''Cemetery Gates'' is a 2006 American

horror film Horror is a film genre that seeks to elicit physical or psychological fear in its viewers. Horror films often explore dark subject matter and may deal with Transgressive art, transgressive topics or themes. Broad elements of the genre include Mo ...

directed by Roy Knyrim and starring

Reggie Bannister Reginald Horace Bannister (born September 29, 1945) is an American musician, actor, producer, writer, and activist. He is known for his role as Reggie in the ''Phantasm'' film series. Career Bannister is known for playing the gun-toting, ex- ...

Peter Stickles Peter Stickles (born October 8, 1976) is an American actor. He is best known for his role as the voyeuristic Caleb in the John Cameron Mitchell film '' Shortbus'' and as Damian, leader of a gay vampire cult, in the Here TV original series '' The ...

, and Aime Wolf. The film's plot concerns a genetically mutated

Tasmanian devil The Tasmanian devil (''Sarcophilus harrisii''; palawa kani: ''purinina'') is a carnivorous marsupial of the family Dasyuridae. It was formerly present across mainland Australia, but became extinct there around 3,500 years ago; it is now con ...

that stalks a cemetery.

Plot

After breaking into a laboratory facility in order to free the animals kept there for experiments, two environmental activists unleash a genetically mutated

from its cage. Fleeing from the facility, the creature begins hunting in a nearby cemetery, killing anyone and anything it comes across.

Cast

Production

Over ten years before ''Cemetery Gates'' was filmed, screenwriter

Brian Patrick O'Toole Brian Patrick O'Toole is an American film producer and screenwriter. O'Toole's work includes co-producing the 2002 horror film ''Dog Soldiers'' and his screenwriting debut '' Cemetery Gates''. He also wrote a monthly column for the prominent Ame ...

, received a script for the film from Pat Coburn and J. Victor Renauld. O'Toole, who was working as a

literary agent A literary agent is an agent who represents writers and their written works to publishers, theatrical producers, film producers, and film studios, and assists in sale and deal negotiation. Literary agents most often represent novelists, screenwr ...

at the time, "loved" the idea of a Tasmanian devil as an antagonist, stating: "My feeling was, 'Why hasn't anybody thought of this before—a mutant Tasmanian devil?' It's the most pissed-off, vicious creature on the planet." O'Toole noted that a close childhood friend of his, Michael Beck, died one day before O'Toole received the script, and said that, "most importantly, this was a movie Michael and I would have loved." Throughout the next decade, the script for ''Cemetery Gates'' went through a number of different drafts and storylines. The final draft of the script was written in four days over the Thanksgiving holiday in 2003. Filming took place over a period of 13 days; shooting locations included the Bronson Caves in

Los Angeles Los Angeles, often referred to by its initials L.A., is the List of municipalities in California, most populous city in the U.S. state of California, and the commercial, Financial District, Los Angeles, financial, and Culture of Los Angeles, ...

, California.

Release

Home media

On May 30, 2006, ''Cemetery Gates'' was released on

DVD The DVD (common abbreviation for digital video disc or digital versatile disc) is a digital optical disc data storage format. It was invented and developed in 1995 and first released on November 1, 1996, in Japan. The medium can store any ki ...

by Kismet Entertainment, Graveyard Filmworks, and Ventura.

References

Bibliography

External links

* * {{Rotten Tomatoes, id=m/cemetery_gates_2006, title=Cemetery Gates 2006 films 2006 horror films 2000s American films 2000s English-language films American monster movies American splatter films English-language horror films