Oh look, another gated community thriller because Hollywood hasn’t beaten that dead horse enough yet 🐴💀
So apparently someone greenlit yet another movie about rich people being weird behind fancy gates, because clearly we haven’t seen that concept since, oh, every season of Desperate Housewives combined with The Stepford Wives and a dash of Get Out for “cultural relevance.” John Burr, fresh off his debut supernatural thriller Muse (which I’m sure we all remember vividly from 2018), is back to traumatize us with The Gates – a film that asks the burning question: “What if The Purge met Deliverance in a cul-de-sac?”
The plot? Three college dudes (because of course they’re dudes) take a shortcut through a gated community and witness a murder. Groundbreaking! 🙄 I mean, who among us hasn’t made the brilliant decision to cut through an exclusive neighborhood we don’t belong in at night? It’s not like that’s the first rule of “how to not die in a horror movie.”
And then – get this – they get trapped! Behind the gates! Because apparently these gates have the same security features as Jurassic Park’s velociraptor enclosure. The gates that probably cost more than your house decided these particular melanin-rich gentlemen don’t have the proper HOA clearance to exit. How delightfully coincidental!
But wait, there’s more! They’re blamed for the murder (shocking twist: Black men blamed for something they didn’t do in America 🤯), hunted by the community (because nothing says “thriller” like rich white people playing Most Dangerous Game), and fractured by their “differing belief systems.” Oh, you mean like how one thinks “let’s calmly explain ourselves” while the other is already googling “how to survive being hunted by rich sociopaths”?
And then we have James Van Der Beek, who went from Dawson’s Creek heartthrob to playing the “cunning patriarch” who’s apparently the community’s puppet master. Because if there’s one thing we needed, it was Mr. I-Wrote-A-Screenplay-At-16 menacing three young men in a gated community. The career pivot nobody asked for but Hollywood delivered anyway!
The trailer probably features: dramatic gate slamming sounds, flashlights in dark woods, someone yelling “RUN!”, and James Van Der Beek smiling menacingly while wearing a sweater vest. Classic.
Look, I’m sure this will be a thoughtful exploration of race, class, and survival – or it’ll be another generic thriller that uses its diverse cast as a selling point while delivering the same tired tropes we’ve seen a thousand times. Either way, I’ll be there opening night, because apparently I enjoy self-inflicted cinematic torture. 🍿
The Gates opens March 13, 2026, or as I like to call it, “The Day I Question All My Life Choices.” Don’t forget your HOA membership card!
