Cemetery Gates (2006) User Reviews

Really cheesy and average teen horror flick

[siderite · 4/10 · 4 September 2006]

Not as bad as to become a classic, not as good as to be counted as film. Vicious and enormous mutated female dog is released by animal activists. It eats and eats until it is destroyed with dynamite.

People all look like they're made out of splattering red goo, the monster looks like something from Scrapheap Megawars, the plot is ridiculous, the characters are so few that you may think the movie is based on a play and so cardboard that you may think the film is based on a cardboard game. The humour is dumb, the clichés are overused.

There is nothing that twists the plot or that activates any part of the viewers brain. Conclusion: Not worth watching.

Another forgettable 'Creature Feature'.

[poolandrews · 4/10 · 20 October 2009]

Cemetery Gates is set in Los Angeles where two dumb environmentalists named Alex (Stephen Van Dorn) & Ben (Greg McDonald) break into a top secret research laboratory where they find a large crate with some sort of animal inside that they feel compelled to release into the wild rather than let it be experimented on. Unfortunately the animal inside the crate turns out to be a seven foot tall mutated Tasmanian Devil named Precious that likes to kill & eat people & now it's loose in a national park. Student amateur filmmaker Hunter Belmont (Peter Stickles) & some of his buddies drive out to an old cemetery where he intends to shoot some of his low budget zombie horror film 'The Cemetery Gates' but the filmmakers soon find themselves under attack from the mutated creature...

Directed by Roy Knyrim this is a fairly decent if unspectacular 'Creature Feature' with slightly more gore than one might expect, if nothing else it's probably better than the majority of the 'Creature Feature' turds that the Sci-Fi Channel show at least. The film is maybe best described as a creature feature mixed with a little teen slasher as the first hour or so of Cemetery Gates consists of various teens being introduced & then killed off by the creature, every excuse is here from people needing to pee to cars breaking down to same random woman on a push bike who all get introduced then killed off within minutes. The main character's are a bit dull except fro blonde bimbo August who gets a few amusing lines, looks good & gets her breasts out a couple of times. The story behind the mutated Tasmanian Devil is poor with vague explanations about trying to reproduce it's immune system or something like that & if I was an animal activist I think I would actually take a look inside the crate to see what was making those loud roaring noises before trying to release it into the wild, you know what I mean? To be fair to Cemtery Gates it never tries to be anything other than a fun 'Creature Feature' with a fast pace & plenty of gory kills but it's nothing new, it's predictable & does get repetitive. It's watchable enough thanks to a fair amount of blood & some nudity but I will have probably forgotten all about it by the end of the week.

The highlight of Cemtery gates has to be the blood & gore set-pieces with ripped out spines, torn off limbs, mutilated bodies, decapitations, bit throats, squashed heads, people bitten in half & lots of spurting blood. The creature itself looks poor as it's obviously just some guy in a suit, it's eyes & mouth never move & you can tell it's just a static face mask. There's some very poor physics going on at the end as various people fall down holes & then manage to climb back out again, these scenes don't really work & when the climax in the dark tunnels come & the filmmakers actually try to generate tension it falls apart with bad effects & annoying character's who make stupid decisions, the film works much batter as an out & out splatter gore 'Creature Feature'.

With a supposed budget of close to a million Cemtery gates looks alright for a low budget horror, it's professionally made at least even if it does look a little made for telly-ish. Special make-up effects guys Greg Nicotero & Howard Berger makes cameos while a balding & fat Reggie Bannister of Phantasm (1979) & sequels 'fame' turns up here sporting a ridiculous pony tail.

Cemetery Gates is a decent enough 'Creature Feature' that spends most of it's time killing off insignificant character's in gory ways & there's nothing wrong with that I say but it does get repetitive & a poor looking creature doesn't help credibility. Not too bad but not that great either, watchable if nothing else.

Not very good

[lovecraft231 · 3/10 · 20 June 2006]

"Cemetary Gates" is a movie that wants to be like 70's and 80's creature flicks like "Alligator" or "Prophecy". Well, it has a cool monster, and some nice gore effects, so where does it go wrong?

Well, for one thing, the comedy aspects of the movie really fall flat. Jokes such as the recording of a man's diarrhea, poorly done sex gags, and other such things hurt it considerably. Sure, horror and comedy can go together, but not when the jokes suck.

Also, the acting is pretty bad. Everyone seems unenthusiastic, especially Reggie ("Phantasm") Bannister as the scientist father. At least Howard Berger and Greg Nicotero are amusing as two stoner types.

Oh, and there are also the two annoying hillbilly characters that feel like a bad "MadTV" version of "Deliverence."

In the end, the movie is a major missed opportunity. If done with a better script and better characters, it could have been a winner. In the end though, that's all you get: Could have been.

trash

[greenflea2 · 18 December 2006]

This movie could be a good movie, its a good idea behind the plot. The movie is trash with a monster that looks like a man in a suit. It has a low budget and looks like it too. There is the normal blond bimbo who can't keep her clothes on, and obviously she was hire for her boob size, than her acting skills, if she has any.

In the scenes before she is killed, you will not sure if you should burst into tears or laughter.

The acting is poor, look like they drag people off the street and ask them to act in this movie.

The movie is so daft at one point, the main characters pass an abandon vehicle covered in blood, yet don't even stop or think something may be wrong. A number of locals discovery the beast is loose in the area and see it slaughting people, yet they don't seem bother by this, or even scare, and last thing on their minds is fleeing and calling the police.

In one scence, a victim is crushed by what looks like a plastic tomb stone, which it looks like and chances it was made out of plastic.

The ending, well, the tassie cubs look like puppets, and thats what they are, a one legged chook would scary you more than these puppets.

This movie gives Tassie devils a bad name.

Terrible, will make you stupid

[Horrorible_Horror_Films · 1/10 · 20 March 2007]

I can't believe this has been rated so high - and average 4/10? This movie was terrible. I love gore and bad horror movies, and this was surely that, but it still sucked. The 'blood' in this movie looked exactly like the blueberry syrup I put on my waffles every morning. And I HATED every single character in this film. These people should never act again. The stupid pot-smoking teenage actors gave the worst most annoying performances ever captured on film. So maybe that is the only thing this movie achieved, because it didn't really do much else. It certainly didn't scare me, and it wasn't funny or amusing, except possibly with the way some of the people were unbelievably killed.

LMAO at this horrible movie!

[jpgonc · 1/10 · 30 December 2006]

Cemetery Gates can't be seen like a real movie. You must be drunk or doped so that you could not laugh about it. Terrible acting and lousy editing complements with a stupid story, dumb teens, dumb persons but with a good FX. Gore abounds and sometimes is really cheesy, other pretty good. Nevetherless you can't take this movie in consideration and the best way to see it is to make fun of it and to spit up a good dose of laughs... nothing more. The acting is beyond mediocre, the dialog is abominable and the only positive thing is the creature itself... even then you'll notice how bad screened it is sometimes.

You must see this low budget movie in a humorous manner and you must strip yourself off reality and stupidity. Actually it's better you see it with your friends if you want to have a good and freaky animated afternoon attended by a big pack of beers and kilograms of weed...

This movie really sucked and the money spent on it could have been injected into a charity center for homeless people or an orphanage...

I can't find words to describe how much awful it is.

[thrasherck80 · 1/10 · 10 August 2010]

"Cemetery Gates" is a next low-budget monster attack/horror film, but with one exception - you won't find more awful. Plot is simple as hell, two "animal defenders" kidnap a mutated tasmanian devil, which escapes and kills everyone near an old miners cemetery. At the same time, a group of friends are making there a horror movie. You don't have to be a genius to guess who will be the victims of an animal. Appearance of a monster was supposed to be scary and frightening but it looks like a retarded bear, and is doing more laughing than goosebumps. Few words about acting. I don't know if their behaviors were serious, I haven't seen such a bad acting for a long time. Girl heard that his friends mother died by the animals attack and she reacted if she heard how to make a cherry pie. Other characters made very illogical decisions which lead them to death. Another annoying thing in this movie is primitive humor. There are few old erotic jokes that were funny in primary school. The last thing I'm going to describe is gore. It is also very bad made, blood and dismembered bodies look extremely artificial, and make you want to smile with a pity. So, avoid this crap at all costs, there are a lot better things to do than to watch it.

As lame as it gets

[Deadfool · 1/10 · 1 January 2007]

Absolute words to describe the movie is COMPLETE WASTE OF TIME, you cannot be serious making this awfully dumb movie with such cheesy characters in it. Cemetery Gates cannot be considered as a horror movie at all in fact I rather watch Chinese movie with the people flying here & there then watch anything like this ever again, the acting is terrible, story line is as dumb as it can be with stupid creature jumping on everyone going pass & once it killed someone it gets excited & act like it was some kind of a monkey perhaps the beast creature itself not even scary look just like a burnt face bear with incredibly stupid acting. Over all I'd say this movie is just as lame as it gets, I wouldn't recommend you to watch it even if you had nothing better to do :)

WTF is this

[mjtaba · 1/10 · 3 January 2007]

i had my share of bad movies,well that what i thought but when i think they have done enough one more comes out.The movie is so awful that i believe it is a disgrace to the art of cinema. The women are cute but overall the movie is just awful i don't have words to describe.PLEASE PLEASE do not waste your time on this.But yes you can recommend it to friends if u want them to suffer.The thing created to scare you is so funny and beside 1 or 2 murders you will not be scared of the murders ,but yes you will laugh till u drop dead.The story line is also very bogus and nothing new is there not even something old in a new bottle,i cant believe people had spent money to see it in cinema. HATE THE MOVIE AND SO WILL YOU JUST Don't WASTE YOUR TIME

Funny and Gore Trash

[claudio_carvalho · 6/10 · 28 December 2008]

When two ecologists break-in the laboratory of Dr. Belmont (Reggie Bannister), they find a box with a subject and they decide to set the experiment free in the woods. During the transportation, the box opens and releases the mutant Tasmanian Devil that devours the two activists and escapes to the woods. Meanwhile, Dr. Belmont's son Hunter (Peter Stickles) travels in a van with four friends to film a horror movie in the cemetery in the woods, while Belmont and his associate Dr. Christine Kollar (Aime Wolf) seek their deadly experiment called Precious.

The underrated trash "Cemetery Gates" is a cheesy, funny and gore B-movie with a silly story, average acting and a stereotypical stupid blonde with hilarious lines and nice breasts performed by the sexy and hot Kristin Novak. I have had lot of fun watching Precious tearing apart her victims, the quantity of blood and the dialogs of August and her friends. My vote is six.

Title (Brazil): "O Portão do Cemitério" ("The Cemetery Gate")

could of been better.

[helenlevey · 4/10 · 12 August 2006]

Firstly, this film is not going to win any Oscars for its acting or storyline or best creature of the year, but on the other hand if blood and guts and a little humour thrown in is your thing then this might be the flick for you. we have four young males, two females, one is the intelligent type and the other is the dumb blonde bimbo, out to make a film in a cemetery. nearby we have a couple of animal activists who break into a lab and release an animal who has been experimented on and is now a blood thirsty killer roaming the forest.sure enough what we get is a bad looking animal killing every thing it sees. i have to say the death scenes are very gory, limbs ripped out there sockets, intestines spewing out, decapitations and buckets of blood. as i said the story and acting isn't great but if you love your horror films to be gory then this may be for you.

Cemetery Gates - 8 out of 10 ain't bad

[symwiremonkey · 8/10 · 6 June 2006]

Not meant to be the next "great" horror film, but does deliver on gore, shtick and humor. Reggie and the rest of the cast do a decent job of bringing out a somewhat "Evil Dead" kind of horror/humor film, and the director does an excellent job a creating a fast paced, fun movie. My only complaint about "Cemetary Gates" would be the "monster", in closeups it is pretty good, when you see it full figure galloping through the woods it was really bad. If you like horror for being horror this is a great movie to kick back and enjoy with a cold beer and pizza. If you want a horror movie that would qualify for an Academy Award, then you are not really interested in a real horror film... are you? Take a chance and see it, it is worth a viewing and at the very least you will be entertained for a while, while seeing one of the funniest horror/humor moments in recent memory (Howard Berger sees the monster in cartoon form thanks to being whacked on peyote- classic stuff here folks)

'Bloody' well done!

[mlevans · 6/10 · 26 November 2007]

The B horror movie lives! No, this isn't John Carpenter or Steven Spielberg … or even Tod Browning … but it isn't half bad. 'Cemetery Gates' is a slightly original variation on the traditional B horror theme. One variation is that the main group of protagonists are filming their own horror film when true horror strikes THEM.

Anyone who likes blood and gore will love this one. The plot isn't great shakes, but it holds up as well as any B horror plot. We have brain-dead college kids, including a girl with a bra size bigger than her IQ. One improvement in this film is that at least here the big-chested bimbo isn't pawned off on us as a 'graduate student' or someone who would have to have considerably more brains than she has. These are just friends of a college student wanting to make a zombie movie as his class project. One can imagine that three of the six students would probably have flunked out in another year, had they all lived. Of course one does wonder why he would entrust his film to dope-smoking bums and a bimbo.

The student making the film (Peter Stickles) is the son of an unprincipled scientist (Reggie Bannister) who has mutated a Tasmanian devil, turning it into something akin to the man-eating cartoon creature in Bugs Bunny cartoons. The beast, 'Precious,' is pretty cool and can really put the hurt on its victims, all of whom die much slower than they would like.

The film is not without some interesting background. The old cemetery where the kids are filming their zombie film contains a memorial marker for 200+ miners killed when nearby tunnels were flooded in 1925. Apparently the bodies were never recovered and our teens fall through sinkholes into the labyrinth of tunnels that includes skulls and mummified bodies. Naturally Precious makes this her home after being released in a nearby state park.

Without giving the plot away, you could say 'Many are called; most are eaten.' For B horror fare, this is a pretty satisfying production, with good special effects, plenty of blood shooting, dripping, spurting, flowing, etc. The acting from the no-name cast is solid and the handful of attempts to move the plot away from a stale B horror formula appreciated. This isn't the one to do a major term paper on in a film theory class, but is perfect for relaxing with on a late Friday or Saturday night!

Now that's false advertising...

[terrible2 · 1/10 · 17 February 2007]

Wow... This one threw me for a loop. With a title like "Cemetery Gates", you kinda start thinking "Zombies" or some other kind of "Undead" folks, but this one fooled me "Hook, Line and what a Stinker". I like to watch the "Making Of" segments first, because it kinda lets you in on what the producers were trying to accomplish. No zombies, no creepy kids, no mortuary, in fact nothing of the "Undead" persuasion at all... A mutant "Tasmaniun Devil" would try to scare us this time around. Well, maybe it would have scared me if IT weren't a guy in a Disneyland costume gone wrong. I mean... Come on! Did the producers honestly think this was going to scare someone? I understand it was supposed to be half comedy, but don't call it "Cemetery Gates" and then insult us with this crap. The scariest part of this film was the fact that the producers actually sought after director Roy Knyrim, so that they could add a real creepy feel to the film. "Sorry Roy" your film sucks! The saddest part is that they suckered Reggie "Phantasim" Bannister to partake in the idiocy. Say it ain't so Reggie... Say it ain't so. The film is a model case for "False Advertising", and I hope "Horror" fans aren't fooled the way that I was.

I'll take the Warner Brothers Tasmanian Devil Any Day.

[moviemanic07 · 5 July 2006]

Environmental wackos release a giant, genetically-enhanced Tasmanian Devil in this would-be comedy horror film. I think the filmmakers were trying to make the next "Army of Darkness" or "Shaun of the Dead," but the humor wasn't strong enough to compensate for the implausible and coincidence-ridden story. I might be giving the plot more consideration than the filmmakers themselves, but isn't it a little far-fetched that the monster would be stolen from the laboratory and released at a cemetery where the son of mad scientist who created it was filming a low budget horror film? And that the son considered the monster his pet until it killed his mother. At least the scientist father is played by Reggie Bannister. His presence gave the film a touch of class. The film also suffers from the fact that the vast majority of victims had no bearing on the plot whatsoever. They were just passerbys. I did enjoy the bit were the new agers take drugs to call forth a spirit animal, only to see the monster as an animation. The Hillbillies, however, were so over the top that they made the cast of "Two Thousand Maniacs" seem restrained by comparison. The main problem, however, is the monster itself. I know this film was essentially a comedy, but the monster was ridiculous -- especially in long shots where it was obviously a man in a suit walking on all fours. The monster was about as scary as the shrews in "The Killer Shrews." Along those same lines, some of the gore effects were good, but it obvious the monster isn't really digging into the people when it is clawing them. I'd take the Tasmanian Devil in the Warner Brothers cartoons over this thing any day.

Behind these gates you'll find graves, blood, boobs and a very nasty creature thing.

[Vomitron_G · 5/10 · 1 October 2010]

I had some mixed feelings about this one. On the one hand it's just a simple effort with a pretty dull story, lame characters and bad acting written all over it. The only actor worth mentioning, of course, is Reggie Bannister. He's enjoyable to watch, as always, but that's about it. So story- and acting-wise, I was just expecting a bit too much from it. Wrong bet, so it seemed, because this movie is actually not to be taken serious at all. That's just the way the filmmakers intended it. So when you can keep that in mind, that's when the fun starts. Lots, and I do mean LOTS of gory splatter killings by a grotesque looking creature (a giant mutant Tasmanian Devil) doing all the shredding while tunneling itself a way underneath a cemetery ("The Dark" from 1994 starring Brion James and Neve Campbell, anyone?). When you also consider that this movie was meant to be a throwback at the 80's/early 90's creature features (so no lousy CGI to be found in this one), you just can't help yourself but to roll with it and have a fun time. And that's just what "Cemetery Gates" will do: give you a bit of entertainment (horrific, bloody & silly) with a rather bad movie. So it gets extra credit for that. Or maybe I'm just giving the film some free points for that one blond bimbo babe that loves to show her two naked goodies a lot (nearly every chance she gets).

What is this crap?

[Skynet-TX · 1/10 · 26 January 2007]

This is not a movie, this is big pack of crap. I suggest to all members of the crew to go back to school and learn: 1 how to write a good story, 2 how to make a good film from it, 3. watch other movies about man-eating creatures such as JAWS, She Creature or even Dinocroc. Dinocroc is not the best movie I've seen about killer crocodiles but much better then this. I wish we could rate a movie 0 or minus 10 because for this one I'd like to rate like this. I'm not able to understand how could anyone vote for it a higher value then 2 out of then. There's no story, just a whore and two unthinkably stupid assholes among the characters. I liked even Star Crystal because it was so "stupid" that it was "funny". But not this one. I like horror movies very much but I stopped watching this after the first 20 minutes because nothing happened. Don't waste your time and money: avoid this movie as far as you can. 0 out of 1.000.000.000.000.000.000.000

Amateurish, but not bad

[KillerCadugen · 4/10 · 12 June 2006]

I never hold out much hope for these low budget horror flicks that kind of get hidden on the shelves at Blockbuster, but Cemetery Gates was a pleasant surprise. Activists release a mutated beast from a laboratory, only to have that beast - nicknamed "Precious" - escape from them and start killing people all over the place. The monster runs into a group of young people filming their own zombie movie at a local cemetery, which is the real "meat" of Cemetery Gates, so to speak. From top to bottom, the acting is strictly amateurish and close to that line between passable and barely watchable and though the movie is billed as being humorous, I think that's the by-product of a clumsy script. The story itself is not half bad, except the early situations where people are placed in harm's way for the purposes of being messily devoured seem to come utterly out of the blue. I think if less time was spent on designing the gory sequences and more on the script, this movie could have been even better.

Not totally horrible

[lordzedd-3 · 5/10 · 20 January 2007]

Okay, where to begin. I liked the design of the mutant Tazmanian Devil and Reggie Bannister of the Phantasm movies does a great job as the Doctor. But there seemed to be a cheap feeling through the whole movie. Here's one dumb question, why wasn't "Prescious" in a cage when transporting her? Why was she allowed to run around loose in the back of a truck? Problem two, Prescious never blinked and one of the eyes could blink and lastly with the problems, the crooks seemed tacked on. Like they were afraid they were going to run out of bodies before the end of the movie. Being a horror writer I know how that feels. But instead of throwing more bodies in the meat grinder, perhaps they could have refined the story and characters more. But it does have it redeeming qualities and I think it's a fair movie considering the budget was a mere $ 930,000 to begin with. 5 STARS.

S_W's review of 'Cemetery Gates' (2006)

[Shattered_Wake · 1/10 · 12 February 2008]

Alrighty, welcome back to another installment of "Anthony Reviews During the Movie Instead of Actually Paying Attention." Tonight's subject: Cemetery Gates.

I read on a message board for this movie that it's supposedly "Christian Propaganda" to show how horrible science makes the world.

As an Atheist, I decided to hop right on.

The movie itself is pretty awful with almost nothing behind it to keep a person watching. But I did. Because I have respect for film-making. However, the creature effects, acting, direction, and writing are all horrendous. And, those things are all rather important in the film-making process.

So, this film gets a very bad: 3/10.

-AP3-

Reggie Bannister puts the B in B-movies with style.

[theNomadz · 6/10 · 29 May 2007]

Firstly I guess most people expected a zombie film with a title like Cemetery Gates, its not this is a fun retro slice of b-movie cheese. About a Tasmanian Devil. Basically its a blood and boobs, gore ridden mutant creature feature with enough throwaway dialogue to please the MST3K style so bad its good fans.

I mean sure this won't be in many top 10 Horror films of 2006/07 list/polls. But I bet out of the films that do take up those top 10 places, few are going to be as much fun as this one is.

Reggie Bannister is a bona fide cult hero period, for that alone horror/cult genre fans need to dig this out at some point or other.

Its been a pretty good 12 months for creature features. I gave this an above average 6/10.

Worst Movie I've Seen In a LONG while

[alrear91 · 1/10 · 4 August 2007]

May contain Spoiler!

"Cemetery Gates". Could have been a decent gore-fest kinda 80's slasher film, but even the gore in this film is totally surreal and stupid. The plot is not that bad, -a group of boys wants to make a documentary in a cemetery, but a "mutated Tasmanian devil" has been released and now is willing to kill everyone who crosses "her" path-, but the film is so poorly acted and directed that is laughable and at the end, after everyone is killed, the ending is so clichéd and lame that you just feel bored and sad on wasting your time in this piece of crap.

Definitely don't waste your time in this, the effects are awful, the gore is awful, the acting is very, extremely bad.. Actually there's nothing good about this film.

* out of ***** and if I could I would give a lower rating to this very bad film.

NICE COMBINATION

[nogodnomasters · 8/10 · 16 April 2019]

The film had a nice combination of horror, humor, nudity, campy lines, stereo-typed blonde, bad special effects, and an overdose of fake blood. The movie was campy at times which made it enjoyable. The blonde with the lollipop was over the top. I expected the ending to me more of a "Daniel in the lion's den," but it didn't happen. I also expect to see at least one Taz t-shirt, but that would have put the movie over budget as Karo syrup by the gallon isn't cheap. The movie is not rated. Contains: blood, guts, nudity, sexual situation, gore and language. One of the better B horror movies, but falls short of being a classic.

Very cheesy and gory monster movie.

[HumanoidOfFlesh · 7/10 · 31 January 2009]

A giant mutated Tasmanian Devil is stolen from a lab by two eco-activists and escapes near an old cemetery where a group of unsuspecting college students are making a zombie film.The hideous creature takes up residence in the old mining tunnels beneath the graveyard,feasting on both the living and the dead.Meanwhile,the two scientists responsible for the deformed creature are desperately searching the countryside witnessing the carnage of their precious creation.Very gory monster movie with predictable storyline and terrible acting."Cemetery Gates" is a campy horror film and it offers copious amounts of blood.The sequence where a peyote-stoned hiker sees the monster as a purple cartoon character being serenaded by singing birds is hilarious and there is the dumbest blonde bimbo in recent cinematic history.A good,old-fashioned blood n' guts creature romp.

who are the 42 people that gave 10 points?

[burcin_yalaz · 1/10 · 5 September 2008]

This movie was the beginning of my "let's watch bad movies with friends and laugh until we burst in tears" episodes. We were kind of shocked by it, shocked by living the worst but also funniest experience of our personal movie history. I thought that this movie was a kind of joke prepared all together with the movie crew. Maybe half of the crew made a joke to the other 42 people working there(which is the number of people that gave 10 points to this movie) and made them believe that they were actually filming. when i found myself thinking about all these possibilities, one brilliant idea shined amongst them: i will go and buy a hand camera and a torch to my 3 year cousin and tell her to make a movie..even that would be better than this one