Review: In ‘Devil’s Gate,’ Satanic Shenanigans

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“Devil’s Gate” is unusually energetic even by the current hyper standards of the horror genre. The directorial debut of Clay Staub, who wrote the screenplay with Peter Aperlo, opens with a hot rod speeding down a chalky-looking road in the middle of nowhere, then sputtering to a halt. Out of the car hops an irritated hipster dirtbag, cussing up a storm. The only house nearby looks just like the one in the 1974 version of “The Texas Chainsaw Massacre” and suggests that its owners have received some sort of expansion loan. Wandering around the grounds after his cries for help have been ignored, he falls into a couple of booby traps that render his car troubles superfluous.

This house is in a North Dakota town called Devil’s Gate, and as the movie’s title implies, the burg’s name could be literal. Enter F.B.I. Special Agent Daria Francis (Amanda Schull, who has a strong kid-sister-of-Abbie-Cornish vibe). She is addressed as “ma’am,” “sweetie” and “hon” in less than five minutes, after she turns down a friendly deputy’s offer of a chicken fried steak because she’s vegan.

Culture clash established, the movie settles into shock-and-jolt mode, as Daria and the deputy (Shawn Ashmore) pay a visit to the creepy house’s owner, Jackson Pritchard, played by the popular “This Is Us” star Milo Ventimiglia. His character here is not ingratiating. Jackson is a suspected kidnapper who, it turns out, is sitting on a great big satanic secret. It reveals itself in the gathering of supergray C.G.I. storm clouds, and, finally, a vortex into another realm. Is it extraterrestrial? Supernatural? This is one of those horror movies that want to have it every way possible. It’s not good, but it could pass muster among midnight-movie enthusiasts or curious stoners.