Review of Beyond the Gates

I know what you're thinking and no, it's not a Bill Gates documentary; in fact it might actually be less entertaining than that. This crazy cover caught my eye yesterday while browsing Netflix and it tugged at my love-for-terrible-80's-movies-heart-strings. Little did I know it would be the most boring horror movie ever! I kept waiting for it to pick up and it almost would then it would die back down and slip in to this exhausting routine of almost going to have something happen but then people would get tired and go upstairs then go to bed.

Don't get me wrong but this movie did have some potential. It was like Jumanji meets Hellraiser and it did give me a nostalgic desire to watch them again. The story is about two awkward bros, Gordan and John whose father has gone missing and they are both cleaning out his video store. After an eternity of backstory-building, the brothers realize that they have never checked their dads office and in fact they don't know where his key is. Some time later while in bed, Gordon finds the key on the nightstand of the missing fathers house with the word office clearly written on the key. This leads the awkward bros to find a vintage VHS role playing board game that slowly turns deadly. There is intermittent excitement that leads the beautiful Brea Grant who plays Margot to go upstairs a couple of times and a couple of Gordon's nightmare scenes that add up to null until the final one.The last 12 minutes are the most exciting but it only makes you wish that they got behind that gate about a half an hour sooner. I wouldn't recommend this movie unless you are with a huge group of friends; it isn't as funny as Troll 2 but has cheesy horror effects that did make me chuckle. I do like the over all idea of this film and I hope Jackson Stewart revisits this concept with a much more serious approach.