The Gates (2012)
A team of paranormal investigators visit a cemetery in search of answers to an old ghost story and get more than they bargained for.
Explore The Gates
StabMovies.com started in 2010 as a place to watch fan-made Stab films, the movies inside the Scream movies. Joshua Patrick Dudley makes the films in Manchester, New Hampshire, with executive producer Rachel Alexandria Arnold and what the site calls a large group of his friends. The channel went up on YouTube on June 24, 2010. Its first films were all Stab: Stab 4: Fresh Blood, Stab 5 and Stab 6: Ghostface Returns, which went up in September 2012.
The original short films began in October 2012 with the Trifecta of Terror, three Halloween shorts made to thank fans for passing 5 million YouTube views. Stabbed went up on October 15, 2012. The Gates and Bloodlines followed on October 31, 2012. Stabbed was a Scream tribute about a prank that goes wrong. The Gates was a ghost story written by Rachel Alexandria Arnold and based on a New Hampshire urban legend. Bloodlines was a Buffy the Vampire Slayer tribute, and it was the first short Arnold directed. The three were shot on a Veho Kuzo camera and cut in Final Cut Pro X, the same setup used for Stab 6.
In late 2014 the team planned something much bigger. On December 22, 2014 the site told readers that StabMovies.com would put out 12 short films in 2015, one a month. The press release for 12 Months of Terror went out on January 13, 2015. Dudley said he and Arnold wanted to try other kinds of horror and give viewers more original content, plus a few tribute films. Most of the shorts would be tied to that month's biggest holiday, because the site believed you should have a horror movie for every holiday. The Thursday the 12th teaser trailer tied the plan to the site's 5 year anniversary.
12 Months of Terror got five films in. New Year's Resolution premiered at midnight on New Year's Eve 2014. True Love, a witch story, had already been posted on November 18, 2014, so the February slot got a black and white version on February 13, 2015. Thursday the 12th, a Friday the 13th tribute shot at an abandoned zoo in Griffith Park in Hollywood, came out in March. Stabbed 2 came out on April 1, 2015. Cinco came out in early May 2015. Father's Day for June and a Fourth of July tribute to I Know What You Did Last Summer were announced and never made. The site now says the series ended with Cinco in May.
A third Stabbed short was supposed to follow. Wes Craven had agreed over Twitter to appear in it, David Arquette was lined up, Eric Yoder drew storyboards, and the shoot was booked for YouTube Space L.A. in the fall of 2015. Craven died on August 30, 2015, about two weeks before filming, and Stabbed 3 was dropped. Its script survives in the StabMovies.com Short Film Collection.
On August 2, 2016 the site relaunched as StabMovies.com 6.0 and said it would soon offer all original horror content along with the Stab movies. Two weeks later, on August 16, 2016, it announced its first original full-length film, Wifey. On February 17, 2017 Wifey became Theta, with the hashtags Symbol of Death and Friends Who Slay Together Stay Together. On August 3, 2017 the site unveiled a new logo because it was moving on from Ghost Face to all original content.
Other people started bringing films to the site too. On December 16, 2016 StabMovies.com announced a team-up with Deadly Sin Productions and a teaser for Lake House Whisper, written by Mark Haggett. It premiered on YouTube on March 29, 2018, a day ahead of the announced March 30 date. It was the first StabMovies.com film not written or directed by Joshua Patrick Dudley. It runs about 54 minutes and was billed as both a short and a feature at different times. Santa's Naughty List, another Haggett film first made for Deadly Sin Productions, went up on January 20, 2022.
Theta started filming on September 1, 2017. It had the biggest cast and crew the site ever put together, with 35 credited roles. On December 31, 2017 the site said it had lost actors and locations and was pausing for the winter. Filming was set to pick back up in June 2018. On June 29, 2018 the site shut Theta down for good. Almost 30 actors had quit, and actors who didn't show up had already cost the team over $5,000. Swipe Left came out of Theta's trouble. It was made up on the spot when most of the cast skipped a shoot on the day set aside for the Theta sorority house scenes, and it came out on October 19, 2018. Game Night came out of a similar day on a Stab 7 shoot and was posted on March 5, 2017.
The team kept its promise to release what it had shot. Eighteen rough cut scenes from Theta went up as a YouTube playlist on October 10, 2018. The final rough cut, about 85 minutes, went up on April 10, 2019. A Theta script book came out through Lulu at the start of 2019. A script book called the StabMovies.com Short Film Collection came out on December 13, 2018 and included shorts that had never been released. In January 2019 the scripts reached Amazon, Barnes and Noble and Books-a-Million. Updated editions of both books came out in November 2019. The new Short Film Collection held 12 scripts: Stabbed, Stabbed 2, Stabbed 3, Bloodlines, The Gates, New Year's Resolution, True Love, Thursday the 12th, Cinco, Father's Day, one listed only as a question mark, and Christmas Wish.
Christmas Wish was one of those unreleased scripts, first meant for 12 Months of Terror. The site said on November 13, 2019 that it hoped to finally film it that year, and it was released on November 23, 2019. The other actors had scheduling conflicts, so Dudley played all three parts: the twins Patrick and Alex and the Genie.
Commentary versions of Stabbed, Stabbed 2 and Bloodlines went up on April 3, 2019. Commentary versions of New Year's Resolution, True Love, Thursday the 12th, Christmas Wish, Game Night and Swipe Left followed on March 29, 2020. Cinco had been blocked on YouTube over copyrighted music, so it was re-released on April 11, 2020 with Joshua's own song Yummies and new edits. The Gates got a re-release with new edits and effects on April 25, 2020. Swipe Left bloopers followed in May.
On June 24, 2020, the channel's 10th anniversary, StabMovies.com premiered Behind the Mask, which the site called a 9 hour documentary covering every production. Parts 6 through 18 cover the originals: Theta, Lake House Whisper, Stabbed, The Gates, Bloodlines, New Year's Resolution, True Love, Thursday the 12th, Stabbed 2, Cinco, Game Night, Swipe Left and Christmas Wish. Uncut interviews went up alongside, including Dudley and Arnold on the short films and on Theta. Months earlier the site had complained that many actors refused to be interviewed. A run of Top 10 list videos that same June included Top 10 Movies and Shorts and Top 10 Quitters.
Joshua and Rachel also acted outside the site. On August 29, 2018 StabMovies.com said the two would start filming their first major motion picture, Honeydew, the next week. Honeydew was written and directed by Devereux Milburn, and the site announced its Tribeca screening on March 6, 2020. IMDb lists Honeydew as a 2020 feature, with Joshua as Thin Young Man and Rachel as Funeral Singer.
From 2020 on, most of the site's energy went back into the rebooted Stab series: Stab in 2020, Stab 2 in 2022, Stab 3: Holiday Horror in 2023 and Stab 4: Knife of Doom in 2024. New originals slowed down. Santa's Naughty List was the only new original short between 2020 and 2025.
In 2026 the originals picked up again. On June 17, 2026 StabMovies.com announced a partnership with the stage show Paranormal Activity: A New Story Live on Stage, promising free ticket giveaways, live opening night coverage, interviews and behind the scenes content. Paranormal Activity: The Visitor, a 2 minute 51 second piece written and directed by Dudley with Emilee Powell, Cullen Teague, Dylan Teague and Gracie Mandravelis, went up on June 25, 2026. On July 15, 2026 the team sat front row at the show's opening night at the Emerson Colonial Theatre in Boston, before it heads to Broadway.
As of September 2026 the Original Movies and Short Films page lists 14 entries: 13 released films from The Gates (2012) to Paranormal Activity: The Visitor (2026), plus I Know. I Know is set in the I Know What You Did Last Summer universe, in Southport, New Hampshire, where parents use the legend of the Fisherman to keep kids off the docks. The page labels it Coming... Eventually! The Stabbed shorts sit in the site's Stab database instead. The site says it has had 25,164,437 YouTube views and that every film is free to watch. It was rebuilt and relaunched on August 13, 2026.
Lore and rules
The originals are mostly standalone stories, and many are tributes: Friday the 13th in Thursday the 12th, Buffy the Vampire Slayer in Bloodlines, Scream in the Stabbed shorts, and I Know What You Did Last Summer in I Know. The Visitor was made for the Paranormal Activity stage show partnership. The site's FAQ says many StabMovies.com films are connected, but no source links the standalone originals to each other.
The main idea behind the shorts is holiday horror. The site said it believes you should have a horror movie for every holiday. New Year's Resolution is for New Year's Eve, True Love for Valentine's Day, Thursday the 12th for Friday the 13th, Stabbed 2 for April Fools' Day, and Cinco for Cinco de Mayo. Father's Day and a Fourth of July short were next. Christmas Wish and Santa's Naughty List later covered Christmas.
The Stabbed shorts sit in the Stab world. Both finished ones are built on a prank that goes badly wrong, and Ghost Face is played by Joshua Patrick Dudley. The site keeps them in its Stab database. Stabbed 3 would have gone meta, with Dudley, Rachel Alexandria Arnold and Ashley Younger as themselves in Wes Craven's house, and David Arquette as the last Ghost Face.
Playing yourself is a running StabMovies.com habit. Chris Dube plays himself in Stab 5, Stab 6 and Knife of the Hunter. It happens again in Game Night, where the four filmmakers broadcast a deadly game as themselves, and in the Stabbed 3 script.
Theta's rules come from its title. Theta is a real ancient Greek symbol of death, and Jack and Karen get the name Theta killers after a few coincidental mass murders. The tagline was Friends Who Slay Together Stay Together. The site posted photos of three Theta killers in October 2017. It says the story is based on true events, minus the murders.
Cinco has its own ghost rules. There are five sugar skull ghosts, all female, each standing for a different part of the female personality. Only two appear, sensualism and violence. The early drafts had a single demon and then a single ghost.
In Swipe Left, the house makes the monsters. Every villain inside was once a Tinder date who got lured in and changed.
I Know builds its killer as a local legend first. In Southport, the Fisherman is a warning parents give. He calls kids down the dock, asks for help with a boat, or waits where the dock lights end, and once he raises the hook it is too late to run. The details change from family to family, but the look never does: the wet slicker, the wide hat hiding his face, black gloves, rubber boots and the steel hook. The film starts when someone makes the legend real.
The Gates takes its backstory from a real New Hampshire urban legend, and the cemetery on screen is said to be haunted. True Love has a written prequel and sequel that have not been filmed.
Timeline
- June 24, 2010: StabMovies.com launches on YouTube. The site later counts its anniversaries from this date.
- October 15, 2012: Stabbed, the first StabMovies.com short film, goes up on YouTube. It opens the Trifecta of Terror, made for passing 5 million YouTube views. The site's Stab database says the exact day is not on record, and IMDb gives October 31, 2012.
- October 31, 2012: The Gates and Bloodlines go up on YouTube for Halloween, finishing the Trifecta of Terror.
- March 8, 2013: The channel trailer mentions the first Trifecta of Terror, three short films for Halloween.
- June 4, 2013: The 3 Year Anniversary Special goes up. It marks 10 million views and 5,000 subscribers.
- September 14 and 15, 2013: StabMovies.com makes its first live appearance, at FantaCon 2013 in Albany, New York.
- January 24, 2014: The 2014 Channel Trailer goes up. Like the 2013 trailer, it says the channel has released Stab 4, Stab 5, Stab 6 and a first Trifecta of Terror of 3 short films for Halloween.
- July 21, 2014: First teaser for True Love, a witch-themed short, goes up.
- July 25, 2014: The Summer 2014 Update vlog covers the new Stab 7, several short films and a fan film contest.
- August 2, 2014: First teaser for Thursday the 12th goes up.
- August 3, 2014: First teaser for New Year's Resolution goes up.
- August 3, 2014: A teaser for Stabbed 2, called a sequel to Stabbed, goes up the same day as the first New Year's Resolution teaser.
- October 25, 2014: Official True Love teaser trailer goes up.
- November 18, 2014: True Love, full movie with bloopers, goes up on YouTube.
- December 18, 2014: The site announces New Year's Resolution will premiere at midnight on New Year's Eve.
- December 22, 2014: The site announces 12 short films for 2015, one per month.
- December 31, 2014: New Year's Resolution goes up on YouTube for its New Year's Eve midnight premiere. The 12 Months of Terror press release gives the release as January 1, 2015.
- January 3, 2015: New Year's Resolution bloopers and behind the scenes go up.
- January 13, 2015: 12 Months of Terror press release. It names New Year's Resolution, True Love, Thursday the 12th, Cinco, Father's Day and a Fourth of July I Know What You Did Last Summer tribute. The site also announces a black and white True Love for Valentine's Day.
- February 12, 2015: Thursday the 12th Teaser 2 goes up, crediting 3D graphics to Ruben A. Morales.
- February 13, 2015: True Love in black and white goes up for Valentine's Day.
- March 2, 2015: StabMovies.com Visits Hollywood video goes up, with Dudley, Nicole Linton and Patrick Stewart at YouTube Space LA, Madame Tussaud's and the Oscars.
- March 4, 2015: The 2015 Update Vlog covers the 5 year anniversary, 12 Months of Terror, the new Stab 7 and the trip to Hollywood.
- March 5, 2015: A Mystery Teaser Trailer goes up for the short film called ?. It was never released.
- March 11 to 13, 2015: Thursday the 12th premieres. YouTube shows the upload at 9 PM Pacific on March 11, which is midnight Eastern on March 12. The site's post announcing it is dated March 13.
- March 25, 2015: Cinco teaser trailer goes up. Its description says May 15, 2015.
- April 1, 2015: Stabbed 2 premieres as the fourth 12 Months of Terror short. YouTube shows 9 PM Pacific on March 31.
- April 11, 2015: The site announces Cinco will premiere May 5.
- May 4 or 5, 2015: Cinco premieres at midnight on YouTube. The 2020 re-release post says May 4, 2015. The April 11, 2015 post and IMDb say May 5, and the site's archive has a Watch Cinco Now post dated May 5. It is the last 12 Months of Terror film.
- May 29, 2015: Dudley and Arnold are announced for FantaCon 2015 in Albany, New York, August 29 and 30.
- June 3, 2015: Dudley and Arnold are announced for Weekend of Horrors in Bottrop, Germany, November 6 to 8, 2015.
- June 23, 2015: StabMovies.com 5 Years in 5 Minutes goes up. The site also posts a call for makeup artists, digital effects artists, 3D artists and crew.
- August 30, 2015: Wes Craven dies about two weeks before the planned Stabbed 3 shoot at YouTube Space L.A. The short is abandoned.
- August 2, 2016: StabMovies.com 6.0 launches. The site says it will soon offer all original horror content along with the Stab movies.
- August 16, 2016: The site announces its first original full-length film, Wifey.
- October 31, 2016: The channel passes 20 million YouTube views.
- December 15 and 16, 2016: Lake House Whisper teaser goes up. The site announces the Deadly Sin Productions team-up and says Lake House Whisper is written and directed by Mark Haggett.
- January 12, 2017: The site marks Thursday the 12th with a throwback post and says more Jason is coming.
- February 17, 2017: Wifey is renamed Theta.
- March 5, 2017: Game Night goes up on YouTube. The site posts it March 6.
- August 3, 2017: New StabMovies.com logo, made because the site is moving on from Ghost Face to all original content.
- August 6 to 23, 2017: Official Theta logo video, a new Theta poster, cast promo shoots and a casting call for extras.
- September 1, 2017: Theta production begins. The site calls it its first full-length movie.
- September 26, 2017: Interviews with the Theta cast are posted.
- October 1, 2017: The site says Theta is filming a lot and might come out around Christmas 2017. The same day, Stab 7 is shut down again, and the post points fans to Theta.
- October 13, 2017: Photos of the three Theta killers are posted for Friday the 13th.
- October 25, 2017: Theta Vlog 1 is posted.
- December 31, 2017: Theta goes on a winter pause after losing actors and locations.
- January 15, 2018: Unpaid job call for producers, editors, effects artists, makeup artists, crew and composers.
- January 26, 2018: Theta Vlogs 2 and 3 are posted.
- February 23, 2018: Lake House Whisper is announced for March 30, 2018, the first release with Deadly Sin Productions.
- March 2 and 3, 2018: Theta teaser trailer and two new Theta posters are posted.
- March 26, 2018: A short Lake House Whisper Premieres Friday promo goes up on YouTube.
- March 29, 2018: Lake House Whisper premieres on YouTube.
- May 22, 2018: Theta teaser Beautiful in Death goes up, using So You're Beautiful in Death by Scott Plante.
- May 29, 2018: The site says Theta filming resumes in June.
- June 24, 2018: The Theta sorority house shoot turns into the Swipe Left shoot, per the 2020 anniversary post.
- June 29, 2018: Theta is shut down for good after almost 30 actors quit and more than $5,000 is lost. Swipe Left is announced the same day.
- August 13, 2018: More than 20 individual movie Facebook pages are deleted. Updates move to the JDuDs Productions and StabMovies.com pages.
- August 29, 2018: Computer problems delay the Theta rough cut and Swipe Left. The site says Dudley and Arnold start filming Honeydew the next week.
- October 10, 2018: 18 Theta rough cut scenes go up as a playlist.
- October 19, 2018: Swipe Left premieres on YouTube.
- December 13, 2018: The StabMovies.com Short Film Collection script book comes out on Lulu, with scripts for unreleased shorts.
- January 1, 2019: Theta script book comes out on Lulu.
- January 16, 2019: Scripts for Theta and all the short films reach Amazon, Lulu, Barnes and Noble and Books-a-Million.
- April 3, 2019: Commentary versions of Stabbed, Stabbed 2 and Bloodlines go up.
- April 10, 2019: The final rough cut of Theta goes up, about 85 minutes.
- September 21, 2019: The site says three productions in a row were shut down after actors quit, and mentions a sitcom in the works called I Love Lou C.
- September 23, 2019: The channel passes 22 million YouTube views.
- October 28, 2019: The site says many actors turned down Behind the Mask interviews.
- November 2, 2019: New edition of the Short Film Collection, with 12 scripts, in paperback and eBook.
- November 10, 2019: New Theta script book and eBook. The site calls it the last script book re-release.
- November 13, 2019: The site says it plans to finally film and release Christmas Wish that year.
- November 23, 2019: Christmas Wish premieres, with Dudley playing every role.
- March 6, 2020: The site announces Honeydew is going to Tribeca and says Dudley and Arnold appear in it.
- March 29 and 30, 2020: Commentary versions of New Year's Resolution, True Love, Thursday the 12th, Christmas Wish, Game Night and Swipe Left go up.
- April 11 to 15, 2020: Cinco re-release goes up with Joshua's song Yummies replacing copyrighted music.
- April 25 and 26, 2020: The Gates re-release goes up with updated edits and new effects.
- April 28, 2020: The site points fans to the StabMovies.com fan wiki.
- May 9 and 10, 2020: Swipe Left bloopers and behind the scenes go up.
- June 15 to 23, 2020: Top 10 list videos, including Top 10 Quitters (June 17), Top 10 Locations (June 18) and Top 10 Movies and Shorts (June 20).
- June 24, 2020: 10 year anniversary. Behind the Mask premieres, with parts 6 through 18 on Theta, Lake House Whisper and the shorts, plus uncut interviews.
- January 20, 2022: Santa's Naughty List goes up on YouTube.
- June 17, 2026: StabMovies.com X Paranormal Activity goes up on YouTube, announcing a partnership with Paranormal Activity: A New Story Live on Stage for its July 15 opening night in Boston.
- June 19, 2026: Second partnership promo goes up.
- June 25, 2026: Paranormal Activity: The Visitor goes up on YouTube.
- July 15, 2026: The team attends the Paranormal Activity opening night at the Emerson Colonial Theatre in Boston, front row.
- August 13, 2026: The rebuilt StabMovies.com website launches.
- September 2026: The Original Movies and Short Films page lists 13 released films plus I Know, marked Coming... Eventually!