I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

There are moments that feel comical, some horrific, and some downright inspiring but the tonal shifts hardly matter as the end results come to a film that's perfect for this time.

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

It's a good bad... and worth a popcorn matinée. While it's easy to lament what could have been...

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.

Two CIA agents are sent to Bucharest, Romania to solve a high profile kidnapping. But what they discover is something inexplicable. An evil gargoyle, once thought dead and banished forever, has returned with a vengeance.I do love the use of stock footage from the Jean-Claude Van Damme film "Maximum Risk" (1996) to make the car chase and explosions more exciting. Nice use of the budget, Jim! And actually, when compared to the work Wynorski does today (2012), this is not actually that bad. Not nearly as good as his 1980s work, but not terrible. This must have been about the point where he took a sharp turn downward.

The acting was flat (at least none of the actors sounded like they'd just got the script that morning) and the film and sound quality made me think of the 70s movie of the week bombs. The only thing that told me that it was indeed not a 70s movie of the week was the reference to DNA testing. But for me, being Eastern Orthodox, the most egregious thing about this....film.....was the total Romishness of the religion. Romania is 88% Orthodox but you'd never know that from this movie: Father Soren is Irish. And I'd have known this even if I hadn't seen the actor play the Irish pub keep, Michael Sullivan in Star Trek: Voyager's "Fairhaven" episodes. The Bishop was wearing Roman vestments (and for the record not even Orthodox bishops wear their vestments unless they're saying the liturgy, especially if they live in a monastery). About the only non-Romish paraphernalia I saw was the 3-bar cross on the door of the church, and even then I had to squint to see it. The first reviewer said the producers had done their research. Well, if that's true they messed up on the religious aspect of the film.

After a brief Van Helsing-styled prologue establishing gargoyles in historical Romania and implying that they've been trapped under the ground, Gargoyle: Wings of Darkness (the title given by the film as well as the video box) takes us to modern day Romania, where Ty Griffin (Michael Paré) and Jennifer Wells (Sandra Hess) are working on the kidnapping of a public official's son. While chasing the kidnappers, Ty discovers that one has suddenly disappeared--only valuable cargo and a large bloodstain remain. Meanwhile, two archaeologists/historians, Christina Durant (Kate Orsini) and Richard Barrier (Jason Rohrer) are working in a church that we realize has a connection with the prologue. How will they all tie together, and what will they do if a gargoyle is on the loose again? Although Gargoyle is a bit awkward in a couple spots--the pacing isn't quite as smooth as it could be--I really enjoyed the film. Director/co-writer Jim Wynorski has a long history making campy, low-budget exploitation horror films (which is a positive in my eyes) and his experience shows. Gargoyle looks much more high-budget and "high-class" than a lot of his other work, but it still retains a sense of fun, freshness and finely honed craft that comes from being a veteran.So imagine my surprise when I check out the other reviews on IMDb and see that to date, the film is almost universally loathed. While reading through most of the other comments, I couldn't help feeling that the majority of them were simply ridiculous. While I can see many filmgoers not pronouncing Gargoyle a masterpiece, I can't see giving this film a failing grade. Like usual, it was clear that the reviewers who hated the film must have had bizarre expectations.Despite the detective/crime/action elements that are prominent in the scene immediately following the prologue (and which were handled brilliantly in my view), Gargoyle is at its heart a monster flick, and a fairly traditional one at that. Surprisingly, a number of people commented on various facets of Gargoyle seeming implausible. Monster films are a subgenre of horror, and horror is really "dark fantasy", or "dark fairy tales" (there are some difficult cases for that description, such as serial killer biopics, but "dark fantasy" works for most of the genre). Thus, Gargoyle is not a documentary. So it really doesn't matter if, for example, gargoyles were unheard of in Romania until recently. It doesn't matter if the CIA doesn't do the work they're shown doing here. You should expect Gargoyle to be implausible--hopefully, you don't believe that giant flying gargoyles are real or believable; when that's the premise, it's not the filmmaker's fault if you expect but do not get plausibility.At that, the film references a number of historical facts. Wynorski and his cohorts actually did a fair amount of research for the film. For example, they talk about the historical Dracula, Vlad Tepes, and contextualize the "reality" versus the myths that were built up around him. They actually went to the trouble of finding a property that looks remarkably similar to the famous 19th Century pencil sketch of the ruins of Castle Dracula (you can see it Chapter 6 of Raymond T. McNally and Radu Florescu's book, In Search of Dracula). They also insert a number of clever references to past horror films. One of the principal homes of villainy in the film is named Castle Orlok, which comes from Graf Orlok, the name of the Dracula character is F.W. Murnau's 1922 classic, Nosferatu. There is a reference to Vasaria, the village introduced in Ghost of Frankenstein (1942). There are obvious visual references to the Alien films. They also reference real-life horror culture, such as "vampire clubs".Other reviewers complained about the special effects. CGI is the only means available to produce this kind of film at this kind of budget. Yes, the cgi in the film looks "fake". Again, hopefully no one would think that a huge flying gargoyle would look real, anyway. It's a fantasy token. You have to use your imagination when watching fantasy. Mechanicals/animatronics of flying gargoyles would have looked "fake" too, and would have raised the budget to 100 million. One person commented that the cgi appears as if Wynorski's crew had been trying to capture the look of Ray Harryhausen claymation ala the Sinbad films, and another said that the effects had a 1950s flavor. Believe it or not, a lot of us love Harryhausen's work and monster flicks from the 1950s; so if the cgi has that look, we think it's a good thing. As for the look of the blood and "gore" effects, I thought they were well done. They were stylized and artistic. I like that. To repeat, the film is not a documentary; the blood and gore do not have to look like crime scene photos to be good.Others complained about the performances. The dialogue and acting seemed more than fine to me. I'm not sure what anyone would find unsatisfactory there. The film is a bit campy, but intentionally so--remember Wynorski's roots, after all, and camp is not at all unprecedented for a monster flick. If you like monster flicks, you probably have a fair taste for camp. The one thing that I do agree with most reviewers about is the comment regarding the female cast members--they are all exceptionally, enchantingly beautiful. So even if you don't like the performances, there is plenty of eye candy when it comes to the cast as long as you're attracted to women.Gargoyle had a remarkably modern feel to me. To a large extent, it actually reminded me of "Special Unit 2" (2001) an unfortunately short-lived, campy horror television show that was also unjustly slammed by some critics. It's extremely important to have appropriate expectations when watching a film like Gargoyle. As long as you like the genre and the tone, you should find the film sufficiently entertaining.