Gargoyles

source: Gargoyles

Gargoyles

Too many people think Bernie Casey provided his own voice here. He did not ! Vic Perrin of 'Outer Limits' fame provides the voice of the head Gargoyle.Grayson Hall gets far too much attention from posters on here. She is only in around four scattered minutes of the film. I know nothing of Cornel Wilde being a heavy drinker but his performance is absolutely adequate all the same. Jenifer Salt is sexy and the true standout of this film. BTW the gargoyles are not sympathetic characters, they are inhuman monsters who were all bent on destruction of almost all good humanity. Stop pitying their fate in this movie.

This is one of my favorite Saturday afternoon Monster Movie Matinee (a Syracuse, NY show when I was a kid) staples. It would creep us out when the head gargoyle would flap his wings as he made an escape. There are so many glaring cinematic blunders, but MY favorite is when Cornel Wilde and his daughter are traveling through the desert (right after he first picks her up) there is a quick shot that includes the back seat area where suddenly a man's knee pops up in plain sight as the car is traversing the bumpy road! Obviously along for the ride but trying to stay out of sight. It's hysterical and I can't believe they left it in. You can't miss it.

Yes, it was Vic Perrin, the "Control Voice" from The Outer Limits, who narrated the opening of Gargoyles. With all due respect to Lee Shapiro's summary, the bat-winged leader of the scaly monsters (played by Bernie Casey) makes it quite clear to "Dr. Boley" (Cornel Wilde) that the extinction of humanity is the evil creature's ultimate goal. Although IMDb does not list it, Bernie Casey appeared, in suitably scary prosthetic makeup, as the alien interrogator in the The Outer Limits episode titled: "Nightmare." As far as I'm concerned, Gargoyles noses out The Other as the best low-budget, made-for-TV, Sci-Fi/Horror flick of all time!

For it's time, this was a very good movie. I saw it again recently, and the gargoyle attack scenes still give me chills. Now that I'm older and have taken film classes in college, and worked in theatre and TV, I know why. The music, and sound effects (squeaks, and breathing of the gargoyles) create a very eery atmosphere in the attack scenes. And, the use of slow motion, and camera blurring effects really makes the hair on your neck stand up. There is very little actual violence in the movie, save for a bloody truck seat, and poor Mrs. Parks (Grayson Hall, was a fan since her Dark Shadows days) hanging upside down from the telephone pole. But, the idea of the violence going on off camera lets your imagination fly. I loved the use of a compressor on Bernie Casey's voice. Great work all around, and a great movie that stands the test of time. I give it a 9 out of 10.

This is definitely the best made for TV movie I have seen.The story makes sense and it's not boring. That's really all it takes to be good in the world of television movies. There's only a couple things that don't make sense. Two gargoyles break into a motel room without making a sound or breaking anything and then the professor chases them. Seems a bit far fetched but whatever. Then the lead gargoyle has taught himself to speak English, a little bit lamer. But the thing that really gets me is that all the gargoyles are very different. Some have horns, some have hair, it's a bit silly. I'm sure they did it because they didn't have the ability to make them all exactly the same so they tried to make it a non-issue by making them all very different. But those are just minor flaws in an otherwise good movie. And I must say that I really joined how the gargoyles gently caress their eggs to make them hatch, comedy gold. This is the best movie I've seen in weeks, watch it.

OK... In this day and age of CG graphics and $100M budgets, some would say this movie wouldn't stack up. Of course most of us who have seen it love it for its nostaglic value and some very genuine scares. It always seemed to come on really late at night (was that on purpose?) and I remember at least once watching it when I was about 10 years old at our neighbors lake house when I was the only one awake and there was a nice storm going on outside. All I can say is that I jumped a number of times that night and although I've seen plenty of horror films since, I'd probably still jump during this one today. Hopefully I'll get to see it again, if not just to hear the lead gargoyle say "Diana" in that metallic, evil-sounding voice.