★ 3 / 10
**_Dreadfully dull Halloween-oriented indie from the late ’80s_**
Wuchak
**_Dreadfully dull Halloween-oriented indie from the late ’80s_** There are some dirt-cheap horror indies from the 1980s that are entertaining and worth one’s…
**_Dreadfully dull Halloween-oriented indie from the late ’80s_**
There are some dirt-cheap horror indies from the 1980s that are entertaining and worth one’s time for one reason or another, such as “The Majorettes,” “Blood Harvest,” “Blood Hook” and “Luther the Geek,” but “Hollowgate” (or “Hollow Gate”) isn’t one of ’em.
The story revolves around two couples in their late teens ending up at an unknown rural estate on Halloween night where they’re hunted by a man who forgot to take his meds. It’s a decent plot which could deliver the goods but drops the ball. I can roll with the low-rent cinematography and the no-name actors, it’s just that the writer/director didn’t do much to capture the viewer’s attention with key staples.
Take, for instance, the ‘final girl.’ The actress is all-around weak because she just doesn’t fit the role, as was done in all of the “Friday the 13th” flicks. Meanwhile the dramatics are tedious rather than compelling and the female cast is subpar. It’s also bogged down by filler material. On the positive side, the opening bobbing for apples sequence is entertaining and the actor who plays the madman nicely hams it up (just too much since you can’t buy him as real).
It’s cut from the same cloth as the mediocre “Hack-O-Lantern” from the same time period (minus the budget), but that one included entertaining staples and is a veritable masterpiece by comparison.
It runs 1 hour, 25 minutes, and was shot in Thousand Oaks, California, which is a dozen miles west of northern Los Angeles, and 18 miles northwest of Malibu.
GRADE: D+
★ 4 / 10
Happy Halloween You Filthy Old Hag
BenTramerLives78
Hollow Gate is the story of a young boy, Mark, who almost gets killed by his drunk and abusive father on Halloween. Ten years later, he is released from a…
Hollow Gate is the story of a young boy, Mark, who almost gets killed by his drunk and abusive father on Halloween. Ten years later, he is released from a mental hospital and decides to go on a murder spree.Hal Roach's grandson, Addison Randall, plays Mark as an adult. He does a good job as the psycho although the acting in this film is really bad. It is still an entertaining film to watch but I recommend it only to die hard fans of the horror genre.
★ 4 / 10
Lousy but sporadically amusing slasher drivel
Bloodwank
I find myself writing this review a day after viewing, not because it inspired me so much I couldn't wait, but because if I leave it much longer the film is…
I find myself writing this review a day after viewing, not because it inspired me so much I couldn't wait, but because if I leave it much longer the film is pretty much guaranteed to vacate my memory. A quivering slab of SOV junk that neither glistens with home movie crapulence nor captures any genuine freakishness or gruesome laughs, Hollow Gate is pretty far from memorable, though it does at least carve out a more or less bearable path for its 87 minutes or so. We have the sad tale of Mark Nelson here, humiliated by his boozy step dad and thusly bound for insanity and subsequent murder, it's a message film clothed in the inimitable rags of 80's video technology. Child mockery makes for ticking time bombs, unwatched cars may be set to explode, unwatched pills may remain untaken, even with assurances that they have been. Be nice, be attentive, writer/director Ray Di Zazzo seems to say. Or maybe not, but you can never tell. Anyhoo, this is worse than average for a late 80's slasher, witless padding by idiot cops bulks out a pretty thin set up, there are only 4 kids about for the offing in the bulk of the film and the blood and gore is very thin on the ground. At least Addison Randall conjures up some enthusiastic unhingement to make up for being utterly unscary, while the two ladies in peril of the film are easy enough on the eye. Randall seemed to pop up in a fair few straight to video roles, though of the aforementioned womenfolk the most interesting sounding later film role is Katrina Alexy being "Head in a Bowl" in the likely never seen by anybody short film Oatmeal. Achievement! Best (or worst, depending on how you look at these things) for acting in this one is Richard Dry, who perhaps anticipating never appearing in anything else builds up a head of steam before really blowing loose the last stages of the film. His madly profane panic and acclamations of love to his girlfriend carry a remarkable energy, almost as if his very life depended on it, and its an almost awesome thing to behold. There isn't much reason to watch this one altogether, I wouldn't recommend it. Inane killer, daft costumes (though his soldier scene is pretty funny) little violence, this is something of a failure, of interest only to the real geeks out there. Dig in if you feel you must and you might not get burned too bad, but there are still tons of worthwhile obscure slashers out there that you likely haven't seen, so try them instead.
9%
AUDIENCE
3.6/10
608
