The Gate II: The Trespassers

The Gate II: The Trespassers (or Return to the nightmare) Starring Louis Tripp  (1990)
Reviewed By Goat Scrote

                The Gate, the original movie, was one I really liked as a kid. This was a world where satanic rock records played backward really did contain the secrets of Hell and the key to summoning demons. Also, I thought model rockets were totally cool, and killing a giant stop-motion-animated multi-limbed scaly demon with a model rocket wasn’t just cool, it was METAL.

thank you, drive thru

The sequel picks up years later with Terry (Louis Tripp, the skinny buddy from the first movie, in his late teens). According to him the problem wasn’t that they called up demons, but that they did it wrong. He has done his black magic homework and become a fairly proficient demonologist. “Satanism,” he opines, “Is for pussies.”

He returns to the boarded-up house from the first move to re-open the gate and use the power of Hell to sort out mundane problems in his life. This time he is packing a computer-controlled laser pentagram and a live rodent on a string, all part of his ritual for summoning and commanding little devils. You know, if all that energy he put into blasphemous rituals to rupture the fabric of spacetime was redirected elsewhere, I bet Terry could have worked out some of his issues with a lot less effort and without nearly plunging the entire human race into an unspeakable nightmare of abyssal agony.

Anyway, I’m getting ahead of myself here. The spell is interrupted by a trio of punks, two guys and a gal, and when she shows interest in what he’s doing it doesn’t take Terry’s hormones long to lock on target Liz, played by Pamela Adlon (of Louie and the voice of Bobby Hill).

I'm gonna use fire in my stand-up comedy act

    Quicker than you can say Beelzebub, they’ve opened the gate and gunned down one of the little demonoid buggers from the first movie. It turns out it’s not dead and the kids cage it to force the captive minion to grant their wishes. The teens change the weather and call sports cars out of thin air. The two punk jerks get their hands on the demon, but the wishes start going to shit (literally), the little monster tries to rip their faces off, and one of them starts to turn into a demon himself. Meanwhile Terry and his new girlfriend cast a spell to re-open the gate, in order to send the minion away. Everybody ends up passing into the magical land that heavy metal albums come from.

are you ready for the most epic metal journey? take this acid!

It turns out it was all a big trick by some major demons to escape into our world. The demons possess Terry and try to make him sacrifice his new squeeze to bring on the apocalypse, but in the end the power of love comes over… er, overcomes everything, good triumphs over evil, and blah blah blah. It was a pretty bland sequel. The brief sequence in the other dimension is reasonably cool and there are a few clever touches, but this movie pales next to the first one. The Gate had hordes of minions and a super-demon confrontation at the end. The Gate II: The Trespassers just didn't scratch the same itch for me, so I’m going to have to go watch The Gate again instead.

Crankenstien's notes on Louis Tripp, read this short blurb about the whereabouts of Tripp who has since changed his name to 1220 then to Baphomet Tripp, he is making industrial music in a band called xaos and writing fiction. As for the other Gate stars, Steven Dorf is doing commercials for those light up novelty cigarettes and Pamela Adlon is most likely working with Louis C.K. on something.And I actually like this one over the original, so there!

I'm so fucking METAL!

Meh!

Back from the grave and ready to play D&D and sip an iced latte

Click this link for the top story on Louis over at RUE MORGUE

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