Netflix was broken for some reason and only loaded 27 movies when I looked up the horror section. This sucks because I rolled 113 as far as what film to watch. Being the resourceful person I deny being but really am, I chose one that looked the most 80's: Beyond the Gates.
Are you old enough to remember VHS board games? Ones like Atmosfear/Nightmare? If you weren't then what it consisted of was a board, pieces, and a VHS movie you interacted with while playing. I own Nightmare, and thanks to a friend burning the VHS to a DVD for me I've played it dozens of times. I also have the sequel but haven't played it out of laziness. A majority of the time is just rolling the dice and moving your piece while collecting things, but every so often you would get screamed at by some old guy in shitty make-up about calling him "Gatekeeper" or being banished to the black hole. You know, stuff you pay people on the internet to do now.
So why am I bringing up weird nostalgia you don't care about? Beyond the Gates is a horror film based around a VHS game with the same name. After their father goes missing for months, two brothers are left with emptying and closing down the family video store. They end up finding the game in the locked office and the tape in the VCR. The brothers watch the start of the tape but then bring it home to show one of the brother's girlfriend-wife-person-thing. The woman on the tape tells them that the only way to save their dad's soul is to play the game. So the game ensues...
This was a fucking rad movie. I still had 15 minutes left and I was already on Amazon buying the blu-ray of it. It has its b-movie moments but I feel like they knew what they were making. Nods to the 80's, including some sweet synth score work, combined with a well thought out plot and some great gore and kills.... fucking stellar. Also, I didn't realize this while choosing it, but the cast has some clout (at least to me). One of the brothers is Chase Williamson who plays Dave in John Dies at the End, David Bruckner who directed V/H/S and Southbound has an appearance, and Jesse Merlin who does the voice of Fang in Street Fighter V (okay, less horror, more geek related) has a small roll.
I give Beyond the Gates 5 mac n' cheese spiral boxes out of 5 (because I ate too much of it while watching this:
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