The high average must be due to nostalgia. Some of the people who upvoted TG must have been no older than the two protagonists here when they first saw the movie, hence must have been scared $hitle$$ by this tame, non-scary tale of a demonic gateway.
The movie fritters away its first half on barely anything much horror-related at all, preferring to keep us occupied listening to inconsequential dialog between the various kids.
Most of these kids' reactions make little sense. The teens all experience Dorff's levitation, yet nobody aside from him is impressed at all. Later, Dorff is SKEPTICAL about the "heavy metal band" Sacrifice and its Satanic lyrics about levitation! Duh.
No, not the Canadian band Sacrifice, who - interestingly - released their best album in the same year as this movie was made. This movie didn't have the class to feature real metal or any real bands, much less something as extreme as Sacrifice was back then. It's a kiddie horror after all. Not that I support metal music in horror movies (it almost never works), but since this is a menial little monster movie, then they might as well have. It's not as if TG oozes with atmosphere that any kind of unsuitable music could ruin.
When the demons finally start their big attack campaign, Dorff's friend seems hardly impressed and is acting blase about it, even joking. Duh. The fact that he was the only one who believed in all this supernatural stuff does NOT mean that he'd be calm about it when it starts happening. He is after all just a kid. An adult would react with fear, let alone a kid.
The way he falls into the hole is pretty damn stupid too. The writer needed someone to fall in there but couldn't think of ANY better way for him to fall than out of clumsiness. So dumb. There are a 100 ways you can make a character fall into a demonic pit, especially a dumb kid. Banana peels and the like aren't necessary.
When the trio initially gets rid of the pit and goes back into the house, they actually LAUGH at the two girls for hiding in a closet, as though the demons never existed. A few minutes later, the closet girls welcome some guys as a surprise, then behave as if NOTHING supernatural had ever transpired just 10 minutes earlier! Unbe-lievable.
Bizarre writing decisions, for sure, hence the asinine reactions.
Still, TG looks a lot better than most movies from the late 80s, the visually and quality-wise lousiest era of American movies, between the late 60s and early 00s. Also, the special effects are far better than what one might expect from an 80s horror film. The little demons are pretty good. The final 15 minutes are a bit of a redemption for the earlier tedium, and much better than this movie deserved.
The movie fritters away its first half on barely anything much horror-related at all, preferring to keep us occupied listening to inconsequential dialog between the various kids.
Most of these kids' reactions make little sense. The teens all experience Dorff's levitation, yet nobody aside from him is impressed at all. Later, Dorff is SKEPTICAL about the "heavy metal band" Sacrifice and its Satanic lyrics about levitation! Duh.
No, not the Canadian band Sacrifice, who - interestingly - released their best album in the same year as this movie was made. This movie didn't have the class to feature real metal or any real bands, much less something as extreme as Sacrifice was back then. It's a kiddie horror after all. Not that I support metal music in horror movies (it almost never works), but since this is a menial little monster movie, then they might as well have. It's not as if TG oozes with atmosphere that any kind of unsuitable music could ruin.
When the demons finally start their big attack campaign, Dorff's friend seems hardly impressed and is acting blase about it, even joking. Duh. The fact that he was the only one who believed in all this supernatural stuff does NOT mean that he'd be calm about it when it starts happening. He is after all just a kid. An adult would react with fear, let alone a kid.
The way he falls into the hole is pretty damn stupid too. The writer needed someone to fall in there but couldn't think of ANY better way for him to fall than out of clumsiness. So dumb. There are a 100 ways you can make a character fall into a demonic pit, especially a dumb kid. Banana peels and the like aren't necessary.
When the trio initially gets rid of the pit and goes back into the house, they actually LAUGH at the two girls for hiding in a closet, as though the demons never existed. A few minutes later, the closet girls welcome some guys as a surprise, then behave as if NOTHING supernatural had ever transpired just 10 minutes earlier! Unbe-lievable.
Bizarre writing decisions, for sure, hence the asinine reactions.
Still, TG looks a lot better than most movies from the late 80s, the visually and quality-wise lousiest era of American movies, between the late 60s and early 00s. Also, the special effects are far better than what one might expect from an 80s horror film. The little demons are pretty good. The final 15 minutes are a bit of a redemption for the earlier tedium, and much better than this movie deserved.