The Gates

Read the screenplay (PDF) — Screenplay by Rachel Alexandria Arnold, July 8, 2012.

A team of paranormal investigators visits an old cemetery looking for answers to a local ghost story. They get more than they bargained for.

On the night of an investigation, paranormal team leaders Zoey and Willow wait for the rest of their group. Their old friend Logan Mercer, who used to be the team's tech guy, has just moved back from Phoenix, and the three of them are glad to be back together. Jace and Holly show up late. Holly's car would not start, so Jace had to pick her up. Zoey introduces Logan to them.

Holly gives the location history. The Iron Gate Cemetery is said to date to the mid-1800s. Many graves are unmarked, and most of the marked ones belong to a local family named the Gilsons. The story goes that Joseph Gilson went mad with grief because he and his wife had so many stillborn children, and that he haunts the cemetery. People report electromagnetic readings, voices on recordings, apparitions, sudden temperature drops and even violence and scratches. The violence all happens in the southwest section, which locals call Cold Corner. Zoey hands out equipment and flashlights and lays down the rules. They will enter through the gates, work from right to left and save Cold Corner for last. Anyone who sees something should report it, and anyone too scared will be walked out. Everyone should talk at a normal volume, because a whisper is hard to tell apart from a real voice on the recorder.

Inside, they find the small graves marked Baby Gilson. Zoey explains that in those days stillborn babies were not given names, and Holly says poor Elizabeth must have been heartbroken. Jace makes fun of it all, calls Holly "the brain" and says that if Joseph were really there he would have shown himself by now. Then something moves in the trees. Willow does not get it on camera. Jace insists it was a deer, so Zoey dares him to take the camera over the wall and prove it. Willow says he has not finished his training and goes with him.

Past the wall, Jace clowns around while Willow scolds him for not taking the work seriously. Then Jace is gone, and Willow is alone calling his name. Back with the group, one of the investigators picks up a strange reading that keeps changing. Jace wanders back by himself and says Willow could not keep up, so he left her. Logan tears into him. A noise sends Holly into a panic and she begs to leave. Jace is told to walk Holly to the car, lock the doors and stay put. Logan asks Zoey to wait outside while he goes in after Willow. Zoey agrees but says she will come in after him if he takes too long.

Willow comes walking toward the car, twitching and strange. She tells Jace and Holly that the others need help. They follow her back into the cemetery, but she keeps getting ahead of them and disappears. Holly then finds Jace dying and begs him to stay with her. Screams ring out.

Zoey finds Willow alone. Willow says they are all dead and she could not help them. Zoey gets her into the car to drive to the police station down the road. On the way Willow keeps saying they should have saved them, and then she cries for her poor babies. When Zoey calls her Will, she says her name is not Willow. She is Elizabeth Gilson, the grieving mother. The spirit in the cemetery was never Joseph. Willow, now possessed, turns on Zoey in the car. In the making-of, Rachel Alexandria Arnold says that is how Zoey dies.

Release & Reception

• Runtime: 15:25 (original 2012 release); 12:11 (2020 re-release)
• Studio: JDuDs Productions (per IMDb) for StabMovies.com
• Distributor: YouTube (worldwide, 2012), on the StabMovies.com channel

Released free on YouTube on October 31, 2012 as The Gates | Short Film | Full Movie, part of the Trifecta of Terror with Stabbed and Bloodlines. IMDb lists the release date as October 31, 2012 in the United States and the distributor as YouTube worldwide.

The re-release, The Gates (2012) | Short Film, Re-Release, went up on April 25, 2020.

When checked in September 2026, the original upload had about 3,800 views, the re-release about 640 and the making-of about 290. IMDb has no user reviews for it.

In the making-of, cast members say they loved how it came out. Jeff Davis ends his interview with "well done Rachel."

Cast

Crew

Production

The Gates was the first full script Rachel Alexandria Arnold ever wrote. She had written flashback scenes and contributed to Joshua Patrick Dudley's scripts before, but never a whole short. Paranormal and supernatural horror is her favorite kind, especially possession and ghost movies. Dudley suggested she write her own short. She said the idea scared her, but it was a chance to find her own writing voice.

She based the story on her own life. In the late 2000s she ran a paranormal research team, and she trained that team at this same small cemetery in Nashua, New Hampshire, where they had permission to be. She built the plot around a group of friends who have not seen each other in a while getting together for one more investigation. She said she hoped viewers would feel something was off without being able to say what.

The ghost story comes from New Hampshire folklore about the Gilson Road Cemetery. Arnold said the story of a woman who lost several very young children lines up with the real cemetery, which has three little Gilson headstones. That is how very young children's deaths were marked in that period.

Dudley read the script and gave notes on what worked, what did not and what could be scarier. He said 97 percent of the work was Arnold's. He is credited as director but called himself a glorified cameraman and said the directing credit should really go to her. Stephanie Maheu described the set as collaborative, with Arnold having more say on the look while staying open to Dudley's input. Arnold said it felt like he was inside her head, and that he gives himself too little credit.

Arnold picked what she called her dream cast from actors they had worked with on the Stab movies. She sent out the offers worried people might turn her down, and everyone said yes. Because she was on camera as Zoey, she could not direct from behind the camera. She had to learn to describe the movie in her head so Dudley could shoot it. She coached Stephanie Maheu on when Willow should scream, how she should twitch and how to make herself creepy. She said Maheu, who likes dark and twisted roles, was already most of the way there.

Jeff Davis said The Gates was shot in one night with no budget and not much equipment beyond Dudley's handheld camera. The team filmed inside the real Gilson Cemetery. Real ghost hunters with equipment showed up while they were there, and the two groups worked around each other. Stephanie Maheu remembers moving across the road to film the rest, where house noise, passing cars and the dark made it hard to get good sound and light. Davis remembers the set being right by a neighborhood of expensive houses and worrying someone would call the police.

Shana Roystan had the longest monologue in the film, Holly's history of the cemetery. She said it took a lot of takes and was probably spliced together from the best parts. The final car scene took a while to film and the cast joked around between takes. Davis tried to come up with a real sound for his head hitting a tree, and he said everything he tried sounded like a 90s video game.

It was released on October 31, 2012 as part of the Trifecta of Terror with Stabbed and Bloodlines. Dudley later added new effects and edits, and the re-release went up on April 25, 2020. In the 2020 making-of, Arnold said she had not written a whole script since.

Music

The film's credits and official releases do not name a composer or a separately released soundtrack.

Filming locations

• Gilson Road Cemetery, Nashua, New Hampshire: The cemetery scenes. In the story it is called the Iron Gate Cemetery.
• A residential street across the road from the cemetery: The rest of the film, including outside scenes near the cars

Effects and makeup

The original was shot at night with very little lighting. Jeff Davis said the darkness helped the finished film, because there was a lot you could not see.

Much of the horror comes from Stephanie Maheu's performance. Arnold directed her twitching, her screams and her walk toward the car.

For the 2020 re-release, Dudley added updated effects and new edits.

Props and costumes

Paranormal investigation equipment, flashlights, audio recorders for capturing voices and the video camera Willow carries.

The final driving scene takes place in Rachel Alexandria Arnold's own car. Jeff Davis says he asked to drive her Smart car that night, and she said yes.

The killers

Deaths

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