Hey, it's high time for another installment of Sunday Streaming! I don't exactly recommend today's pick because it's mostly aggravating and generally tedious but I'm going to spotlight it here anyway so that I know where to find it! Ya see, just about every year, at around this time, I wonder to myself what is the name of that movie that begins at the Halloween party with the father trying to drown his son while he's bobbing for apples? And it takes me forever to remember. No, it's not INCIDENT AT RAVEN'S GATE and no, it's not the Horshack-starring HELLGATE, it's HOLLOW GATE! HOLLOW, HOLLOW, HOLLOW GATE! Now it is forever carved into my pumpkin head. I hope.
Picture this, Philadelphia in the late eighties and a young bright eyed and bushy-tailed Unk with a rolled up issue of GORE ZONE magazine in the back pocket of his overalls, searches the city for horror-themed entertainment! Back then there was not only a movie theater on every corner but also a video store too! Why, they rented videos in the drug stores back then! The oddest video store I recall was on the bottom floor of a nearby office building. It had one door to the sidewalk, one door that lead into the building and was smaller than a school bus inside. It had the tiniest selection and yet that selection consisted of hard to find titles I rarely bumped into anywhere else. They even had the notorious 555 (also 1988) in its bright pink florescent box! Working nights at the time, I would day-rent there; CHILLERS (1987), THE UNNAMABLE (1988), THE VIDEO DEAD and eventually, THE DEAD PIT with its blinking eyes!
Anyway, I rented HOLLOW GATE at that joint and I had the highest hopes for it because it took place on Halloween but it totally let me down. To be fair, there is one scene involving characters having to flee across an open field at night that has a somewhat eerie, nonsensical nightmare quality to it but in general, this flick will try your patience. Then again, in the right mood, the killer's snippy lead balloon one-liners and the teen victims barely intelligible histrionics can be borderline hilarious. I guess it all depends on how much you enjoy not-so-great HALLOWEEN rip-offs. It looks like these days, HOLLOW GATE has found itself under the caring wing of the fine folks at TROMA and that information may be more telling than anything I can offer. More importantly, when someone asks you to list films that take place on Halloween (and they will) this film's title is a legitimate response! That is, as long as you can remember what the title is. That title is HOLLOW GATE and you can watch it below! I apologize in advance that it features killer Golden Retrievers…
