THE GATE OPENED AGAIN, AND IT'S NOT A REMAKE!

First thing's first. Sorry I've been away so long. Things have been pretty hectic here, and I let my work on the site slide a bit. I wish I could say it would never happen again, but that's just probably not going to be true. Still, if you stick with me, I'll stick with you. Keep checking back and you'll see updates. Sometimes several a day, sometimes only a couple every few weeks. But I'll try to make it as regualr as possible. Right, now onto the big skinny.

In 1987, a small little horror film made a pretty good dent at the box office. Although THE GATE has mostly faded into obscurity, it had a few things to peak interest back in 1987. For one thing, it was one of the first horror films to get a "PG-13" rating. Sure, we had other films that fit that mold. But unlike those films, THE GATE did not appear to be a GREMLINS knock-off, nor did it seem to be a sedate ghost story, nor did it seem to blend its horror roots within a less threatening fantasy or sci-fi setting. No, THE GATE looked like a bona fide horror film, and it was a pretty fun one at that. The film gained some press by opening the same weekend as the much-hyped and now infamous bomb ISHTAR, and this low-budget shocker gave that bloated Hope and Crosby vehicle a severe run for its money. It was a rare moneymaker for short-lived indie studio New Century/Vista.





Now comes word that THE GATE is getting the sequel treatment. According to the Hollywood Reporter and Bloody Disgusting, a sequel has just been announced at Cannes. Originally, the plan was to do a remake of THE GATE in 3-D. However, someone must have realized that horror films are being made left and right and even the 3-D thing is not a completely original selling point, since the MY BLOODY VALENTINE and PIRAHNA remakes are already going down that same road.

Instead, we are getting THE GATE: 20 YEARS LATER. Expect the title to change, mainly because it has already been 21 years since THE GATE and will be even farther away once the film is actually finished and released. No word on if the original film's director, Tibor Takacs, is on board in any capacity. Recently, Takacs has had a career resurgence of sorts making those Sci-fi Channel films - most of which are nowhere near as entertaining as they should be.

In the director's chair this time will be first-timer Randall William Cook. Don't fret about inexperience as he does seem to know his way around a set and has studied closely with at least one low-budget horror pioneer. Cook is a three-time Oscar winner for his effects work on Peter Jackson's LORD OF THE RINGS trilogy. Something BD's article that does not mention however is that Cook was also special effects supervisor on the original GATE, as well as Takacs' I, MADMAN and DEATHLINE. So, he knows the material. Cook's other effects credits include CAVEMAN, GHOSTBUSTERS, 2010, FRIGHT NIGHT and POLTERGEIST II: THE OTHER SIDE. It looks as though he was also a big player in the effects work for Charles Band's Full Moon label.

It is unclear if this film will be a direct follow-up to the original, or make some mention of 1993's overlooked THE GATE II.

UNIVERSAL SOLDIER AGAIN!... Return of the Bionic European Tough Guys!

The story broke on the net like a thunderclap from Odin himself. Okay, maybe not. But putting my love of these things clearly in the public eye, a guy can dream. Cinemablend has reported that Jean-Claude Van Damme may be gearing up for another UNIVERSAL SOLDIER sequel. This is not huge news, since Van Damme already did the sequel route in the gutbustingly awful UNIVERSAL SOLDIER: THE RETURN, a film that pretty much crushed any hopes Bill Goldberg had for crossover appeal ( not that those were very high ). No, the real news is that Van Damme's nemesis from the original, played by Dolph Lungren, may be joining him.






The first UNIVERSAL SOLDIER helped increase the reputation of Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin. It involved Vietnam vets who killed in action, listed missing, and then awakened as bionic super-soldiers decades later to do wetwork for the government. Two of the Universal Soldiers go off the reservation when they become sentient of their previous lives. Van Damme was a heroic soldier who just wanted to go home, but got killed trying to destroy Lundgren, his platoon leader who went insane and wiped out a village as well as his own soldiers. Now, as Van Damme tries to piece his life together, Lundgren aims to finish the fight, leading the other Universal Soldiers, now under his command, to help him out. Yes, younger generation, you read that right. And doesn't that sound so much cooler than the standard, "thugs try to steal money but cross the wrong security guard"-type action film we would expect these days?

Okay, so UNIVERSAL SOLDIER wasn't quite as great as its premise. It was a lot of fun, however, and it hurt to see the promise of an entertaining franchise get squandered.

Not that they haven't tried. UNIVERSAL SOLIDER: THE RETURN may have been bad, but it was the second attempt to resurrect the series. Two obscure straight-to-video titles, UNIVERSAL SOLIDER II: BROTHERS IN ARMS and UNIVERSAL SOLDIER III: UNFINISHED BUSINESS ( I have not personally seen those latter two films ) were even smaller affairs, and featured different actors.

Roland Emmerich and Dean Devlin will not be returning for the latest UNIVERSAL SOLDIER film. If anyone has seen the stuff they've been putting out lately, that can only be a good thing. It is expected to go straight-to-DVD and is in the early stages of pre-production.

People may be interested to note that Van Damme has an intriguing genre-bending French film coming out, JCVD. Those are his intials for the extra-drowsy out there. It is, no kidding, one of my most awaited films this year. Thanks to the guys at JoBlo and Arrow In the Head for posting the trailer.

FUN WITH PROMO ART: Day of the Dead 2008

The DAY OF THE DEAD remake has been released to DVD, bypassing U.S. theatres altogether. And what pray tell is the image being used to sell the general public on this hot new film? Why only one of the ugliest and most bafflingly wrong-headed pieces of DVD cover art I've ever seen.




CHUNDER OF THE DEAD is more like it. We don't know why the zombie on the cover is projectile vomiting or why said vomit seems to defy the laws of physics. But one suspects that if you're going to swallow eyeballs, ears and ring fingers without even cooking them first, you're going to be a little sick to your stomach. Backer cards in many DVD rental shops feature a holographic image that makes this look as if its moving. Honestly, what were they thinking?

As horrible as this looks and as much as it stings to be yet another remake wholly unrelated to the original, the fact is the film itself isn't bad. More on that later.

In the meantime, it appears someone needs some napkins and Pepto Bismol.

GETTING SCREWED ON PROM NIGHT... Panic At the Disco, Circa 1980 and Beyond

The immense success of PROM NIGHT this weekend may keep horror films coming out for some time. But it also encourages more remakes, more studio formula and more PG-13 rated fare in order to bring the kiddies in the theatre, whether its appropriate or not. So, PROM NIGHT has screwed us, but this should come as no surprise. Truth be told, PROM NIGHT has been ruining the day for nearly thirty years.

The original PROM NIGHT was a blatant cash grab. The slasher genre was really picking up steam, thanks to HALLOWEEN a couple years prior. In a bit of serendipity, a small film called FRIDAY THE 13TH had been released two months before PROM NIGHT and proved that masked killers would not be vacating theaters anytime soon. The Canadian producers even insured that their production would be more high profile than most by snagging HALLOWEEN's star, Jamie Lee Curtis. But even this was not enough for the intrepid producers. No, they had to make sure their film had a tie-in that has now become common but was at least a little more rare back then. I'm talking about the music tie-in, shoehorned in so haphazardly that half the time it seems as though we're watching a knock-off of SATURDAY NIGHT FEVER, not HALLOWEEN.

And why did they do this? Because PROM NIGHT was a truly mediocre film. It moves at a snail's pace, where nearly an hour passes before the killer even appears. The setting is a generic high school with a generic name. The characters are thinly written and dialog could be interchangeable In the lead, Curtis has never had to do less and in fact does not seem all that important to the storyline - a big problem when you're talking about the main character. It's the type of performance where Curtis is not made to act, but react to what is happening around her and she is made to react with passive bewilderment. The identity of the killer, while considered shocking to some, really makes no sense when you think about it for more than two minutes. There is very little blood, even smaller amounts of skin and an overall feeling that every moment of the film is padding. One extended chase scene towards the end of the film redeems it somewhat, but even that is something we have seen before. The film even looks bland and the D.P. glazes everything over in a nauseating soft focus as if the hide this fact.

If Curtis were not in the film, it's hard to imagine anyone would remember PROM NIGHT. There were other slasher films around that time, many of them much better. In fact, I hold a very special place in my heart for J. Lee Thompson's HAPPY BIRTHDAY TO ME, Joseph Zito's THE PROWLER, Armand Mastroianni's HE KNOWS YOU'RE ALONE, George Mihalka's MY BLOODY VALENTINE and Roger Spottiswoode's TERROR TRAIN (which also starred Curtis, but to better effect). The only thing that makes the original PROM NIGHT stand out is the marketing. The then-burgeoning star power of Curtis is coupled with many scenes of disco dancing and phoned-in teen angst. The whole thing focuses very little on story, just so it can get from point A to point B and hopefully make a few bucks. And it worked.

Maybe that's why producers went back to the well and remade PROM NIGHT recently. Like the original film, it was a slap-dash effort and like the original, it made it's budget back in record time. Now, I need to point out here that I have not seen the 2008 version of PROM NIGHT, hence I will not be reviewing it per se. I will be looking at the marketing of the film and what it signifies to the rest of the genre however.

The very title is an obvious marketing ploy. The fact that it is a horror film centered around the event of PROM NIGHT is reportedly the only connection with the previous film. The lead actress, while not riding immense buzz in genre circles, is certainly known to the young teen crowd the filmmakers which to attract. It's Brittany Snow, who did a decent job in HAIRSPRAY and presumably okay in JOHN TUCKER MUST DIE, a film I could not watch more than five minutes of without retching I have nothing against Snow. She's a local around these parts and I would rather not get slapped for something I know nothing about thankyouverymuch.

The film also uses the music tie-in as a marketing ploy. Rather than use music as a driving force in many films today, it's simply to get tickets sold and maybe a few soundtrack CDs as well ( fat chance on the latter ). Alt-pop covers of 80s songs are big, so some insipid cover of "Time After Time" plays in the trailer. A quick look at the IMDB shows that songs from Rhianna, Britney Spears and Timbaland also appear. Thus, the film is aiming for the same appeal as the disco soundtrack of the original PROM NIGHT which had it's own ridiculous tunes like "Love Me 'Til I Die."

Paul Lynch, director of the 1980 PROM NIGHT has stayed active over the last 28 years, working mainly in television. Conversely, the remake's Nelson McCormick makes his feature debut after spending 15 years in... you guessed it, television.

Everything about this stresses a lack of originality and feedback both within genre circles and with the public at large are reflecting this. But the money has been made and it looks like PROM NIGHT will earn around $40 million before disappearing. Don't be surprised if a sequel, probably straight to video, is already in the works. Maybe that's where the hope lies. Lynch's PROM NIGHT spawned a few in-name only sequels of varying quality. The first one at least, HELLO MARY LOU: PROM NIGHT II was much more entertaining than it's predecessor.

As for director Nelson McCormick and writer J.S. Cardone (who every now and then does something good like BLACK DAY BLUE NIGHT) on a new project.... a remake of 1987's THE STEPFATHER. We're not out of the woods yet, people. The money train is rolling again, originality need not apply.