Gargoyles - Monster aus Stein

Some hot shot WWII pilots are flying around, rattling off some old 40's movie dialog. Suddenly, some flying creatures with sticky feet attach themselves to the planes' wings. Then they destroy the planes and go away for a while. Then they come back and do it again. Nazis have unleashed a bunch of gargoyles, in some cult legend practice nobody ever heard of before. They want to use the monsters to conquer the world but the things just croak them too. Oh, and meanwhile, Allied and Nazi forces have battles.

This film tosses around bits and pieces of war and horror genre stuff, and loosely fits it all together. Some attempt is made to tell a creative story; there is an evil-encounters-evil motif about the modern Nazis and their ancient cultist counterparts. Acting is strong enough, but character development is minimal. Lots of violent action, but little explanation of why the gargoyles are so anti-social. CGI looks to have been done by students in a "Computer for Dummies" class. The ending is unintentionally funny. Overall; about average for SyFy channel; good fast food fluff if you're in the mood for some cheap entertainment.

I'll admit it and say that I dislike, even hate, most of the movies from the Sci-Fi Channel, with a couple of exceptions. If you're wondering why I keep watching them, it is mainly because there is something compulsively watchable about them in how awful they are. I also try and watch any movie of any genre and age regardless of the critical and audience consensus. I was expecting very little from Reign of the Gargoyles, and in the end I got very little. It does have a good idea, and the acting from Joe Penny, John Ashton and Wes Ramsey is alright but not great. However, that is it for any redeeming qualities. The editing is very choppy, the lighting dull and the sets too scaled-down. But on a visual front it was the special effects that fared the worst, the movements of the gargoyles are very stiff and in their design they look very crude. Considering that they do feature prominently in the movie, that is a major issue. The dialogue is as unnatural as the effects with a lot of talk but no flow, and apart from Penny, Ashton and Ramsey the rest of the acting stinks with the accents laughably fake. The story is energetically told I suppose, but much of it is unsurprising and veers into the face-palm-inducing ridiculous far too much. True, there is some conflict here but executed in a very clichéd way. The flying sequences have a great concept and not so bad in the action, but I would have enjoyed them more if the editing was better than it was. The characters are little more than walking cardboard cut-outs, in particular we learn absolutely nothing about the gargoyles. Overall, I have seen worse from the Sci-Fi Channel, but that doesn't stop Reign of the Gargoyles from being very bad. 3/10 Bethany Cox

There is hardly anything left to say; the title says it all. Crappy CGI (a bit better than average for SciFi channel) meets silly cardboard characters. And cardboard wins because CGI is virtual! It's like one of those Santa Claus and a smart beautiful blonde jokes.

Anyway, with the limited, but larger than average budget they could have chosen one of the thousands of good scripts floating out there. No, they chose a story where German sadists try to kill brave Americans helped by the beautiful French resistance girl. Oh, and there are gargoyles around. Puh-lease!

Bottom line: total waste of time. Not bad enough to count. Not good enough... for anything ;)

I guess it could've have been worse. The straight-to-TV presentation 'Rein of the Gargoyles' mildly entertains, but artificially dodgy CGI effects and pompous dialogues really do shoot it down. Bad computer visuals are one thing, but that script had me giggling and groaning at the same time. Too many random inspirational speeches, than explanations about the topic at hand or that of the Nazi's involvement in the occult had me wincing. The concept behind the film (An American airborne crew involved in WW2 in Eastern Europe find out that they have more to worry about than Nazis when they encounter Gargoyles, and join forces with resistance fighters to achieve the sacred spear that vanquished these gargoyles centuries ago) has something strong to go on, but alas it's given weak treatment and slaps in a stew of war clichés. Soon the mythological side is drowned out, and the interest begins to peter out. I can't knock its spirit though, and the locations and time period was well-shaped in presenting a dreary, war-torn backdrop. Performances fair up with no-one really standing out or overplaying it. However those accents (namely the Germans) were terrible, as if they were straining too hard. Joe Penny was dependably stalwart and Wes Ramsey is fine as the go-getter. No one really takes it entirely serious (even the script), but it doesn't fall away for any cheap laughs or a lighter tone of self-consciousness. The action is slight, and small. Sadly the gargoyles cop the brunt of it. Too little screen time, same for those Nazis who brought them to life. Sometimes the vigorous activity felt like something out of a video game, as the camera bobbed up and down. Moments do work, like atmospheric imagery in a graveyard. But really it's non-effective and flaky, despite its efforts. An okay time-waster… nothing more.

Given the well documented interest of the Nazi party hierarchy in the occult -Hitler and Himmler especially -it is a minor pity that so few supernaturally themed movies or science fiction movies have taken this as a starting point ."The Keep" , a pretentious rambling Michael Mann movie and the altogether better if more modest Trancers apart it remains a relatively unexplored area for genre cinema.Reign of the Gargoyles does tackle this subject and makes a decent if somewhat undercooked stab at it Nazi scientists are able to resurrect stone demons and set them loose in an attempt to sabotage Allied attacks on the Central European heartland .An American aircrew is dispatched to try to discover what is going on ,and are brought down by an attack of these winged demons .They combine with a small local partisan band to destroy the creatures ,and this involves locating a sacred spear from the grave of a long dead knight who had originally imprisoned the demons some time in the Middle Ages The problem is a lack of quality in the special effects ,which are workmanlike rather than exceptional and a cast of unknowns whose talent is such they are likely to stay that way .The script is underpowered and allows for little or no character development The location photography is good however and makes good use of the bleak ,wintry landscape to give an eerie and edgy look to the picture

A bigger effects budget and sharper scripting would have made this a better movie .As it is ,what we have is an okay picture which just fails to do justice to its premise