Hollow Gate (1988)

**_Dreadfully dull Halloween-oriented indie from the late ’80s_** There are some dirt-cheap horror indies from the 1980s that are entertaining and worth one’s time for one reason or another, such as “The Majorettes,” “Blood Harvest,” “Blood Hook” and “Luther the Geek,” but “Hollowgate” (or “Hollow Gate”) isn’t one of ’em. The story revolves around two couples in their late teens ending up at an unknown rural estate on Halloween night where they’re hunted by a man who forgot to take his meds. It’s a decent plot which could deliver the goods but drops the ball. I can roll with the low-rent cinematography and the no-name actors, it’s just that the writer/director didn’t do much to capture the viewer’s attention with key staples. Take, for instance, the ‘final girl.’ The actress is all-around weak because she just doesn’t fit the role, as was done in all of the “Friday the 13th” flicks. Meanwhile the dramatics are tedious rather than compelling and the female cast is subpar. It’s also bogged down by filler material. On the positive side, the opening bobbing for apples sequence is entertaining and the actor who plays the madman nicely hams it up (just too much since you can’t buy him as real). It’s cut from the same cloth as the mediocre “Hack-O-Lantern” from the same time period (minus the budget), but that one included entertaining staples and is a veritable masterpiece by comparison. It runs 1 hour, 25 minutes, and was shot in Thousand Oaks, California, which is a dozen miles west of northern Los Angeles, and 18 miles northwest of Malibu. GRADE: D+