VCR Czar Tape002: The Gate - Satanic Rituals Aren’t A Gateway for Home Ownership
- Dan
- Aug 25
- 5 min read
The VCR Czar
The Gate is a cliche and, frankly, a boring exploration into summoning otherworldly entities, but it leaves the viewer with the endlessly enigmatic question: “Are acts of elder gods (i.e., NOT Jehovah) a covered peril, or would a home insurance adjuster fuck you on this?”
The movie opens on a young Stephen Dorff (who apparently was a rocket enthusiast before his vampire phase) and his nogoodnik friend, Terry, discovering a hole in his backyard after a tree is uprooted. If media from the late 80s and early 90s has taught me anything, it’s to never trust the punk wearing a studded jean jacket. Naturally, they’re liable to open a Hellmouth in your backyard despite it being a clear fire hazard in drought conditions, and, even worse, to be too hungover to assist in helping you move despite having literally committed to do so months ago.
After the parents leave for a weekend, Older Sister is left to babysit and be the responsible sibling, and, per predictable tropes ad infinitum, she throws a party. At some point this party took a left turn from the endless fun of underage smoking and drinking, to sitting around boring one another with half-baked creepypasta. Maybe high school parties were different in the 80s, but I can't remember a party when we all sat around the QB telling spooky stories while someone played a theremin. I doubt Eric with the Trans Am has the requisite cadence to enthrall anyone with any story, fact or fiction. A momentary pause in my suspension of disbelief.
Meanwhile, Mini Deacon Frost and future alcoholic Terry pop open a geode excavated from the hell hole. Conveniently, the ancient mineral scribes the spell to release the demons on a nearby etch-a-sketch. Not to get too hung up on the accuracy of the demonology onscreen, but “Aca Kuto Alla Eta” sounds very different from “Tátra, amistróbin, hazárta. Tantír, manov, mansízon hazánzobar. Sumunda ropsa, darhis haikur dunsderódza. Kanda, kanda, kanda.” Now call my disbelief thoroughly un-suspended.
The next day, Terry apparently listens to his favorite heavy metal album for the first time, and realizes the band, Sacrifyx, was warning about familiar recent events.
After a series of spooks and scares, the most hilarious of which are stop motion foot high goblins running around, the kids decide they need the incantations from Sacrifyx’s album art. Unfortunately, the album art was apparently covered in magnesium and flashburns into ash instantaneously. Next they turn to the bible since you know, “That’s what they always use!”
Right. Since I’m utterly convinced one of my cats has actual demons in its booty hole, or at least it smells that way. Let’s try this rando bible passage to exorcize kitty's otherworldly smell, lest this movie lose all its credibility.
NUMBERS 5:11
11 Then the Lord said to Moses, 12 “Speak to the Israelites and say to them: ‘If a man’s wife goes astray and is unfaithful to him 13 so that another man has sexual relations with her, and this is hidden from her husband and her impurity is undetected (since there is no witness against her and she has not been caught in the act), 14 and if feelings of jealousy come over her husband and he suspects his wife and she is impure—or if he is jealous and suspects her even though she is not impure— 15 then he is to take his wife to the priest. He must also take an offering of a tenth of an ephah of barley flour on her behalf. He must not pour olive oil on it or put incense on it, because it is a grain offering for jealousy, a reminder-offering to draw attention to wrongdoing.
16 “‘The priest shall bring her and have her stand before the Lord. 17 Then he shall take some holy water in a clay jar and put some dust from the tabernacle floor into the water. 18 After the priest has had the woman stand before the Lord, he shall loosen her hair and place in her hands the reminder-offering, the grain offering for jealousy, while he himself holds the bitter water that brings a curse. 19 Then the priest shall put the woman under oath and say to her, “If no other man has had sexual relations with you and you have not gone astray and become impure while married to your husband, may this bitter water that brings a curse not harm you. 20 But if you have gone astray while married to your husband and you have made yourself impure by having sexual relations with a man other than your husband”— 21 here the priest is to put the woman under this curse—“may the Lord cause you to become a curse among your people when he makes your womb miscarry and your abdomen swell. 22 May this water that brings a curse enter your body so that your abdomen swells or your womb miscarries.”
Nope. These instructions for an abortion potion have no effect on banishing my cat’s evil aura. Call my disbelief fully engaged. I wonder if having a battle with an elder god lowers property values in the neighborhood. Also, can you file a claim for this kind of damage? Does “acts of God” only reflect our lord and savior? Are “acts of A God” different from “The God?” I feel like I would fight an adjuster on this verbage. “No–you see here it says “acts of god”, implying Yahweh or Jehovah. We banished an entity much older than that"
Come to think of it, it’s difficult to empathize with the plight of many protagonists of 80s and 90s horror. Like–Motherfucker, at least you have a house to be terrorized in. How awful a culture we have built in which housing, a fundamental human need, is an investment vehicle. Imagine future frontiers of commodification and value extraction: “Sorry, Sir, this water is owned by Blackrock holdings, so we must charge you 400% the cost of its collection and filtration. Sorry Ma’am, unless you have 20% down, we can’t approve a loan for that air you’re breathing. The fact your earnings have not kept pace with oxygen futures is of little consequence to us. Next customer!” If demons were real, I would sacrifice everything just to escape this boring death spiral of capitalism. Sucks that Satan isn’t real. What was I talking about? Oh yeah, the review.
We give this movie 100 homunculi out of 2 Deadites.
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