Console
best movie i've ever seen.
ShangLuda
Admirable film.
Kaelan Mccaffrey
Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.
Brian T. Whitlock (GOWBTW)
Dealing with your demons can be a difficult thing to do. When you battle with them, you can overcome what life throws at you. But you are dealing with "Gargoyles". Normally you would see them as statues on buildings. Interesting to see, but you can actually see them in action. A father and daughter travel with a statue from Mexico to add to his collection. But strange encounters come along the way, when he meets a man who collect different artifacts. One of them was a skeleton of an unusual creature skeleton. Met with skepticism by the father, they have a conversation. That night, both the father and daughter meet a horrible fate when they are attacked and the owner of the tourist trap is killed. A strange creature attacked them while they are driving. The creature is a Gargoyle. They are considered the fallen angels from Heaven. They will attack mankind for as long as they can. But mankind can take action, and keep these horrible creatures at bay. This movie is a small start on horror films. The special effects were not bad. An interesting sight on how these creatures can look so convincing. The quality of the movie was fine. Consider it a cult classic. 2 out of 5 stars.
AaronCapenBanner
B.W.L. Norton directed this fondly remembered TV movie that stars Cornel Wilde as anthropologist/author Dr. Boley, who, along with his daughter Diana(played by Jennifer Salt) are in the Arizona desert where they meet up with a storekeeper named Uncle Willie, who tries to make a deal about an unusual skeleton he has found in a canyon, but his tale is cut short by the arrival of real Gargoyles, who must retrieve the bodies of their dead, and are also planning to take over the world, since more of them will be hatching in their caves... Effective film takes a bold approach in showing so much of the Gargoyles, not always successfully, but good script and direction make the difference.
Wuchak
Released to TV in 1972, "Gargoyles" is just simply grand entertainment of the highest order. Yes, it's a Grade B cartoony TV flick, the precursor to notorious modern SyFy flicks, but imagination and legend are about good versus evil and the power of selfless courage against impossible odds. In other words, there's nothing more heroic, suspenseful and spooky than man against monster, and "Gargoyles" delivers the goods.THE PLOT: A professor/writer and his daughter (Cornel Wilde & Jennifer Salt) come across a bunch of recently re-birthed gargoyles in the desert and mayhem ensues.Highlights include: An excellent and mysterious beginning (the first 20 minutes or so where some desert rat shows the professor and his daughter a gargoyle skeleton in some dark shack out in the middle of nowhere; night comes down and then the gargoyles attack), nice spooky atmosphere, haunting soundtrack, excellent gargoyle costumes for that era (and considering it was a TV movie), good cast, dirt bikers (led by a young Scott Glenn), chases, hellish cave sets, cool gargoyle voices, grisly gargoyle murders, etc. Hey, there's a reason for all these high ratings. The majority of the reviewers probably saw it when they were kids and were totally spooked-out.Bottom Line: "Gargoyles" is proof that you don't need a big budget to make a great, engrossing, creepy, adventurous flick.The film doesn't overstay its welcome at 74 minutes and was shot in Carlsbad, NM, and Laredo, TX.GRADE: A
Scarecrow-88
A professor, known for literature on demonology, and his daughter, encounter ancient demonic creatures known as gargoyles while traveling in the desert—to visit an old timer known as Old Willie who claims to have a special skeleton worthy of his attention—that have been in an incubation stage for centuries, now hatched and building an army with the ultimate goal of wiping out mankind and assuming control of the planet! Not bad television horror has a cult following, mainly by those who watched it as kids in the 70s. Cornell Wilde (High Sierra) is the professor who realizes that if the gargoyles are allowed to leave the cave as a large group that man will probably be rendered extinct. Not only does that motivate him though: the lead demon gargoyle (played by Bernie Casey!) has kidnapped Wilde's daughter, Jennifer Salt (Brian DePalma's "Sisters"), holding her prisoner in the cave, perhaps desiring her sexually (it seems more and more evident that his interest in her goes beyond just holding her captive as bait). Scott Glenn even has a part in this early part of his career as a stone-faced dirt biker wrongfully accused, along with other friends just found in the wrong place at the wrong time by Chief William Stevens and Deputy John Gruber. Woody Chambliss (looking rather gruff and in need of a shower) is Uncle Willie whose skeletal remains of a gargoyle piques Wilde's interest has a little supporting part that gets the ball rolling. Even under quite a costume, with protruding teeth and eye contacts, Casey is successful in parlaying a menace that should be taken seriously and when he warns Wilde of what is to come, you know his lead demon gargoyle means business. If I were to criticize this movie, it would be the mistake of shooting the gargoyles during the day when the costumes are more obvious and less authentic-looking. And, during this film, the gargoyles are seen visibly more during the day than at night, especially in the cave where the last half is primarily set. Still, Casey's costume, make-up, and face are quite impressive, and the addition of those wings looks pretty gnarly. When the gargoyles destroy windows, doors, and Wilde's station wagon, I think these moments are when the movie really hums. You really understand here the kind of damage in store for the Earth if the creatures are able to breed into an army. The plot is fairly simple and straight-forward. It becomes Wilde, Stevens, Glenn, and the bikers against the gargoyles, led by Casey's chief gargoyle. Rather violent for a 70s television film, Wilde and company shoot several of the gargoyles at close range during desert fights. The sight of Grayson Hall (Dark Shadows; she steals her scenes as a hotel owner always carrying a glass with booze) hanging upside down from an electrical pole and the truck driving in circles (it once housed Hall and driver/gas station attendant/mechanic Jim Connell) without occupants are also memorable moments in this television movie. "Gargoyles" has a nice reputation and while it doesn't quite live up to the expectations I had, I still enjoyed it, particularly as a creature feature. I think the costumes, which are reminiscent to me of the work of Milicent Patrick (creature designer of "Creature from the Black Lagoon"), have "personality" and are provided with expressively designed faces and scaly bodies (some even have wings and beaks). I do recommend this to fans of rubber suited monster movies. A bit of trivia: Stan Winston was one of the make-up designers. Good use of New Mexico locations. For a film shot in a manner of days in sweltering heat, "Gargoyles" benefits from this, I think, and the score has that unnerving quality that fits the overall tone of potential global terror if Wilde and others don't stop the monsters.
