The Gate (1987); Party Animal (1985)

I am about to review two movies that were complete surprises, in absolutely opposite ways. 

The Gate (1987) was much better than expected; The Party Animal (1985) really lowered the bar. Low, low, lowwwwwwwww.  Let's get into them. 

The Gate is about two friends who open a geode found in a pit in their backyard and unleash a demon menace. The demons are all about a foot tall, and are filmed in claymation, and the effects are surprisingly creative and well conceived. I was impressed! 

Maybe the most often shown scene is the one where a demon's arm gets severed in a door, and falls the floor - only to split up into rapidly moving maggots to crawl quickly under the door and reassemble on the other side. It's creepy, and astonishing, and only one of several great effects - like the (in)famous eyeball-in-the-palm that was used to exceptional effect in Pan's Labyrinth. 

The movie really pulls no punches - the movie doesn't mess around about showing you parental abandonment, little kids perishing and being cruelly tricked, and gruesome death scenes. Unusual for a film aimed at kids (presumably), but also a smart choice in context. 

The movie also has a great heavy metal slant to it, where the demons are thought to be unchained by a metal album called The Dark Book; the best friend character Terry wears a great jacket featuring the logo of the Killer Dwarfs. 

Interesting update: the movie is slated to be remade by Alex Winter (of Bill and Ted fame) this coming year, with creature design by H. R. Giger (of Alien fame)! I will absolutely go see that. 

The movie was made for only $2.5 million, but made back over $13 million - a sizeable success. And honestly, it deserves it. It's not the greatest horror movie of the decade - or even the greatest kids horror movie - but it's very good for what it is.  It was directed by Tibor Takasc, who also made a few episodes of TV - "Red Shoe Diaries" and "Outer Limits," along with a couple movies I don't know, including a sequel to The Gate made in 1990.

The Party Animal... wow. What to even say??? This movie was clearly made by amateurs, for amateurs. Everything here is broken. It makes the worst scenes in Ghoulies look like outtakes from The Godfather. 

The plot is that Pondo Sinatra (seriously. No, seriously. Stop laughing) is a farm boy, raised among chickens, brought to college on a turnip truck. His rural status is emphasized by his wearing a freaking Confederate flag on every item of clothing he possesses. He is desperate, desperate to get laid in college. That is the plot. Pondo wants sex. 

Except everything is terrible. Pondo looks like he's 44 and balding badly. His roommate and "best friend" (huh?!) looks 37. The college is filled with foxy babes who are CONSTANTLY doing aerobics and stretches, for no reason. 

Pondo tries many idiotic ploys to trick girls into sex - he tries to be a pimp (and gets an afro pick stuck in his forehead for his trouble; honestly, he should have been murdered for his racist schtick), he tries becoming a "punk" (and ends up looking like some deformed Quasimodo/Frankenstein hybrid), and in the movie's ONLY working scene, he tries becoming well versed in sex toys.

The sex shop scene is kind of amazing. It is filmed in black and white FOR NO REASON AT ALL, and mostly features moron Pondo mugging with sex toys while two clerks discuss global nuclear armament using dildos as props. One of the clerks is channeling Brando, and quotes from On the Waterfront. The whole scene is so surreal and inexplicable, it feels like it was filmed by a different director for a different movie. 

Following that is a nonfunctional Benny Hill-esque gag, and finally Pondo decides to simply become a rapist, and invent a love potion that will force women to sleep with him. He fails a million times, disturbingly, as his love potions turn women into gorillas, aliens, mummies, skeletons, zombies, etc. It's awful. AWFUL. 

Then, offensively, one of his potions works and he is literally sexed to DEATH by every woman on the planet. Did I mention there is apparently a goddess watching over him that allows this to happen? Or that his death comes at the hands of five plump women at a laundromat, which is insanely offensive? Or that the Wise Black Janitor seems to be named Elbow??!!??!!??!

This movie is insanely terrible. It descends below "cult classic" and enters "memorable garbage" territory. I will say it has a decent soundtrack. Otherwise, you have to see it to believe it. But please do not see it. Please.