Sweet teenage girl Michelle (an appealing portrayal by Mary Mouser) suspects that her sullen and rebellious older brother Stephen (a solid performance by Randy Shelly) might be possessed. It turns out that Michelle's family shares a sinister connection with the Catholic church that's come back to haunt them.

Director Don E. FauntLeRoy relates the intricate and absorbing story at a steady pace, ably crafts an extremely tense, creepy, and unsettling atmosphere, maintains a daring dark tone throughout, and stages the exciting big exorcism set piece with skill and flair. Moreover, Stephen's angst and anger over being an outcast at school are well captures. The sound acting from the sturdy cast helps a lot: Tobin Bell as the devout Monsignor Canell, John Savage as cheery grandfather Joseph, Adrienne Barbeau as troubled grandmother Rosemary, Alexandra Davies as worried mother Emily, Lesley-Anne Down as the uptight Sister Clare, and Brandon Beemer as the disturbed Father Dumal. Well worth a watch.

Stephen Tade (Randy Shelly) is your typical teenager which means he acts possessed. His mom (Alexandra Davies) has remarried but is in love with Smirnoff silver. Alexa (Alisha Boe) is his hot step-sister which doesn't create any problems for him. Along with his sister Michelle (Mary Mouser) they all attend Catholic school. Stephen has numerous issues and the family and church have secrets.

This is said to be inspired by true events: Tobin Bell, John Savage, and Adrienne Barbeau all have fading careers. I liked the special effects at the end more than the silly ending.

Guide: F-word (not many). No sex or nudity.

I must admit that I picked up the 2019 horror mystery "Gates of Darkness" as I saw the cover. And when I saw that both Tobin Bell and John Savage was on the cast list, of course I sat down to watch director Don E. FauntLeRoy's 2019 movie.

And while I did manage to sit through the entire movie, then writers Robert Hickman, Lesley-Anne Down, Chris Kanik and Randolf Turrow just didn't collectively manage to write an overly interesting or compelling storyline. Sure, it was watchable, but this movie was hardly an outstanding foray into the demonic possession and exorcism subgenre of horror movies.

It felt like the writers were trying to accomplish more than they were capable of delivering, and it definitely felt like they tried to cram everything that worked in previous demonic possession and exorcism movies into one movie, and that would be "Gates of Darkness". Yeah, well the movie just didn't really play out that way.

In fact, the storyline in the movie felt forced, wooden and as it was lacking a natural fluidity to it. It felt staged and awkward actually. And this reflected poorly on the actors and actresses, as they were struggling with an inferior script and storyline. And the fact that the character gallery in the movie was pretty weak didn't exactly boost their chances of delivering something grand either.

Now, it should be said that "Gates of Darkness" actually have a rather good ensemble of actors and actresses on the cast list, which includes the likes of Tobin Bell, John Savage, Adrienne Barbeau, Lesley-Anne Down and Mary Mouser. Just a shame that they had so very little to work with in terms of script, story and characters.

Visually then "Gates of Darkness" had nothing grand to offer. There weren't exactly an abundance of special effects or CGI effects in the movie. And whatever were there served their purpose well enough, but don't expect to be blown away by a grand display.

Ultimately then "Gates of Darkness" is not an impressive foray into the horror mystery genre, and this is the type of movie that you will watch once, and never again, only to completely forget about the movie existing. My rating of "Gates of Darkness" lands on a three out of ten stars.