Morsures

From Arthur Hiller Director of 'Silver Streak' 'Love Story' 'The Hospital' and many other great films comes 'Nightwing' Nick Mancuso is the deputy tribal policeman, who in a race against time to stop a vengeful shaman elders 'curse' on humanity due to him being against the expansion of western Ideals into his reservation.

The premise for 'Nightwing' is a brilliant high concept which can be called 'Jaws' with wings, the bat effects by Carlo Rambaldi which are by todays standard 'fake' but in this day and age of overused Digital Animation these effects stand out and don't look too obvious as modern effects tend to. David Warner plays a determined scientist, Kathryn Harrold is Mancuso's love interest who narrowly escapes the wrath of the bats. the highlight of the film is the sequence with the bigoted evangelists whilst camping in the outback meet a nasty end courtesy of the winged creatures. 'Nightwing' is an enjoyable Nature gone berserk movie which despite it's shortcomings is great fun. Henry Mancini's score is excellent.

******SPOILERS****** One of the main reasons that I like "Nightwing" is that the movie educates the audience about the subject matter in it. You learn more about Vampire Bats in just a five minute conversation between Phillip Payne, David Warner, the Bat investigator and Walker Chee, Stephan Macht, the Indian official then you learned about the same subject in all the movies that Hollywood made about Bats put together.

The movie also gives you an interesting look about what I think is it's main subject; the mystical and religious as well as the cultural customs of the American Indians of the American South-West. The movie "Nightwing" has a dual story in it. Deadly Vampire Bat attacks on people and livestock in the South-West, the state of Arizona. There's an attempt by a big oil conglomerate, Peabody Mining, to buy up and strip mine a large section of two Indian Reservations, the Pahana & Maskie. This is being done with the help of a corrupt top Indian official, Walker Chee, in the Bureau of Indian Affairs.

A number of cows and horses are found dead and the local farmers as well as government officials are left confused and baffled by what caused it. These incidents have attracted Phillip Payne who's a bat researcher or as he calls himself "The Exterminating Angel" to the area. Payne has been tracking down the migration of Vampire Bats since 1973 from South America Mexico and now to the southern part of the United States and he thinks that a large colony of Vampire Bats are responsible for whats been happening in the places effected with dead livestock and now people. There has also developed a number of deaths due to Bubonic Plague which Payne feel that the Bats are transmitting to both people as well as animals. Both the Peabody Mining Corp. and Walker Chee want to keep all this out of the news in order to protect their attempted land grab in the area.

With nothing able to stop the "Killer Bats" advance as they attack and kill people and cattle almost undeterred as a last resort Indian Police Sheriff Youngman Duran, Nick Mancuso,tries something new to stop the killer bats. With the help of ancient Indian Mysticism that Duran learned from his friend and Maskie Indian High Priest Abner Tasupi, George Clutsei, he's able to stem the tide of the Vampire Bat invasion.

Defiantly better then most of the movies about the same subject with it's focus on detail science and history instead of horror shock and gore. The rivalry between the upright and honest Indian Sheriff Youngman Duran and the corrupt and deceiving Indian official Walker Chee alone makes the movie interesting all by itself.

The Bat menace in the movie was intelligently handled and the film tried as much as possible to keep the supernatural and mystical angle in check making it more real as well as effective. The final sequence of "Nightwing" in the deadly "Bat Cave" as Duran Payne and Duran's girlfriend Anne Dillion, Kathryn Harrold, were working against the clock, or better yet the night, to destroy the giant Vampire Bat colony before it woke up was nail biting and very effectively done. The scenes of the Bat attacks in the movie, there were only three, were believable as well as shocking even though the special effects back then, in 1979, were primitive to what they are in movies today.

All and all "Nightwing"is one of the most unknown, it's almost impossible to find it on VHS today and it's never been released on DVD, and at the same time best movies about "Killer Bats" that you'll ever see.

I liked this movie so much that it prompted me to take a trip to New Mexico and to eventually move there!! Unfortunately, due to medical problems, I was forced to come back to Kansas, but I will never regret moving to the Southwest.

Okay, so Nick Mancuso, who played Duran, sounded like he was from the Bronx occasionally and the tribes were renamed, but I purchased the VHS tape many years ago and check out every DVD web site hoping to find it there. It is probably the only reason I still have a VCR.++++++

The book was written by Martin Cruz Smith, an accomplished author, it was directed by Arthur Hiller, and the musical score done by Henry Mancini. Just how bad could it be?? If it is a horror movie you are looking for, this is not going to satisfy you. But a movie about the hardships and superstitions that still persist on the Navajo and Hopi reservations is as relevant as it was when Nightwing was made back in the 70s. I think that if the movie had not been billed as a "horror" flick, it would have gained much more of a following. I find it quite amusing that although it has never been made as a DVD, it is still found almost every other month on one of the pay movie channels. So I guess I'm not the only one who thinks that Nightwing is worth watching!

A group of vampire bats descend upon two Indian reservations that stand as the ground for a feud between honest Deputy Duran (Nick Mancuso) and money hungry Walker (Stephen Macht). Also cruising around the desert is Phillip Rayne (David Warner), a guy who hunts vampire bats. What the heck is going on with this film? What should have been a straightforward "JAWS with wings" gets turned into a bizarre commentary on Indian mysticism, politics and environmentalism. But PROPHECY (1980) this ain't. Anyway, I dig someone trying to do something original and all this would be fine if the film wasn't so boring. The few moments there are bat attacks are so poorly handled by director Arthur Hiller, that you can only dream of how someone with a sense of suspense could have pulled them off. All of the actors are fine, but their motivations are paper thin. "I kill them because they are evil," is how Warner justifies his ridiculous supporting turn as the vampire bat hunter with a state-of- the-art van and no means for financing. On the plus side, there are some stunning locations in New Mexico and a great score by Henry Mancini.

I rented this movie because the Martin Cruz Smith book had recently come my way and I found it quite good. The movie is not unfaithful to the book, though it does suffer in comparison in the strength of the characterizations - in the book we learn why Youngman Duran, Mancuso's character, is so tortured which, of course, makes his ordeal much more significant and meaningful. I'm writing mainly to defend David Warner whom another reviewer characterized as as "bad actor". Warner is a terrific character actor who can presently be heard doing a rich villiany voice on the Saturday morning "Men in Black" cartoon (which is better than the movie, in my opinion). It seems Americans have trouble with classically trained English actors whose diction and style may seem too broad if your only frame of reference is Brad Pitt. Recently went to "Peeping Tom" and sat next to a group of teenagers who laughed all the way through, completely oblivious to the historical context of the film and its quality. So "Nightwing" is pretty good - good character acting (also love Strother Martin), lovely cinematography, nice Mancini score. Blood and gore special effects quite restrained a la 1979 technology, so if that's your thing this isn't your movie.