Text © Richard Gary / Indie Horror Films, 2020
Images from the Internet
The Black Gate
Directed by Guillaume Beylard, Fabrice Martin
Montpellier Underground Pictures
78 minutes, 2017 / 2019
First of all, let me
be clear that despite it’s name, this feature has nothing to do with The
Lord of the Rings: The Return of the King (2003), even if the theme of the troupe
of main characters are on a journey to return a book, rather than a golden ring
(more Evil Dead than Frodo).
I’m going to be honest
with youse. When I initially took a gander at some of the stills from this French
film (with subtitles), I was somewhat concerned. It looked a bit like some
1980s kid thing, like The Gate (1987; don’t get me wrong, that was a
decent film for what it was). Lots of swirling lights and demons with faces
that were also swirling, glowing spheres. I am happy to say that I was flat out
wrong.
Two siblings, Sarah (Jeanne
Dessart), an archeology student, and her brother David (Nicolas Couchet) come
into possession of said mysterious book of mystical incantations through their
late uncle, who accidentally opened up the Black Gate, which connects this world
to another that is keen on possessing human’s souls and turning them into literal
George Romero-style (slow) flesh-eating zombies.
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| Jeanne Dessart |
After you get past a
certain point of the fantastic and start into the horror in the second act, the
pace picks up incredibly fast, furious, and gory. It does take a moment or a
few to get used to the pace of the film, which looks like a music video with swirling
cameras and quick edits. If you have not noticed by my previous comments, there
is a lot of swirling.
In a separate story,
three bank robbers are on the run, and their car breaks down just outside of
where Sarah and David are situated with some hooded ghoulies (it’s probably
okay to call them demons, I guess) coming after them. Joining the sibs’ quest
is one of the robbers, the hot-headed Jeff (Jonathan Raffin). Their mission will
be filled with danger, zombies, demons, guns, swords, a mysterious man in black
wearing a leather cowboy hat (I kid you not), and of course, the Book.
 |
| Nicolas Couchet and Jonathan Raffin |
What really makes the
film for me, is just how deeply Leo Fulci, Mario Bava, and the Italian horror
cinema from the 1980s is referenced in imagery throughout the whole picture, right
down to maggots on the face of a zombie, and close-ups of their faces. In fact,
I believe that if this was released back then, it would be part of the canon by
now. During the end credits, there is a nod to several directors, including
Fulci, Argento, Raimi and Carpenter.
The music is also very
Italian cinema style, right out of Gremlin, with electronic Phillip Glass type
of repetition of notes series. It made me think of Argento and Bava’s works.
Lots of dissonant notes, shrill and, once again, swirling.
The locations are
fantastic, either being a small town or an estate filled with ancient stone and
brick buildings and edifices, giving an atmosphere that plays well into the
story of a timeless evil. As for the titular doorway itself, the black gate
proper seems like a giant vagina inspired by HR Giger.
Speaking of the look
of the film, the cinematography is purposefully a bit strong on the eye, with many
shots overexposed to wash the images out a bit, making them dream-like. It has
a look making the viewer feel like they are having a sun-stroke. It is an
interesting effect that works well for the story and the overall theme of
images.
The gore is really
enjoyable, in a cartoonish way, much like (again) the Italian films of said
genre. Hearts, rotting corpses, and gun splatter, are just a few of the methods
in the SFX tool kit here. The demonic creatures in the robes are kind of campy,
but the physical effects on the kills and the zombies made me smile. There is a
mixture of physical and digital SFX. The digital ones look like a throwback to
pre-HD CGI when it was more in its nascent form, but it is the physical make-up
that is the attention-getter. I am not necessarily one who prefers one over the
other (make-up vs. computer-generated), but here the zombies are the winner.
As for the acting, it’s
a bit over the top when the action level rises, but that’s the genre they’re
modeling themselves after, and in that way they are successful, but it really
does feel like this should be on VHS rather than digital; that being said, I am
grateful for the modern clarity of image. Dessart is rather attractive, Couchet
looks like a football/soccer ruffian, and Raffin is dashingly handsome, even if
his character is more anti-hero.
This is a film that
may be under the radar for many horror fans in the West, but it’s worth seeking
out, especially if you are a fan of the 1980s Italian zombi and giallo
styles. Somewhere Fulci is either happy or garrulous, as was his nature.
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