Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Senteur As somebody who had not heard any of this before, it became a curious phenomenon to sit and watch a film and slowly have the realities begin to click into place.

Deanna There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Robert J. Maxwell I rather enjoyed this mediocre horror film. It succeeds at doing what it sets out to do -- ratchet up the suspense and provide the viewer with reckless and unthinking entertainment. And on top of that, there is some wonderful New Mexico location shooting, which can't be dismissed out of hand. You have never seen such vast expanses of rugged buttes, sandstone canyons, and pink dunes, all carefully accessorized by the occasional pale green of a shrub."King Kong," which set the rules for this genre, featured a gorilla doll that was about two feet tall and contained an armature, which is a brass skeleton of sorts with flexible joints, around which the flesh and hair are modeled.Narratives in the genre have a kind of metaphorical armature that follows the structure of "King Kong" the movie. At first, everything is innocent and peaceful. Complications are present, yes, but they haven't erupted. But then there are intimations that something is up. The natives kidnap Fay Wray, but for what purpose? A sea gull thumps against a closed door or strikes a pretty blond out of the blue. Cattle and horses are found dead for some mysterious reason. And what ever happened to those two miners with their mule? Suddenly the cause of the disaster is revealed -- crashing out of the forest or striking en masse from the skies or swimming sneakily into the lagoon, it doesn't matter how. Here, there is utter silence while the investigators wait for an attack -- then a cut to a close up of a vampire bat's hideous face zooming into the camera with a piercing shriek. Well, it may be homocentric to describe a bat's face as ugly. After all, they probably find us unattractive too, and they must find each other appealing enough to mate with. I call it bad taste but a vampire bat wouldn't.The hero is a lawman (Mancuso) representing the tribal council of the fictitious Maski tribe, although the real power brokers seem to be the dozen or so priests who run the reservation. The succulent Kathryn Harrold is his girl friend, a nurse. She was my supporting player in that bright star in the cinematic sky, the sublime and poetically executed "Raw Deal." David Warner plays roughly the same role he did in "The Omen," the researcher who does the leg work and tells the hero what's up. Stephen Macht is the leader of the equally fictional neighboring Pohana tribe, the dilatory unbeliever who wants to sell out the reservation for money. I always enjoy Stephen Macht. Mancuso, the nominal hero, is handsome in the way a TV star is handsome, but Macht's features have character. He could never be mistaken for anybody else. Plus he has a doctorate in dramatic arts and gave up a tenured position to become an actor, which is a pretty dicey thing to do.The script has its weaknesses, even given any low expectations we might have regarding the movie. Macht's politician claims at one point that half the time the priests go around stoned on Datura williamsii or Jimson weed. They wouldn't do that. Datura isn't a mellow high. It was used in some Southwestern ordeals and initiation rites. It induces often frightening and chaotic hallucinations. It's unclear why Mancuso seems to run around chewing on it and having long conversations with a ghost. One of those conversations interrupts his attempt to save the lives of himself, Harrold, and Warner, just as the plague-ridden vampire bats are about to attack him. He stops his rescue attempts and begins a foggy theological argument with a ghost while the bats whirl around his head. El momento de la verdad -- and he's telling a phantom where to get off.The visual effects are adequate, no more than that. Arthur Hiller, the director, might profitably have watched some of Val Lewton's psychological horror movies to learn how to scare the wits out of people while keeping the monster's appearances to a minimum. Still, there is all that majestic scenery, including Kathryn Harrold.

inspectors71 For the lovers of the truly idiotic, there's 1979's Nightwing, a thoroughly ridiculous pile of guano pretending to be a serious story about Native American mysticism and the dangers of great, winged hordes of needle-toothed rodentia.What makes Nightwing so embarrassing is that it's so very watchable. You can get your fill of angelic Indians, stupid (and soon-to-be-dead) Christian missionaries, and maybe the single worst performance in Kathryn Herrold's career (boy, she turned out to be a big star, didn't she?).It's a hoot (or a high-pitched sonar squeal) and I can't think of a better movie to recommend for your weekend living room movie festival, capping off the great cheapjack monster flicks of the 1970's (you'd better have Prophesy, Manitou, and Motel Hell along for the ride!).

charlenelv I liked this movie so much that it prompted me to take a trip to New Mexico and to eventually move there!! Unfortunately, due to medical problems, I was forced to come back to Kansas, but I will never regret moving to the Southwest.Okay, so Nick Mancuso, who played Duran, sounded like he was from the Bronx occasionally and the tribes were renamed, but I purchased the VHS tape many years ago and check out every DVD web site hoping to find it there. It is probably the only reason I still have a VCR.++++++The book was written by Martin Cruz Smith, an accomplished author, it was directed by Arthur Hiller, and the musical score done by Henry Mancini. Just how bad could it be?? If it is a horror movie you are looking for, this is not going to satisfy you. But a movie about the hardships and superstitions that still persist on the Navajo and Hopi reservations is as relevant as it was when Nightwing was made back in the 70s. I think that if the movie had not been billed as a "horror" flick, it would have gained much more of a following. I find it quite amusing that although it has never been made as a DVD, it is still found almost every other month on one of the pay movie channels. So I guess I'm not the only one who thinks that Nightwing is worth watching!

zmaturin "Nightwing" is two movies crammed together into one. Or story begins at an Indian Reservation where two factions are butting heads over the future of the tribe. One set of characters wants to preserve the ancient rituals and religion of the community, while others want to build new schools and hospitals to bring the tribe up to date with the rest of the country (One thing all the characters have in common, though, is their terrible haircuts). The controversy is centered over a mine where oil has been discovered- should they allow the oil to be tapped to provide precious funds to the struggling Native Americans, or should it lay undisturbed, as it holds some sort of relevance to the Indian priests in the area?All this seems to be fodder for a satisfying drama, but suddenly Englishman David Warner shows up and warns everybody of a vampire bat invasion (Although Warner is a stranger to the vicinity, he can relate to it's people because he too has a terrible haircut. Warner would go on to sport even worse hair in "Quest of the Delta Knights"). So now we've got a standard nature-gone-wild thriller in the middle of our technology-vs.-tradition drama. The two stories are tied together thusly: Apparently an old Indian mystic named Uncle Abner has summoned the bats to stop the oil drilling. Actually, he claims his plan is to kill everyone in the world, but he might a little overzealous. What do you expect of a mystic named Uncle Abner?Anyway, the bats go around infecting people with Bubonic Plague, and we're treated to some hilarious bat attack scenes. One stand-out sequence has the bats attacking some goofy campers. One nerdy guy panics and locks himself in his van. Another panicky nerd climbs under the van for safety just as nerd # 1 starts to drive away- splat! David Warner eventually locates the bats in scenes that were later copied frame-for-frame by the Lou Diamond Phillips' stinker "Bats". It turns out that their hideout is in the same cave where the oil is- D'oh! David's plan is to kill them with cyanide gas, but he fumbles around, drops it in the oil, and ends up hanging from a rope for a couple of hours, so the beefy sheriff with the worst hair cut of all saves the day by lighting the oil on fire. This kills the bats and also somehow renders the oil source unusable for the developers, which begs the question: Why didn't Uncle Abner just light it on fire himself instead of going through the trouble of summoning killer bats?The movie ends with the mountain looking like an L. Ron Hubbard book cover and the initial conflict isn't really resolved, so I envision a sequel in which the ambitious Native American's build a casino which is invaded by vampire prairie dogs.