By Samantha Ofole-Prince
Mason Gooding, Algee Smith, and Keith Powers play college students hunted by a deranged pastor in Lionsgate’s latest thriller “The Gates.”
The horror movie follows three students Derek, Kevin, and Tyon (Gooding, Smith, and Powers) on a road trip gone wrong, as the three young men take an ill-advised shortcut through a remote gated community, where they find themselves trapped behind the walls after witnessing a murder. Over the course of the night, they find themselves blamed, hunted, and fractured by their own differing belief systems, while the perpetrator—James Van Der Beek, at his most charming and terrifying—emerges as the cunning patriarch that holds the entire community under his influence.
Rated R for violence, language, some sexual references and brief drug use, “The Gates” is James Van Der Beek’s final film. The actor best known for for his role as Dawson Leery on the hit teen drama Dawson’s Creek, died of cancer on February 11.
“The Gates” releases in theaters March 13.
Photo credit: Sherwood Jones/Lionsgate