Hungarian born director Tibor Takacs was the recording engineer behind Toronto punk bands The Viletones and the Cardboard Brains before he became a director. He's probably best known for the 1987 movie The Gate, of course, which leads us to today's film. He also made the pilot movie for the original Sabrina the Teenage Witch, which makes some sense somehow.

This was written - as was the original - by Michael Nankin. His first film was Midnight Madness, but he's since moved on to directing, working on TV shows like American Gothic, Life Goes On, CSI, Battlestar Galactica, Caprica, Defiance, Van Helsing and more.

Five years after the events of the first movie, Terrence has had to say goodbye to Glen, who moved away. His own family has gotten much worse, as his father's drinking has gotten out of control after the death of his mother. That means that the lure of the gate - and its power - is now stronger than ever.

Terrence breaks into Glen's old house and begins the ritual all over again with the hopes of getting his father's life together. Meanwhile, three teens - John (James Villemaire, who was in another movie I watched this week, Zombi 5: Killing Birds),Moe and Liz (Pamela Adlon, who in addition to being in Grease 2 was the voice of Bobby Hill on King of the Hill) - break in.

Liz is super down with demonology, so she convinces the others to help Terrance with his ritual. One of the minions from the last film comes through the Gate and John freaks out and shoots it. Luckily - or unluckily - it survives and Terrance keeps it as a pet.

The next day, Terrance's wish comes true as his father gets a job flying for a major carrier. However, all of the wishes literally turn into, well, excrement. The food that John and Moe devour and the car that Liz wishes for turn into giant cow pies while the plane Terrance's dad is flying crashes, critically injuring him.

Soon, the two boys are demons after the minion gets loose and turns them. They want to sacrifice Liz to Satan, as you do, but Terrence stops them with his mother's jewelry box, which he's transformed into a vessel of light.

Despite dying, Terrance is able to escape his coffin, followed by the human forms of John and Moe. Our hero gets the girl and even his hamster returns from the dead.

The Gate II is in no way as good as the original, but it's still plenty of fun. It also boasts some great non-CGI effects from Randall William Cook, who started at Disney and also worked with Takacs on the original film and I, Madman (he's actually the title character, in addition to doing the effects). Since then, he's been the Animation Director for all of Peter Jackson's Middle Earth films, as well as working on Fright Night and numerous Full Moon films.

Obviously not learning his lesson from "The Gate", the young man from the first movie again opens a gateway to another dimension. This time he uses the power to get wishes, but the demons don't give you wishes for free, you know? (Obviously, he hadn't seen "Filthy McNasty" at this point.) While I would have liked to see Stephen Dorff return for this sequel (his absence is poorly explained),at least we are treated to Louis Tripp, who is just as geeky as ever (though no longer sporting the Angry Dwarfs jacket or rocking out to Sacrifyx). As I say in my introduction, he thinks that opening a gateway is a good idea... and brings along three people for the ride. A hot chick by early 1990s standards (Pamela Adlon) and two greasers.

Some aspects of this film were really fun and I enjoyed it a lot. The demon (or "minion" to use their term) getting high and causing a serious car incident was nice, and the idea of wishes turning to feces gives a whole new twist to the idea of "wishes in one hand, poo in the other". I really liked the visual of a minion in the jar -- where can I get a pickled minion? And if the stop-motion technology is this advanced in 1992, where was it for "Basket Case"? (Granted, that was much earlier, but how hard could it be?)

What I didn't like about the movie was how forced it seemed, how dull most of it was, and the fact that a fair amount of the plot just doesn't make any sense. Tripp knows how to conjure demons and how to send them back, but waits for the right climactic moment to do so instead of finishing the job right away (not unlike how James Bond's villains don't shoot him when they have the chance). For example, he creates a box that has to be thrown into a pit (like the ring that must be thrown into Mount Doom) but just waits until after his girlfriend is almost sacrificed to Satan. Why? The end is also really cheesy (but I won't say what it is, you'll have to rent this one from Netflix).

Despite my feeling this is a shadow of the original, it was still entertaining and I would have gladly welcomed a third film. There's a certain mythology about this series that I enjoyed, and I would rather sit through something like this than a film of a similar idea that just has no sense of itself. While this movie is not a comedy, clearly the crew wanted to have fun and it shows.

If you really liked the original, this is worth a view. Unlike other sequels, this has the same director and star, so the continuity is very decent (how many sequels spin off from the original intent -- "Leprechaun" comes to mind). If you thought the first one was "just alright", I'm willing to bet this will greatly disappoint you. But hey, a bad 1980s or early 1990s film is still better than the average film today, in my opinion.

Despite all the trouble it caused in the first film, Terry (Louis Tripp) opens the inter-dimensional portal for a second time so that he can wish for his alcoholic father (James Kidnie) to get his airline pilot job back. Also getting in on the wish action: teenagers Moe (Simon Reynolds),John (James Villemaire) and Liz (Pamela Segall). No prizes for guessing that things don't go according to plan.

I must have seen this sequel back in the day, but I can't recall a single thing about it, which isn't a good sign. Having just rewatched it, my suspicions have been confirmed: Gate 2 is another extremely forgettable follow-up to an '80s classic (see also Return of the Living Dead Pt. 2 and Fright Night Pt. 2).

For me, the main reason for checking out this film was more minion action, and in that respect I guess I wasn't disappointed: there's quite a lot of the diminutive demon, with some fairly nifty special effects for the time, including stop motion animation (for which I am always a sucker). The story, however, is atrocious: like the wishes made by the four teens, the film quickly turns to crap, with bad attempts at comedy and a weak plot that leads to a less than exciting finalé, topped off by an extremely dumb happy ending in which everyone who died is brought back to life (including the hamster) and uber-nerd Terry gets the girl (as if).

4/10, just for the impressive effects.