ChicRawIdol A brilliant film that helped define a genre

Doomtomylo a film so unique, intoxicating and bizarre that it not only demands another viewing, but is also forgivable as a satirical comedy where the jokes eventually take the back seat.

Bluebell Alcock Ok... Let's be honest. It cannot be the best movie but is quite enjoyable. The movie has the potential to develop a great plot for future movies

Dana An old-fashioned movie made with new-fashioned finesse.

siderite The acting is mostly horrible. The lead is decent, though. The effects and editing are bad. The story is silly, with devil worshipers trying to "open the gate" to Hell and all that. The good guy is a psychic with knowledge of the occult and comes to fix the problem.So, if you look at it differently, there is a problem with a door and they call in the mystical locksmith. With a lot of mambo jumbo that none of us, non technical people, would understand, he fixes the door and everybody goes back happy.Am I joking? Not really. This movie is just as interesting as watching the locksmith fixing your front door and therefore I will stop here.

ghoulieguru This whole movie is about a haunted Bed & Breakfast that is actually some kind of gateway to Hell. You know, come to think of it, I think I actually stayed there once. You can read my review of it on Travelocity. Sorry, the joke was there and I took it.I read somewhere that Black Gate was originally called The Darkening and was made back in 1996. Now, if someone told me that it was made in 1986, I might say it was a decent effort. If it had been made in 1976, I would have said it was amazing. But since it was made in 1996, I can't really excuse the horrible CG that looks like it was done on somebody's Atari 500 game console. I can't really excuse the fact that the hero wears a ridiculous trenchcoat through the whole movie, and I can't excuse the flimsy plot.I guess the owner of the B&B wants to get rid of the ghosts, because they're making all of her guests leave. In comes a pair of ghost hunters, a trenchcoat wearing priest and his sidekick. At some point, the sidekick winds up falling in love with one of the ghosts, which leaves the whole "saving the B&B" thing to Father Trenchcoat.It's not really worth describing the story in greater detail. There's a lot of Father Trenchcoat trying his best to act like Max Von Sydow in the EXORCIST. He winds up being drawn into a portal which sends him to CG Hell. It's where all of the Bad CG goes to die, and Father Trenchcoat gets dumped right in the middle of it. He fights his way home and fires his agent for getting him put in this stupid movie to begin with.

Allyson King Unless you're the type, like my sister and I are, that likes to watch bad movies to laugh at, stay far away from this movie.To begin with, the acting is horrible. But, then again, how can you convincingly kiss a ghost? She's dead, get over it! My favorite part was Richard's demonic growl. Now that inspires fear (maybe for small children and those weak of heart, but even then...).Why hide the date of the film? To me, that seemed strange, to make it seem like a new movie, especially when the clothes and hairstyles are so dated.I gave this movie a 2/10 just because it made me laugh.

Brandt Sponseller Black Gate (aka The Darkening) is one of two thematically similar films I just watched back to back (the other being Devil's Harvest, 2003) that owe a strong debt to the classic "seaside haunted house films", ala Alfred Hitchcock's Rebecca (1940), Lewis Allen's The Uninvited (1944) and Joseph L. Mankiewicz' The Ghost and Mrs. Muir (1947). They both mix a lot of semi-Satanic mythology with their relatively more hyperactive, modernized styles. Unfortunately, although Black Gate has promise, and there are positive elements, this was the bad film of the two, ending up with a 6, the equivalent of a "D" letter grade for me.Rebecca Lacey (Rebecca Kyler Downs--her character's name seems like it should be an homage to Hitchcock's Rebecca, but as that's her real name, too, it might just be a coincidence) owns a struggling Bed & Breakfast on the California coast. It's struggling because it's haunted. Rebecca can barely get guests to stay for a few hours. As the film opens, we see an elderly couple experiencing poltergeist-like events, including a face stretching out of the wall similar to the famous poster/DVD cover art of Peter Jackson's The Frighteners (1996). They run out, never to be seen again.Rebecca then calls in Scott Griffin (Jeff Rector) and his photographer assistant Justin Reid (George Saunders). Griffin is a self-styled "ghost chaser" who has written a book entitled Unknown Realms: A Psychic's View of Hauntings. Rebecca hopes he can solve her problem. While staying at the Bed & Breakfast, exploring and experiencing some events more typical of a haunting, Griffin comes across some occult items, including a box that's a gateway to a hell dimension--the titular Black Gate.The chief problem with Black Gate seems to be the script by John Jones and Victoria Parker. That was disappointing to me, because although this may have been Parker's first film, Jones had previously penned Amityville 4 (aka Amityville: The Evil Escapes, 1989), which I loved, and Amityville 6 (aka Amityville 1992: It's About Time), which I haven't seen for some time, but I remember liking.Here, the backstory is far too convoluted, which saps it of impact, and there are far too many non-sequiturs, such as the ridiculous romance that blossoms between Justin, who is a committed skeptic, and a female ghost, Katherine (Red Montgomery). The story lacks a definite arc--it feels more like a set of arbitrary events. The script is short, and the dénouement is way too long, but the ending is also somewhat abrupt and inexplicable. Additionally, the "ghost buster" functions of Scott and Justin are laughably shallow and amateurish, especially in light of the activities of groups like The Atlantic Paranormal Society (TAPS), as portrayed in the excellent Sci-Fi Channel show "Ghost Hunters" (2004). Admittedly, some of these problems may have been due to director William Mesa (who has an extensive, impressive background in visual effects with his company Flash Film Works), but they seem like flaws in the script to me.But Black Gate also has a number of admirable elements. The basic gist of the story has potential. Especially by referencing films like Rebecca and The Amityville Horror (1979), the groundwork for an effective haunted house flick is already extant, and the occult background material could have been intriguing. The performances aren't bad considering what the cast had to work with. Downs and Lyndis Durwin, as Maggie Stewart, were actually good, although Durwin doesn't have a very big part. There are some nice external shots of the sea, and I loved the surrealistic artificiality of the establishing shots of the house--Mesa created nice composite shots of the house with computer generated skies and geographic features in the background--but those are few and far between. However, the interiors left much to be desired, with their plain, stark white walls reflecting the blandness of the events that transpire. The cinematography is decent to good, but the extremely low budget that Mesa apparently had to work with does not allow him to excel at his niche--special effects. The effects in the film tend to have all the panache and impact of the average ghost scene on a weekday afternoon soap opera, which unfortunately carries over to the atmosphere of the film at large.