Gates of Darkness is a very slow moving convoluted mystery drama horror starring Randy Shelly as Stephen Tade a rebellious teen at a religious school. His father supposedly left the family and his mother remarried and now he has a stepfather and stepsister in the family as well. He constantly gets into trouble and recalls something that happened when he was young. At a family celebration his grandmother commits suicide in front of the family and friends and things start getting even stranger. It's after this that it becomes apparent that Stephen also sees the ghost of his grandfather who passed away a month prior to that.
The movie also stars Tobin Bell as a Monsignour of the school and Adrienne Barbeau and John Savage as the Grandparents amongst others. The acting is fine more or less but the story is slow moving and takes a lot of time to actually get going and might not hold the interest of the viewers. There are visions of some sort of ritual, mentions of child abuse by the grandfather and a younger priest as we all as an exorcism in the end. The effects are mostly cheap and not very good. Ultimately all this combined basically reminds the viewer of better movies. It was nice for a change to see Tobin Bell playing a good character as opposed to the baddies he is known for usually portraying. But that's not enough to elevate the movie. A 3.5 out of 10.
The movie also stars Tobin Bell as a Monsignour of the school and Adrienne Barbeau and John Savage as the Grandparents amongst others. The acting is fine more or less but the story is slow moving and takes a lot of time to actually get going and might not hold the interest of the viewers. There are visions of some sort of ritual, mentions of child abuse by the grandfather and a younger priest as we all as an exorcism in the end. The effects are mostly cheap and not very good. Ultimately all this combined basically reminds the viewer of better movies. It was nice for a change to see Tobin Bell playing a good character as opposed to the baddies he is known for usually portraying. But that's not enough to elevate the movie. A 3.5 out of 10.