October Horror Challenge 2018 #82: "Beyond the Gates"

This is the perfect movie for me. Today's kids will never know how awesome the old video store were, or the excitement of walking the aisles, looking at the pictures on the video boxes, seeing all the awesome movies that await. Even smelling that smell, the mix of plastic and dust and old cardboard, something that brings back memories of the past, I'll miss those days, and it feels like this movie is directing it's advertising at me and people like me...come watch this movie that takes place in an old video store! Remember the fun times of the past!

This movie is about a man who mysteriously disappears, leaving his two adult sons to take care of his estate, which includes boxing all the stuff up from their dad's old video store. Soon, among his possessions, they find an old game that includes a video tape with instructions on how to play said game. Unfortunately for them, the game is all too real, and horrifying.

I guess I'm taking a break to watch movies about evil games today. I loved playing hoard games when I was a kid, so I enjoyed seeing all the old board games in the dad's video store. I had a lot of fun playing Scrabble and Upwards when I was a kid, and I would totally have been down to play the old VHS game featured in this movie. It's  a good thing those puzzle boxes from the hellraiser movies aren't real either (we hope!) because I totally would have played with one of those too.

The thing about this movie is that some of the scenes are cool and gory, some are cheesy and cheap looking, and you never know which you're going to get until the whole scene plays out. Plus, once they start playing the game, it's weird and choppy, like they'll play a turn and something creepy will happen, then they'll be like "oh well, time to go to bed now" and wait 12 hours or so before they play another turn, even after it becomes clear that something evil and horrible is going on. It's silly, and it takes me out of the movie. I did enjoy this movie, though, and once they figure out what they have to do to beat the game, things get going and keep the momentum. The special effects are a little questionable, but I like the cast, and their performances are good, so I enjoyed this movie, in spite of its flaws.