An original Creature Feature of the seventies with old school practical effects and men in suits for a nostalgic watch. 

• Scare factor: ★★☆☆☆
• Gore factor: ★☆☆☆☆
• Originality factor: ★★★★★
• Creature factor: ★★★★★
• Entertainment factor: ★★★★★

Gargoyles is a made-for-tv-movie and a bit out of character seventies horror movie. While most horror movies from the seventies were surreal psychological horrors, Giallo’s and slashers, this is a creature feature with men in suits portraying the monsters or in this case Gargoyles. It stars Cornel Wilde, Jennifer Salt, Bernie Casey. Directed by Bill Norton and written by Stephen Karpf, Elinor Karpf.

Duration: 1h 14m 

Plot

Diana has come to see her father Dr. Mercer Boley who does research for his new book about demons and history. Diana is here to take pictures when they go visit Uncle Willie at his Desert Museum because he has something incredible to show them. He has a skeleton in his shack of an impossible monster. Boley doesn’t believe him and thinks it’s a fake. However when Willie starts to tell the tale of the desert devils, they soon find themselves under attack of unknown creatures. The shake catches fire and Willie dies, while Boley and Diana nearly escape and take the skull of the monster with them to the motel. 

Before they reach the hotel they are attacked in their car by a creature. At the motel they are attacked again and the creatures take the skull with them. When they make their escape one of the creatures is hit by a truck and dies and Boley recognizes it as a Gargoyle. 

The next day when they get back to the Desert Museum with the sheriff, a couple of dirt bikers are arrested, but Diana and Boley know they didn’t have anything to do with the attack, but they are reluctant to explain their improbable story. That night Diana is taken by the Gargoyle King and Boley has to do anything in his power to save her. 

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Short Review

It’s a very unusual movie for the seventies. Although the audio, the soft filter, the music is all typical seventies. It was either way late to the creature feature game from the fifties or ahead of its time before the monster era of the eighties. The Gargoyles are played by men in suits, and reminds a bit of The Creature from the Black Lagoon (1954). Although now it might seem fake, in comparison to what we can do now with technology, it has a very nostalgic and honest feel about it. The Gargoyles are made very well and look beautiful. Each Gargoyle looks different and you can see the suits are made with care. They are not mere monsters, but evolved beings. Still they hold up in a cave, which is also greatly made and feels like a maze. Their role seems a bit ambiguous, but the Gargoyle King reveals his real intentions at the end. 

What is also reminiscent of the fifties is the actions of the “youth” that reminded me of The Blob (1958). While Diana first wanted to help the bikers get out of jail by telling them the real story about the Gargoyles, they had no actual other reason to help with the search for Diana when she was taken by the creatures. They volunteer, despite the danger and one of them even goes into the cave and risks his own life. 

Diana and Mercer are a father and daughter who are curious, and base their knowledge on science, thorough investigations, but they can’t deny what they see. Their actions are still science based, wanting to collect the skull and later the body of the Gargoyle for scientific purposes. But that’s what gets them into trouble as well. Maybe a good thing, because if they hadn’t the ending could have been very different. It is therefore also a story about nature, human nature and Gargoyle nature, not necessarily about good or evil. 

While people die and there’s blood in a truck, the death scenes are either off screen or a bit obscured. The focus is on the Gargoyles, who they are, what they want and not on the gore or the kills. 

Gargoyles is a very surprising film with a nice and original story that knows how to entertain.