The parents of 12-year-old Glenn (Stephen Dorff) have gone on a trip for the weekend. While Glenn’s 15-year-old sister, Al (Christa Denton), throws a party, Glenn and his best friend Terry (Louis Tripp) break open a geode and read the incantation they find inside. That turns out to be a mistake, because a big tree has recently been removed from Glenn’s backyard and left behind a hole that is also a portal to Hell.

If you were a kid whose family had a subscription to HBO in the late ’80s or the early ’90s, The Gate was inescapable. It sometimes seemed as if it aired every day, once in the morning and once late at night. I remember also seeing it frequently on TBS. It was the perfect movie for a network like TBS. It was a horror movie, but with a sense of awe and wonder. Glenn may have been scared of the hole in the backyard, but he and Terry were still excited about having discovered something that only they knew about. I had a crush on Christa Denton, and Louis Tripp’s Terry reminded me of my best friend, the one who was still into heavy metal and punk while everyone else in the neighborhood was listening to rap.

Today, it’s a lot easier for me to see how derivative The Gate was of films like Gremlins, Poltergeist, and Ghoulies, but it still inspires a feeling of nostalgia whenever I see it. The stop-motion monsters that come out of the gate are still effective, as is the scene with the eye. (If you’ve seen the movie, you definitely know what I’m talking about.) The Gate is a horror film with a sentimental heart. You can open the portal to Hell and still manage to make everything all right if you have enough love for your friends and family. The only thing you can’t escape is your parents coming home at the end of the weekend.