The Gate ('87)

This prequel to Sofia Coppola's Somewhere stars Stephen Dorff as Glen, a little boy who's afraid of black magic and demons and flies into hysterics over every bad or scary thing that happens and makes repeat demands that on-vacation parents be called and sobs in front of people and feels shame about over-emoting in front of people so hides in his room. Basically, it's a close cinematic match to my personal memories of being a boy.

Glen is such a fucking kid, which I think means Dorff was a good child actor,

AND GLEN IS TOTALLY JUSTIFIED, by the way, in being terrified by the evil-seeming world. There is evil in the world,
the evil is in the backyard.
!!!!!!!!!
Yaaaaay :)

There seem to be a high number of 80s genre movies that promise to deliver fantasy and fun and then deliver those things. I like how inventive they feel -- maybe a lot of contemporary multiplex movies feel less inventive to me because they're not original stories but remakes and adaptations and well you know.

I kept waiting for The Gate to run out of steam. It does not run out of steam FYI. The script is by Michael Nankin, who co-wrote and co-directed the cult-classic Midnight Madness. The script is often sharp and playful, and crisp, and pops. Popcorn dialogue.

Glen has a nice arc about discovering his capacity for courage, and also I like his friend Terry (Louis Tripp, whose career it seems never quite took off), who also feels naturalistic and fleshed-out: he's a nerd/occultist/heavy metal fan (which nears my perception of IRL heavy metal fans) who grieves his mother's untimely death.

One might make the case that The Gate has subtext, but that subtext exists only though subjective interpretation, in some Todd Haynes-type semiotic deconstructionist pov, concerning maybe suburbia and fear of the unknown, if one wanted to make that case. It'd be interesting I bet. If any of that makes sense it's true, I swear.

But overall I think it's the kind of movie that it's best not to overthink. I sat back and experienced the movie and was rewarded with surges of pleasurable adventure. I'm happy to say director Tibor Takács, whose other work is unfamiliar to me, has a sharp eye for cinematics.

I like it as a black magic movie because I don't think black magic is serious. As a godless person I dislike religious black magic movies, like Catholic horror movies, because they're too serious. There are some exceptions, like Alucarda, which treats the devil in the way I think he works: as an absurdity.

In summary, good job here everyone. The Gate is good. Good job :)

Sugar Hill ('74)!

Valentine: You know it's strange, after you and I split, it took a long time to get over the fact that you took up with Langston.

Diana: Yeah, but you got over it all right.

Valentine: In any case, I never thought I'd be questioning you about his death.

Diana: Murder. First time I met him was right here. He came up to me and he asked my name. It's Diana Hill I said. He said, well from now on you're gonna be called Sugar, Miss Sugar, 'cause you look as sweet as sugar tastes.

Sugar Hill is a blacksploitation Voodoo black magic crime action film from the mid-70s.

Diana 'Sugar' Hill (above) wants to sell her soul to the greatest of Voodoo gods, Baron Samedi (first photo), to avenge her boyfriend, Langston, who was murdered by a honky crime syndicate that wants control of his night club.

Baron: Tell me, why do you want my power?

Sugar: There are some men I want punished.

Baron: Punished?

Sugar: DEAD.

The screenplay was by prolific playwright Tim Kelly, who wrote over three hundred plays before he died at 61. It is the sole directorial credit for Paul Maslansky, producer of over thirty films, including the Police Academy films, Cop and a Half, Raw Meat, Circle of Iron, and Damnation Alley. Star Marki Bey had a short career that began with a role in Hal Ashby's first film The Landlord.

O'Brien: You're not going to do anything crazy, are you?

Sugar: You mean like I did to Tank?

O'Brien: Tha-that was you? I don't believe it.

Sugar: You're about to become a believer.

Slave shackles are used as Jujus (Voodoo charms) to resurrect a zombie murder gang of living dead slaves brought from Guinea to America in the 1840s. Sugar, Baron Samedi, and the living dead slave gang kill off the members of the honky crime syndicate one at a time.

There's a bar fight between Sugar and a blonde lady that begins with a bunch of slaps.

I have described the essential elements of the movie Sugar Hill.

Mystics in Bali!

Old Leák Queen: What is her name, and where does she come from?
Catherine: Catherine Kean from the USA.
Old Leák Queen: Hmm. And where is that?
Mahendra: Very far away.

"Here there is even a western actress playing a key role. In fact, the elusive Ilona Agathe Bastian was not an actress at all, but a German tourist holidaying in Bali. She was spotted by the wife of one of the film's producers and it didn't take much to persuade her to stay on for a few months free holiday." -production notes.

H. Tjut Djalil is a new hero of mine. This, Mystics in Bali, is the second film of his I've seen, following Lady Terminator. He is a director of keen imagination and sharp cinematic wit. Roughly a year ago I didn't even know Eastern black magic horror films existed. Which is appropriate: here I was in the house of film, and black magic was being practiced in the back yard. Of course! The ones that I've seen, including a recent theatrical screening of Boxer's Omen, are among the craziest, most enjoyable movies I've ever seen. They lack the tiresome earnestness and rectitude of Christian horror films, and their potential for engaging supernatural phenomenon is greater.

"I'm surprised that a pretty girl like you would be interested in learning black magic."
- the first line of Mystics in Bali

H. Tjut Djalil is a genre surrealist. Neutral, monotonic voice dubs and plastic-faced actors engender a strange impassiveness as the protagonists journey to learn the intricacies of Leak Bali, a black magic which could be the church of Lynch. The roots of its power seem to be joyless high-pitched laughter. The laughter is one aspect of black magic taught by the face-shifting Old Leák Queen, who takes on Catherine as an apprentice. Of the things the Old Leák Queen teaches Catherine, the most important is drinking newborn blood by way of disembodied, floating head.

Blood has a restorative power for the Leaks, and infant blood is best. Like other exploitation movies, kicks are to be had, intentional and not. Some of the dialogue exits in this movie are extraordinary. When Catherine vomits green goo and live mice, Mahendra blames the prior evening's meal! Absurd on the one hand, but true on the other: does Mahendra know of the prior evening's metamorphosis, the transformation of Catherine from human to pig (Leaks can do this[!])?

Mahendra starts Catherine down the dark path of black magic. She asks him to; she's learned about African Voodooism already, and now wants introduction to Leak Bali, the strongest black magic in the world. It ends badly, unfortunately for Catherine and Mahendra, but fortunately for the audience, and really Mahendra is a great guy who cared about Catherine and meant best.