Where to watch Beyond the Gates of Hell
3 Stars
In Beyond The Gates of Hell, a newly married couple purchase a mansion in the countryside to open a bed and breakfast. However, it is soon revealed that some brutal murders took place previously on the property and someone or something might be lurking in the basement.
Beyond the Gates of Hell is a grindhouse feature that looks like it could have come from the 70’s or 80’s if not for the modern tech and vehicles. The filter used to achieve the grindhouse effect is perhaps a bit overdone, that is I’d like to have seen a bit more nuance in it, such as some weave to the image and scratches, but with the grindhouse effect as is there are some shots that could easily have come out of a 16mm or 35mm camera from 40 years ago. That is to say the grindhouse aesthetic is well achieved here not just in pure look, but also in shot composition.
The faux trailers at the beginning are a fun addition and I wish there were more of them. In fact I wish the movie were a bit longer than the hour long running time, the Blu-ray as sold does include another grindhouse feature with a similar run time though.
The story is straight and to the point, although I was left wanting for a bit more blood and guts, the monster at the end was cool and I really wanted to see more of that. This comes back to the low runtime which just wasn’t enough to explore all the cool setups of the film such as zombies rising from the grave and swarming the house just in time for the film to end.
Director Dustin Ferguson delivers another low budget horror flick that plays well into the grindhouse genre. Although I’m not certain I completely understand Brink Stevens’ character’s death, the acting was solid and I did enjoy the scream queen nature of, well, all the screaming.
Overall if you are a fan of these super low budget horror flicks, Beyond the Gates of Hell is worth a watch, even though I’d still like to see more of just the gates of hell, let alone actually go beyond them.
Directed by: Dustin Ferguson
Written by: Dustin Ferguson
Starring: Brinke Stevens, Traci Burr, Vida Ghaffar