'll notice how bad screened it is sometimes.

You must see this low budget movie in a humorous manner and you must strip yourself off reality and stupidity. Actually it's better you see it with your friends if you want to have a good and freaky animated afternoon attended by a big pack of beers and kilograms of weed...

This movie really sucked and the money spent on it could have been injected into a charity center for homeless people or an orphanage...

I had some mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand it's just a simple effort with a pretty dull story, lame characters and bad acting written all over it. The only actor worth mentioning, of course, is Reggie Bannister. He's enjoyable to watch, as always, but that's about it. So story- and acting-wise, I was just expecting a bit too much from it. Wrong bet, so it seemed, because this movie is actually not to be taken serious at all. That's just the way the filmmakers intended it. So when you can keep that in mind, that's when the fun starts. Lots, and I do mean LOTS of gory splatter killings by a grotesque looking creature (a giant mutant Tasmanian Devil) doing all the shredding while tunneling itself a way underneath a cemetery ("The Dark" from 1994 starring Brion James and Neve Campbell, anyone?). When you also consider that this movie was meant to be a throwback at the 80's/early 90's creature features (so no lousy CGI to be found in this one), you just can't help yourself but to roll with it and have a fun time. And that's just what "Cemetery Gates" will do: give you a bit of entertainment (horrific, bloody & silly) with a rather bad movie. So it gets extra credit for that. Or maybe I'm just giving the film some free points for that one blond bimbo babe that loves to show her two naked goodies a lot (nearly every chance she gets).

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.