Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. The Gate fucked me up when I was a kid. There's no other way to put it. The tone of the movie got under my skin and the idea of parents being corrupted into these gushing goo-faced monsters screaming that I've been bad really stuck with me.
For a low budget film The Gate boasts some of the most insane special effects of the '80s, thanks in large part to Randy Cook who one of the go-to stop motion guys at the time. The use of stop motion and forced perspective is second to none in this flick. And it stars kid Stephen Dorff!
The folks at Lionsgate and Vestron have remastered The Gate and filled a special edition blu-ray with a huge amount of extra features, including multiple commentary tracks and interviews with many of the creative minds behind the film.
They've graciously offered up an exclusive clip from the special features detailing how the creepy Workman came to be. Below you'll see special effects heavy hitter Craig Reardon discuss the evolution of the character from script to screen.
Reardon has worked on pretty much everything all us little '80s horror geeks grew up on. I got to meet him once on one of my first set visits, when KNB's Greg Nicotero introduced us on the set of Ghosts of Mars. Nicotero knew I was pretty obsessed with Poltergeist and Reardon worked on a lot of the key gags on that film, including the mirror sequence where the nerdy paranormal investigator rips his own face off.
Anyway, my memory of Reardon was that he was super smart, kinda soft spoken and happy to talk about his impact on pop culture. You get a little bit of that feeling as he talks about the thought process that into the messed up Workman from The Gate below.
Enjoy!
That's just a taste of the amount of behind the scenes goodies on this loaded disc.
The Blu-Ray hits next Tuesday. If you're like me and was marked by this creepy little shocker at a young age you'll definitely want to pick it up.
-Eric Vespe
”Quint”
quint@aintitcool.com
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