Product Details

• Actors: Reggie Bannister, Peter Stickles, Aime Wolf, Nicole DuPort, Kristin Novak
• Directors: Roy Knyrim
• Format: Surround Sound, Dolby, DVD, Widescreen, NTSC
• Language: English
• Region: Region 1 (U.S. and Canada only. Read more about DVD formats.)
  
• Aspect Ratio: 1.78:1
• Number of discs: 1
• Rated: Unrated
• Studio: Kismet / Graveyard
• DVD Release Date: May 30, 2006
• Run Time: 92 minutes
• Average Customer Review: 2.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• ASIN: B000EGEKQU
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #134,667 in Movies & TV (See Top 100 in Movies & TV)
• For more information about "Cemetery Gates" visit the Internet Movie Database (IMDb)

Editorial Reviews

CEMETERY GATES - DVD Movie

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars "I mean, if you've got fresh meat, why go after the jerky?", June 10, 2006

By 

cookieman108 "cookieman108®" (Inside the jar...) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cemetery Gates (DVD)

You know, with a title like Cemetery Gates (2006), you'd think you'd be getting some sort of dead coming to life and devouring everyone's flesh type feature, but that's not the case here...instead what we have is a genetically altered beastie on the loose devouring everyone's flesh type feature. Haven't seen that before, in any of the hundreds of direct to video releases I've endured over the years...in case you can't tell, I'm being facetious, which is a hoity toity way of calling someone a smart#ss. Directed by Roy Knyrim, whose primary film experience seems to consist mainly of make-up effects on movies like The Toxic Avenger, Part II (1989), Auntie Lee's Meat Pies (1993), and Amityville: Dollhouse (1996), the movie features Reggie Bannister (Phantasm, Phantasm II) and Peter Stickles (Shortbus, Hell on Earth). Also appearing is Aime `Hungry Like A' Wolf (Archangel), Nicole DuPort (Southern Gothic), Kristin Novak (Malibu Spring Break, Going Down), and so on...

The story begins as we see two overly zealous eco-wanks breaking into a scientific research facility. After a little spray paint on the walls, they decide to remove a large, wooden crate from the facility, a crate housing some kind of beast, the intent being on their releasing the creature back into the wilderness. Given this is a horror film, it seems obvious this is a bad idea, but even if this wasn't a horror movie, it still seems to me a huge mistake to mess about with experimental lab animals as you never know what the hell they're infected with, or how easily communicable whatever they may have is to anyone who comes into contact with said animals...and let's say you release said creature back into the wild. What if whatever the creature is carrying infects, and subsequently kills off, the rest of the animal population? Anyway, turns out the creature is a Tasmanian Devil, one that's been `embiggened' by a scientist named Belmont (Bannister) for reasons revealed later on in the film. All right, as you can imagine, the beast, which is about the size of a bear, escapes, and starts making short work of whomever is around, which is good as most of the characters we meet are odious cretins (particularly the two aging hippies downing peyote in search for their animal spirit guides...die, hippie, die!). The voracious and murderous beast eventually finds a nesting spot in some nearby mines, which happen to run under a cemetery, the same cemetery Belmont's son Hunter (Stickles) and his idiot stoner friends are shooting an amateur zombie movie. As Belmont and his pragmatic (yet highly visually stimulating) boss Dr. Christine Kollar (Wolf) set out to find and capture the creature, Hunter and company, along with a whole slew of unwashed, redneck, hillbilly, slack-jawed, obnoxious, deep-fried, mullet sporting, Camero driving, PBR-in-a-can swilling local trailer park yokels soon discover there's more than the spirits of the dead to be scared of in (and beneath) Southern Cross Cemetery...

For an independent, low budget horror feature Cemetery Gates wasn't half bad...I'm unsure the exact location of where the story took place, but wherever it was sure didn't lack for an adequate supply of aggravating a-holes, which was the one thing that annoyed me more than anything else, the sheer number of imbecilic characters running around...sure, it allowed for a decent body count, but still, it was obvious there really wasn't much of a story, so the filmmakers decided to load the script down with a lot of unnecessary crapola. The core story was highly predictable (especially the end) and the acting wasn't all that hot, so what exactly did this film have going for it? The main thing for me was the seemingly complete lack of computer generated effects. The monster was essentially a giant puppet, and a decent looking one at that, sort of a hideous, slavering spawn of the Snuffalufagus from the Sesame Street show. Also, the filmmakers didn't hold back on the blood, whether throwing it around, or having spurt spectacularly, it's here, there, and everywhere, as the beast sure did love to rend limbs from bodies and free innards from torsos. Another thing I felt while watching the film was a sense of not taking things to seriously. There was quite a bit of humor within the script (the name of the beast is `Precious'), and overall, it felt like the people involved in making this movie probably had a lot of fun doing so, and that went a long way for me. The production values are so-so, as it appears most of the money was spent on creature effects (the headstones all looked pretty phony), but it was money well spent as that's about all most would really care about going into a movie like this...you're not coming here for top notch performances, which is good, because there aren't any. One actress was gracious enough to pop her top for extended periods of time, that person being Ms. Novak. I wouldn't have minded some similar action from Ms. Wolf, who certainly has it going on in my opinion. Yeah, it's a piggish sentiment, I know, but when you watch movies like this, you have to take your enjoyment where you can find it, and if you're a hetero guy, you get your jollies seeing hot, nekkid women, among other things. As far as the flow of the film, it's kind of uneven giving the large amount of victims running around, but things become more focused in the last fifteen minutes or so as those who are left confront the creature. I would have liked to have seen Reggie Bannister have more screen time than he did, and it wouldn't have hurt the film at all given he was probably the most experienced performer in the cast, but whatever...all in all this wasn't a great film, but decent enough, and I did feel there was some kind of effort present, which counts for a lot with me.

The picture quality, presented in non-anamorphic widescreen, looks sharp and clean, and the audio, available in both Dolby Digital 2.0 stereo and Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround, comes through very well. As far as extra features, included are three featurettes titled The making of Cemetery Gates, Monsters and Mayhem Special Effects, and Running with the Devil: The Real Special Effects, along with a trailer for this film and another for a movie called Boo (2005).

Cookieman108

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars OH YOU TASMANIAN DEVIL YOU!, September 17, 2006

By 

Michael Butts (Berkeley Springs, WV USA) - See all my reviews
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This review is from: Cemetery Gates (DVD)

Give it credit for: an unusual monster (a Tasmanian Devil, no less!); a hilarious sequence where a peyote-stoned hiker sees the monster as a purple cartoon character being serenaded by singing birds; and the dumbest blonde bimbo in recent cinematic history.
Other than that, you have a pretty standard creature flick with lots and lots of gore, horrible acting, and really bad special effects. But it's not the worst seen.
The tasmanian devil has been what else genetically altered and goes on a killing spree in the local cemetery. PHANTASM's Reggie Bannister is the mad scientist responsible and the rest of the actors? are unfamiliar monster food. Pretty bloody.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

2.0 out of 5 stars I've Seen Worse, July 6, 2006

By 

P. R. Hildebrandt "Trish!" (California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Cemetery Gates (DVD)

If you go into Cemetery Gates expecting something spectacular, you're going to be disappointed. As for tension or frights - not so much either. This movie is campy and it has a light heart. With that light heart comes juvenile sex humor (gagging on a lolipop, and all the boys cheer), bizarre creature FX (it's a giant puppet, and a nasty looking one at that, but it still manages to be awkwardly cute when it runs), and copious amounts of blood. I think that's where the budget went - making sure that as much blood and guts sprayed every available surface of this film.

Honestly, it's enjoyable for what it is, without being too heavy. There's no intellectual investment required with this film. But it's a good, old-fashioned blood n' guts creature romp that gives you tons of characters to hate before they're nastily disposed of.

If you have my quirky sense of humor, the movie is worth watching for the scenes of "Precious" 'scratching' her victims - she does what looks like a Mutant Tasmanian Devil Shuffle on the victim's chest while blood jets from . . . somewhere. Just not where Precious is scratching. It's that kind of movie!

Recommended for fans of cheesy horror, creature flicks, and 80s gore-humor.