Beyond the Gates (2016)
Starring Graham Skipper, Chase Williamson, Brea Grant, Barbara Crampton
Directed by Jackson Stewart
Kids from the VHS generation are bound to recall that time when board games began capitalizing on cutting edge tech with the release of 1991’s game changer, Nightmare. Replete with the dodgiest of dialogue and most outlandish insults, the Nightmare phenomenon soon became one of the ’90s guiltiest of pleasures. I mean, nothing beat seeing my grandparents’ grins turn to grimaces when The Gate Keeper called them “scum-sucking maggots” after the Christmas roast.
Case in point: It’s blatantly obvious that director Jackson Stewart, along with his co-writer, Stephen Scarlata, shared the same secret love affair with this game as it’s the very lifeblood of Beyond the Gates, which premiered at the L.A. Film Festival last week as part of the Nightfall strand. Planting both feet firmly in the VHS era, the film forges a canny, comical, and creepy concept, harnessing a portentous premise along the lines of The Ring whilst merging it with a more mature spin on the fun and frolics of R.L. Stine’s tales of terror.
When their father disappears under inexplicable circumstances, his two chalk and cheese sons, John (Williamson) and Gordon (Skipper), return to the family’s immense video rental store to clear everything away with the help of Gordon’s girlfriend, Margot (Grant). The ill-fated trio soon find the store’s rear office where they come across a retro Nightmare-ish board game called Beyond the Gates. As the game’s tape is still in the VCR unit, they can’t resist pressing “Play” and are soon enticed into rolling the dice by the beautifully creepy hostess, Evelyn (Crampton), who weirdly seems to be interacting with them in real time; and the only way they can discover what really happened to their father is to follow Evelyn’s ominous instructions to a “T.”
The entire ensemble cast, mostly made up of familiar genre faces, wholeheartedly embraces the retro tone, emoting characters that wouldn’t feel at all out of place in late greats akin to A Nightmare on Elm Street or Phantasm. As I said earlier, what made Nightmare such asinine fun was The Gate Keeper himself, played by Wenanty Nosul, whose loony one-liners kept gamers coming back for more. Whilst Nosul’s nutty charm made the game what it was, I’m so glad Crampton refrained from watching the original videos before jumping into Evelyn’s shoes as that approach just wouldn’t have worked for this film, and accordingly, she does a bang-up job as our hostess for the evening.
Despite such a prolific career, this is a virtually uncharted side of Mrs. Crampton that is sure to surprise everyone, in the best possible way. Evelyn is deadly serious throughout, and not once does she deliver a hammy Nosul line. But it’s clear Crampton had a field day shooting this, and the resulting character is a funny and sinisterly stunning mistress of ceremonies doling out all manner of cabbalistic clues.
Trying to keep spoilers at bay, suffice it to say that the players have to discover the whereabouts of four different keys scattered around their father’s house and place them in their corresponding positions on the board in order to get beyond the gates. As simple as that might sound, the keys are hidden in all kinds of sordid Saw meets voodooism ways, making for some cunningly grotesque consequences. A plethora of plaudits to the special effects team (Josh and Sierra Russell) for creating some of the most noggin-scratching effects as body parts begin exploding of their own accord.
And then the whole retro vibe is amplified tenfold by composer Wojciech Golczewski’s (We Are Still Here) spartan-yet-striking synth soundscape coupled with DoP Brian Sowell’s purple-hazed hues, adding a particularly emblematic ’80s ethereal aesthetic to the nightmarish scenes.
Although there is nothing to fault, per se, my only minor misgiving was the fact a couple of cryptic clues were left in the air. Cliffhangers are a common denominator when it comes to horror films, but here there were a few things scattered throughout the film that begged a little bit of enlightenment that never came, but I have a sneaky feeling the filmmakers were laying the foundations for a possible sequel – a project that has already been devised and which I hope comes to fruition. A bit more divulgence into Williamson and Skipper’s characters’ background wouldn’t have gone amiss either. The audience is introduced to these two very distinct siblings and Skipper’s character has a history of drinking problems, but I felt it wasn’t really exploited enough and, accordingly, didn’t have all that much of a bearing on the story as a whole.
Niggles aside, whilst the idea of basing a film around a popular board game might sound a tad risky on paper, it’s bundles more fun that one might expect; and I’d absolutely cough up some hard earned cash for a real-life version with Barbara Crampton at the controls, under the proviso that voodoo dolls are sold as an very optional extra. Much as was the case with the original game, as long as you are willing to embrace Scarlata and Stewart’s devilishly offbeat game plan for what it is, audiences can expect foreboding fun aplenty.
So, turn the volume up and the lights down, and roll those dice already!
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Film
Categorized:Reviews
