Silence of the Lambs is one of my favorites—easily in my top twenty—yet I almost always hate movies about serial killers. It’s not the subject matter so much as the sloppy way its handled. On the other hand, the first three Hannibal Lector novels were like crack to me and I inhaled them in a single week. (I never bothered with the newer stuff that dug into Lector’s childhood because I don’t want that particular mystery ruined.) The way Lector turns the tables on his captors in Silence was one of the earliest moments I can remember in which I knew I wanted to tell stories.

Beyond the Gates is like Jumanji if the titular game of that movie required a VCR to play. In it, a couple of estranged brothers meet up to close down their father’s video store after he turns up missing. They’re not too concerned about his absence because he’s an alcoholic who’s dropped out of their lives before, on and off ever since the boy’s mother died. The oddly unemotional hero of the film was a bit of a drinker, too, until the day he grabbed his girlfriend’s wrist a little too hard. Now he’s sworn off the stuff, a subplot which seems superfluous in the end.

An obvious influence on Beyond the Gates is the subgenre of horror films which were made for children in the 80s, such as Gremlins and The Gate. The movie is deliberately paced to reflect the slow-burn nature of those films, but I think the filmmakers miscalculated a little bit because a lot of the excuses to postpone the action are flimsy. For example, the boys now possess the key which unlocks the secret room in the back of their father’s shop, a room he forbade them from ever entering. You’re telling me that’s not the first place these guys would go snooping?

It’s in this room where they find the titular board game, which proves to be supernatural as the trailer promised. I’m not sure how much more I should give away about how the game operates. All the juicy stuff happens much, much later.

Unlike the aforementioned horror films made for children, this one is extremely bloody. It’s as if it were made for the kind of kids who grew up on movies like that, bearing in mind those children are adults now. The bloody bits are good, but few and far between. You might be saying, “Hey, Gremlins and The Gate were slow like that, too,” but I just watched the trailers for those films after watching Beyond, and they serve as a good reminder of just how much action those older movies actually had in ’em. In other words: a lot more happened in each of those films than this one.

This isn’t to say I didn’t like Beyond the Gates because I did, I just want you to know what you’re getting yourself into before you splurge on the $7 VOD price. Once again, Barbara Crampton (who takes a producer credit) proves she was born for movies like this and, despite routinely appearing in genre flicks, she’s played a bigger variety of character types than most A-movie stars have.

I wasn’t crazy about Beyond the Gates, but I found it to be pleasant to watch. I’m just not sure horror movies should be pleasant. Either way, I think these are all talented people and I’m excited to see what they do next.

Have you ever had an old friend you didn’t care much for until a chance meeting, years later, made you realize you’re head over heels in love with them? Me either, but that was what watching The Exorcist last night was like for me.

Yeah, I know. I should have always loved this movie. But I didn’t. Sue me.

In my defense, the only other time I saw the film in my adult life would have been around the time the director’s cut showed up on TV, a cut which doesn’t improve the film at all. In fact, it does exactly the opposite. I was too distracted by the cheap attempts at subliminal imagery, superimposed over otherwise flawless shots, and the inclusion of deleted scenes which were better left on the cutting room floor. I think they even touched up Regan’s vomit with CGI, if memory serves me correctly.

Long story short, my previous viewing had me repeating, “Are you fucking kidding me?!” I know it’s an old tune to sing, but aging movie directors shouldn’t be allowed to “improve” the films they made when they were young unless it’s an effort to undo changes made by third parties such as censorship groups or studio executives. It’s depressing to think the director’s cut is probably the only thing that gets shown in theaters anymore.

Unlike the original Star Wars trilogy, the theatrical cut of The Exorcist still exists and it looks amazing in HD. The first time I saw the movie was on VHS, which can’t replicate the grain and shadows the film wears so well. (If I ever get a chance to see an actual print of the film properly projected in a theater, I’ll take it in a heartbeat. It feels almost blasphemous to watch it digitally no matter how good home HD technology becomes.) The one and only problem seeing the film this clearly is the seams in Max von Sydow’s old age makeup become a little more apparent than they ever were on VHS.

I talked about the story elements in my review of the book yesterday, so I’ll skip to what makes the movie special. In the novel, it’s heart-wrenching when Chris MacNeil is taking little Regan to one medical specialist after another, but it has a slightly bigger impact in the movie even though that section of the story is reduced in length. Director William Friedkin reportedly hired real doctors and specialists to perform the procedures on Linda Blair’s character, which makes it all the more realistic and traumatizing. Actually seeing and hearing all those loud and crunchy machines is almost as visceral as the scenes of Regan’s possession manifesting itself.

The cast is top notch, too. The three adult leads (James Miller, von Sydow, and Ellen Burstyn) all embody the characters as they existed on the page. And I prefer Lee J. Cobb’s detective to George C. Scott’s portrayal of the same character in the third film. (Scott seemed a little to serious in contrast to Cobb’s geniality.) Casting a real life Jesuit in the role of Father Dyer is a stroke of genius, and I feel like I don’t even need to mention how good the 14 year old Linda Blair is in the movie, considering her performance has become legendary. (Come to think of it… why does she have so much trouble finding big movie roles these days? Did she play the part too well?)

Look, I was always wrong about The Exorcist… and I’m glad I was wrong because my most recent viewing feels like it was the first time. It’s one of the greatest movies ever made.