A lot of perfectly good film show their cards early, establish a unique premise and let the audience explore a topic at a leisurely pace, without much in terms of surprise. this film is not one of those films.

The first must-see film of the year.

It’s not bad or unwatchable but despite the amplitude of the spectacle, the end result is underwhelming.

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

While on assignment in Romania, CIA agents attempting to solve a rash of strange disappearances finds them to be the cause of an escaped, legendary gargoyle loosened upon the countryside in modern times and must try to stop the creatures' rampage.This one here proved to be a highly-enjoyable creature feature. One of the main parts about this one is the enjoyable action quotient that runs throughout her, which comes along through several rather enjoyable parts incorporated in this one. The biggest inclusion here is the traditional action elements featured within this one, as the opening abduction sequences features plenty to like here with the initial gunplay serving as the springboard for the rather fun car chase through the city that includes the requisite crashing into each other, explosions and maneuvering through tight spaces that it feels quite in line with the standards of the genre, while a later gunfight between rival gangs on a rooftop is a great piece before including the creature attacking leading to a three-way fight between the two holding off the creature which is really fun and a later sequence where it chases them down through the winding mountain road while it tries to get the special weapon in their possession. Still, as much fun as this is the creature action is where the film really shines as there's plenty of confrontations with the creature which leads to attacks like the opening village sequence where they trap the creature underground, the first attack where it's released from the tunnels, the rather chilling scenes of it rampaging across the city as the attack on the photographer in the zoo or the ferris wheel ambush in front of the traumatized child while the attack on the church high on the hillside makes for a rather enjoyable series of action-packed encounters. In addition, the finale here is quite fun with the commandos venturing into the catacombs beneath the church where it has a nursery set-up which makes for a really cheesy time as they battle the infants flying around leading to some grand firefights as they swarm over them in some really nice deaths and leading to the final confrontation with the creature out in the woods for an enjoyable enough finale. Along with the fine-looking creature and cheesy bloody kills, these here give this one a lot of rather good parts to like over the flaws. The main flaw here is the fact that the film's storyline here with the one priest involved in aiding the creatures really makes no sense and doesn't have any real motivation for helping them, due to the rather inane need for a priest to want to assist them at all. It's a pretty complex and confusing reason as for why this occurs and his response is too utterly clichéd and hackneyed apocalypse reasoning that really doesn't help make it any clearer at all. On top of that, the film's rather cheesy and goofy nature on display, as the low- budget nature of this is featured throughout here not only with the typically atrocious CGI that's quite cheap and low-rent while rarely displaying any kind of realistic semblance at all, while others include the creature's origin story and the scattershot story that goes off into all sorts of tangents without rhyme or reason which makes for a really jarring effort at times. This here is all that really holds it back.Rated R: Graphic Language and Graphic Violence.

This is a cheap and cheerful monster movie - you know that going in.And given where it's pitched, it's not too bad. It is, of course, full of the usually idiotic nonsense - cops/agents who empty a magazine into a creature and, having noted that there is no effect whatsoever, decide that the best thing to do (obviously) is empty another magazine. And another. And another. Then you've got the priest who, you just know, must be batting for the other side. Then you've got...Clichés. But you were expecting them, weren't you? The two agents, straightforward X-Files clones, are both somewhat wooden, which is a shame, because most of the rest of the cast isn't bad.The effects themselves are much better than cheap and cheerful CGI often is.This movie gets a resounding "could be much worse" and if that comes across as damning with faint praise then that's unfortunate, because the film is better than that.

Gargoyle starts late one night in 'Romania 1532' as a peasant girl (Daniela Nane) travels along in her horse & cart minding her own business when from the moonlit clouds above a living Gargoyle swoops down & attacks her, she manages to escape the Gargoyle & happens upon a castle of some description where an angry mob of local villagers & a Priest are able to put an end to the Gargoyle, or so they think... Cut to present day Bucharest where two CIA agents Ty Griffin (Michael Pare) & Jennifer Wells (Sandra Hess) are about to negotiate the safe return of the son of a rich American ambassador from his kidnappers. In pursuit of one of the kidnappers Griffin loses him on the roof of a building but finds a large pool of blood & no visible signs of what happened to him. Meanwhile Dr. Christina Durant (Kate Orsini) & her colleague Richard Barrier (Jason Rohrer) are renovating a church when the church labourer Gregor (Mihai Bisericanu) informs Richard that he has found some ancient relic, the two investigate & find a cave with lots of slimy cocoons & one very angry & very much alive Gargoyle who wastes no time in killing them both. Griffin & Wells are on the case when they are reported missing & soon realise that local legends of monstrous Gargoyles are true with a local priest named Father Soren (Fintan McKeown) planning to flood the world with them...Co-written, co-produced & directed by Jim Wynorski under his usual pseudonym Jay Andrews Gargoyles is yet another masterpiece Wynorski can add to his credits, not. The script by Wynorski, Ion Ionescu, A.G. Lawrence & Bill Munroe is crap, is unexciting, dull & is as simplistic as you can get. For a start I would like to know if there was only one Gargoyle left who laid all those eggs because I'm pretty sure it couldn't have made itself pregnant. How did it survive in that hole for 500 years? What did it eat? How did the priest know it was there? Why has no one else ever figured it out? Why did the priest want to flood the world with them? To rule it? The Gargoyles are hardly going to take over the world & then let some priest just rule it like a king & if they did what would be left to rule? Much like the guys who wrote Gargoyle I don't think he thought it through that well did he? Whichever way I look at it, whichever way I approach it, from whichever angle I try to figure it out from, no matter how many times I try to square the circle Gargoyles just doesn't make any sense & they story has huge plot holes, lapses in logic & isn't that great to start with anyway. The character's are dull & clichéd, the action repetitive & unexciting while the film as a whole is a real bore to sit through. People do illogical things & everything that happens is far to convenient like when the priest is try to convince Griffin that Gargoyle's exist & one just suddenly shows up & attacks them. The cave full of cocoons is such a rip-off of Aliens (1986) it's embarrassing & the ending was lame. The bit on the large Ferris Wheel at the fair was funny though when the guy mocked the boys fear of heights & forced him to get on it.Director Wynorski cuts costs & steals footage from other films, in fact the best scene from Gargoyle is a car chase through Bucharest but it was taken from the Jean-Claude Van Damme action film Maximum Risk (1996). There are no shocks, scares or atmosphere. The special effects are terrible, the CGI Gargoyle looks like it belongs in a computer game & has little interaction with any living cast members, there are lots of scenes of people looking up to the sky & trying to appear scarred. There isn't even any worthwhile gore to make the thing watchable, there is one awful decapitation & that's it.Technically the special effects are awful but otherwise it's passable, the Romanian locations look suitably Romanian. Gargoyle went straight-to-video & it shows with a pretty cheap look & feel to it. The acting isn't up to much, personality bypass victim Michael Pare makes for the dullest of dull heroes.Gargoyle is a crap film, it fails at everything a decent creature feature should strive to achieve. A total waste of 90 minutes as far as I'm concerned, one to avoid.

One does not have to watch an incredible amount of creature features to realize that the majority of them is virtually the same, dividable into a few major categories. I don't have those lined out, but GARGOYLE(billed over here as Revenge of the Gargoyle) clearly falls under the Mythology & Conspiracy In Order to Protect the World categories, an approach to the monster flick which I'm particularly fond of. Dropping into the movie during a chase and a subsequent killing, it looked like the climax. Luckily i didn't run into anything more than another piece of formula: have a cop chase a criminal with climbing skills and have the monster kill the latter to warm up the audience. That apart, it's still a decent piece of direct-to-video SF. In practical terms, an 'OK way to kill 90 minutes".THE GOOD That apart, it's still a decent piece of direct-to-video SF. The CGI is good, although naturally more convincing when combined with darkness & fog than when chasing a car in broad daylight. As a matter of fact that scene took away a lot of the creature's charisma. The acting is good enough, with 'Father Soren' standing out as the second most important character, namely the Sympathetic Conspirator, who knows precisely what's behind a series of mysterious murders, has the means to bring them to an end and is willing to collaborate with the Hero, an outsider which is distrusted by the other conspirators. 'Lex' was also entertaining: pity he didn't get a bigger part... As for as a climax is concerned, this movie has both an assassination squad with large guns & a crossbow! Finally, the Romanian settings are gorgeous. THE BAD The murders simply suck, limited to swift snappings of the victims (with a horribly fake decapitation & a bucket of tomato blood ) and mutilated dummies. - 'Soren' turning into the bad guy in order to release hell on Earth didn't work no more than that blatant Alien rip-off of a breeding chamber. Releasing a cloud of gargoyles'd have been more interesting anyway. THE UGLY That stupid progressive priest. He turned out to play his part in the story twist but he didn't come off as a believable clergyman for a second nevertheless. Check Cage in the LA Convention Center in FACE OFF. - That stupid teacher. He should've been drained & ripped on screen.