I have to bend the rules a bit in order to post this one but as Batman once told Superman when the Man of Steel questioned the Dark Knight's methods of crime fighting, "My ends justify my means." For my birthday, someone gave me a burned copy of the 1972 made-for-TV classic b-movie "Gargoyles" after hearing me go on and on about how it's one of my favorite movies of all time. In spite of my love for the flick, with a price tag of upwards of $40, I was willing to wait for the price to go down a bit before buying it. This is Dollar Store Cinema after all and "cheapness" is what it's all about (Thank you Frank Zappa). While I don't completely condone the burning of DVDs for profit, I also can't totally condemn it. After all, dollar stores are ripe with DVDs produced by shadowy companies out to make a buck whom I'm sure don't always own the copyrights to the movies they crap out onto disks. If they did, they'd probably be able to charge more than a buck for 'em. But, I digress.Anthropologist/paleontologist (Cornel Wilde) and his daughter (Jennifer Salt), while travelling through the southwestern US, stumble upon a colony of living, breathing gargoyles who in the end only want to be left alone. It seems the addle-minded Uncle Willie (Woody Chambliss), curator of a roadside "museum," unearthed the skeletal remains of a gargoyle that the gargoyle colony desperately want back. When the gargoyles attempt to retrieve the skeleton, poor Uncle Willie meets a terrible end and Wilde and Salt barely escape with their lives, taking with them the skull of the gargoyle for further study. Once they do however, they, as well as the little desert town, are besieged by a colony of gargoyles lead by Mr. Bernie "I'm Gonna Get You Sucka" Casey, whose garish makeup does little in the way of hiding his identity.
With a creepy soundtrack, lots of slow-motion scenes and some pretty cool makeup by Stan Winston, Gargoyles scared the crap out of this impressionable then five-year-old. Watching this movie as an adult, however, is a totally different experience. Cliches and weird characters abound, including Uncle Willie, a young Scott Glenn as the leader of a gang of "dirt riders" as Salt calls them and an over-sexed alcoholic motel owner masterfully played by the late Grayson Hall. If you enjoy b-movies, this one has it all!
