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YMMV / The Gate

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  • Nightmare Fuel: Several over the course of the movie- building on both subtle scares and unexplainable horrors. The worst aspect is that these horrific incidents are occurring to children and young adults with no effort to soften the blow, with the monsters having no restraint in harming children.
    • It starts with the main hero walking through his eerily empty house until he gets into the treehouse that causes on fire and begins to fall with him in it. Thankfully it's all a dream, but it hints at the dangers to come.
    • After getting a pep talk from his dad, it focuses on the moths kept in the jar that faded out of existence inexplicably. Without any indication of how it happened and where the moths went.
    • During an intended prank of levitation, the main hero inexplicably starts to actually hover up on his own, hitting his head against one of the light bulbs.
    • Terry sees his deceased mother seemingly appear and hugs her...only for it to be revealed he was hugging the dead corpse of Angus, the family dog who had somehow been killed by something unseen.
      • At the same time, in the hero's room, something starts to visibly crawl within the wall while making eerie noises.
    • When Terry rocks out, he starts to inaudibly speak alongside the record narration which gets increasingly dark and foreboding with its explanations of the primordial gods and demons who want to return to the earthly realm, which freaks him out, especially when it begins to speak in eldritch tongues- the implication is unknown forces were speaking through the record player.
    • The second night, the sister goes to uncover the bed that Terry is sleeping in, only for Terry to still be up, leading to the reveal that it was the corpse of Angus.
    • This is followed up by the hands of the demons attempting to drag her under the bed until she was saved at the last moment.
    • When it seems like the parents have returned it's revealed it was an emotional ploy as the demons changed themselves to look like the parents to unnerve the kids. Complete with the "father"'s voice getting a reverb the moment he reveals his true nature as he tries to strangle the hero. Followed up by the top portion of the face rotting away to reveal two now empty sockets surrounded by rotting flesh. As the "mother" laughs, the "father" head drops off of its shoulders as a shattered rotting mess.
    • The actual demons, vaguely apish, black-eyed imps that attack in swarms. One demon's arm gets caught in the door, drops off, turns into maggots, and retreats behind the door. All animated with creepy stop-motion.
    • When the sister tries to call the police on her phone, the voice on the other line is revealed to be one of the demons as it both catches on fire and melts in a graphic manner.
    • In a short moment, the hero sees a portrait of his family now bloodied and dead- he's so unnerved by this that he immediately moves on to his objective to get the Dark Book, which proceeds to burn instantly.
    • Terry falls down the hole and nearly gets eaten by the demons.
    • Just as the situation is finally settled, the corpse of the workman mentioned by Terry earlier bursts out of a wall to attack Terry. It's revealed to be a cluster of demons.
    • After being dragged into the wall by the "corpse", the demons take on the form of a demonic Terry in the closet as he bites the hero. The sister saves him by stabbing him through the right eye via a barbie doll.
    • The appearance of the Demon Lord- a massive multiple-armed, four-eyed monster that towers over his demon followers. Unlike the smaller demons that invoke elements of Black Comedy, the Demon Lord is treated as intimidating and humorless as possible.
    • The demon lord somehow causes Glen to to temporarily grow an open eye on his hand.
    • The ominous dark funnel coming from the hole starts the signal of the demons taking over the world.
  • Spoiled by the Format: The kids throw the Bible at the titular Gate, and the hole goes up in flames and closes up quickly. The demons have been defeated, and everyone's alive, including the Jerkass friends. Then you realize the movie still has a solid half-hour left...
  • What Do You Mean, It's for Kids?: Despite having a large child cast, it has very nightmarish elements of surreal imagery, nightmarish demons, and children being harmed in graphic ways by said demons, often involving the eyes.

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