Reign of the Gargoyles

The animation here is HORRID, and the story is lacking, but the performances are what drives this Sci-Fi Channel original. The dialog is hokey, but the delivery is about as good as it gets. These guys at least make you believe they and their situation is meaningful ... at least to them. Most of these movies are done with an almost tongue-in-cheek delivery as if the film not only does not take itself too seriously, but the actors are making FUN of it while, at the same time, drawing a check for doing it.

This dreck-fest at least showed some heart. There are a couple of places where the performances made you forget (if only momentarily) that this was a typical "B" flick.

All in all? It was enjoyable, in spite of itself, and showed some real heart. Tom Penny was an asset this time. While it is NOT fit for Friday/Saturday night viewing, it is still more fun that first imagined.

It rates a 7.2/10 on the "B" scale, which is around a 4.6/10 on the "A" Scale, from...

the Fiend :.

Interesting to read comments about this film picking holes in the correct way for a WWII SAS officer to wear their beret when there are hundreds of (below average) CGI Gargoyles running around. A bit like having a go at Star Wars because Chewbacca does not have split ends. The film is straight to DVD/Sci-Fi Schlock and there are thousands of other similar movies out there which take themselves a lot more seriously and are more in need of being deflated. The film tries hard and does quite well considering it must be low budget. A more interesting goof is the comment that the holder of the Spear of Destiny was buried like a commoner and then watching the heroes breaking into his tomb - hardly the resting place of a commoner. Nice comment earlier about NAZI interest in the supernatural and mention of the excellent THE KEEP but add to the list RAIDERS OF THE LOST ARK and HELLBOY.

I'm afraid that like most Sci Fi original series this movie is mediocre at best. It just doesn't have any spark. I wish that I could point out some major flaw, but there really isn't any. Stock characters; evil Nazis's,nasty monsters, valiant ally soldiers and partisans. Whee! But the characters just spin their wheels. They practically have labels stamped on them. The VALIANT FLYING FORTRESS PILOT mouths a few words about how he idolizes Lindberg thereby establishing that he's a good egg and an all American joe. I'd love to see Sci Fi channel try to have subtle, nuanced characters for once. There's so much unbelievably good Sci Fi out there. Heinlein, Brin, Asimov, LeGuin, Niven, I could go on. Still, I hope that they keep trying.

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

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