The Big Picture

Gateway
lacks atmosphere and mood, making it a dull horror movie.
Characters are underdeveloped, leading to stilted performances.
The film spends too long setting up characters without delivering on scares.

With some horror movies, the less you see, the scarier they are. Some of the greatest horror films of all time have little to no gore — The Blair Witch Project, The Others, and Paranormal Activity. But what do they all have in common? An all-consuming and expertly crafted sense of mood and atmosphere. The Blair Witch Project scares you with just the thought and prospect of an evil witch popping out of the woods at any second without ever showing you her. Paranormal Activity does end with a shocking finale, but up until then, the movie’s antagonist is literally an unseen force, and it still terrifies because Katie’s torment isn’t in any way alleviated by the fact that the demon is invisible — it exacerbates it. If you want to go minimal with your out-and-out scares, it is absolutely crucial that you establish a visceral atmosphere that will fill the audience with dread without ever seeing a monster or drop of blood. This is the fatal mistake that renders Shudder’s latest horror release, Gateway, a cold, stilted, and unfeeling movie that fails to incite any emotion in the audience, let alone fear.

Gateway spends its first 40 minutes (out of less than 90) building up to its grand reveal of horror — which ends up being a mix of M. Night Shyamalan’s The Happening and Dumbledore’s Pensieve that lets you see other people’s memories. The ineffective set-up of a less-than-inspiring source of terror makes Gateway an unimaginative and coarse supernatural horror story.

Gateway (2024) In an ordinary abandoned house – On what could be your ordinary street – A gang of desperate criminals have found something – or has it found them.Release Date April 4, 2024 Director Niall Owens Cast Tim Creed , Fiona Hardy , Ryan McParland , Stuart McGrainor , Kevin Barry , Laurence Ubong Williams , Finbarr Stanton , Joe LYons Runtime 80 Minutes Writers Niall Owens Expand

What Is ‘Gateway’ About?

Many films change genre halfway through to great effect. Look no further than Karyn Kusama’s The Invitation whose first hour is a heavy drama about grief and letting go of the past before descending into a full-blown bloodbath for its final 20 minutes. Gateway’s first 40 minutes play out as a dense gangster crime drama. Our lead character is Mike (Tim Creed), a quiet and reserved drug dealer in a rural Irish town who is reeling from the sudden loss of his younger sister, Hannah (Fiona Hardy). We first meet Mike lying in bed traumatized as he sees Hannah at the end of his bed. It’s clear right away that Mike carries some guilt for what happened to her, with constant flashes of her tormented face throughout the film (becoming a little tedious and repetitive by the end). We spend what seems to be an average day with Mike. He and his gang of friends/criminals/colleagues are trying to find a grow room for 200 weed plants, desperate to keep selling so they can get their unseen boss his money. Mike’s closest friend is Jon (Stuart McGrainor) who has a tumultuous relationship with his ex-partner (George Hanover) who tries to prevent him from seeing his daughter.

The group finally lands a grow room in an abandoned house. As they are checking the place out, one of the men, Phil (Joe Lyons), attempts to open the only locked room in the house. The door opens itself and what Phil sees inside brings a manic smile to his face before he hangs himself. One by one, the room and the dark forces that it harbors claim each of the men, showing them their deepest fears and unveiling some terrifying truths. Similar to the likes of The Happening and Netflix’s Bird Box, the “villain” in all of this is an unseen force inside a room that causes people to commit suicide and kill others. There’s a twist in the finale that reminds the viewer that sometimes those who walk among us are more evil than otherworldly entities. But by then, it’s much too late to inject the film with any thematic poignancy.

‘Gateway’ Is Too Minimal For Its Own Good
Image via Pic Du Jer Productions

Gateway doesn’t feel like a finished project. While another Shudder release, In a Violent Nature, proved that you don’t need music to make your film scary, Gateway would have greatly benefitted from a chilling score. There are no stylistic flourishes in Niall Owens’ direction. While Irish cinema can be categorized by an authentic, stripped-back approach to storytelling — Lenny Abrahamson’s Garage and John Carney’s Once being just two examples — Gateway takes it to the extreme. The editing is rough and unrefined, the dialogue is clunky and the stiff performances don’t help. It all makes for a viewing experience that doesn’t ignite any reaction in the audience other than confusion. Again, you don’t need to rely on jump scares, gore, or elaborate creature design to call yourself a horror movie. But in Gateway, there is no sense of fear or urgency between the cold and grey imagery and the placid performances. Even when it’s clear the film wants the audience to be terrified, why would we be when those actually in the situation don’t seem that pressed?

The first 40 minutes clearly set out to foreshadow the scariness that (apparently) awaits us in the finale, but the constant introduction of inconsequential characters and at times bizarre dialogue only works to confuse the audience rather than fill us with dread. Exchanges between dealers and clients, and one man looking into the middle distance waxing poetic about his dead cat would feel more in place in a character-driven crime drama; but even as that, they don’t work together to create a narrative flow. The entire film, up until our central gang arrives at the house with the titular gateway to who knows what, feels like a string of snippets that don’t feel connected. Rather than starting off slow and steady, Gateway feels aimless, not knowing what to do with itself until it gets to the titular location. Gateway asks for too much patience from its audience and with very little payoff.

It’s Hard to Connect With Any Character in ‘Gateway’
Image via Pic Du Jer Productions

The characters never get to feel fully formed because their arcs are perfunctory. There’s a lot of grief and trauma to go around — Mike is haunted by Hannah, Eddie (Laurence Ubong Williams in the most authentic performance of the film) recently lost his father, and Jon’s struggles with alcoholism are driving a wedge between him and his daughter. But when you finish the film, you realize these narrative touchstones were only added in to give way to the last 30 minutes of “horror.” These painful pasts converge to give what I’m sure the cast and crew thought would be an engaging ending, but it feels contrived. There’s some bloody imagery, particularly of a man eating his own heart, but again, it doesn’t feel of any substance. It just plays out as shock value without any shock.

Gateway feels more like a proof of concept than an actual feature film. There are some interesting ideas here and a twist in the end pertaining to the fate of a particular character does come as a surprise. But the clunky script, bare-bones direction, and stilted performances can’t elevate it further than being a somewhat interesting idea that failed in execution. Maybe with more care and time, this could’ve been an interesting blend of crime drama (which Irish TV and cinema have excelled at, see: Love/Hate) and supernatural horror themes (see: The Hole in the Ground, You Are Not My Mother). But it all falls apart as there are no personal touches, character specificities, or horror sensibilities that fill in the many gaps of this hollow script.

REVIEW Gateway (2024) Gateway is a dull horror movie that doesn’t create the atmosphere or mood to justify its lack of scares.ProsActor Laurence Ubong Williams stands out with an urgent and authentic performance. ConsGateway spends way too long setting up its bland cast of characters and their backstories.While horror movies without blood and gore usually lean on atmosphere, Gateway doesn’t check any of these boxes.The half-baked characters lead to stilted performances from the cast.

Gateway is available to stream on Shudder in the U.S. starting June 14.

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