Tibor Takács directs Stephen Dorff, Christa Denton and Louis Tripp in this horror where three young teens unlock a portal to hell in their back garden.

Your parents faces rip off to reveal goo. A lumbering zombie falls and turns into multiple sluggy mini minions. Your sister is dragged into hell through a closet wall. This was a formative horror watch for me, probably the first VHS horror I watched in its entirety. So the unsettling moments have stayed with me. I wasn’t massively into horror back then but now it probably is my favourite of the genres. The practical FX work here is a real magic show. Stop motion, forced perspective. The in-camera tricks when they come really dazzle. Shame that the pace is so deathly slow and the kids’ lives are more depressing than aspirational. A bit of a downer on a long time coming rewatch.

6

Perfect Double Bill: The Gate II: The Trespassers (1990)

I write regular features about live comedy for British Comedy Guide here https://www.comedy.co.uk/people/bobby_carroll/features/ and my own Substack https://substack.com/@edinburghlaughterbulletin