Michael_Elliott Gargoyle (2004) ** (out of 4)An infamous kidnapping leads to CIA agents to Romania where they think it'll just be your typical crime. Pretty soon they realize that they're dealing with something much worse in a flying gargoyle, which was a mythical creature in the land that was obviously based on facts.Jim Wynorski is one of my favorite directors of "B" movies like this one and there's no question that he keeps this film moving along a lot better than most would have. If you're a fan of these low-budget type of movies then you'll be familiar with Wynorski's work and for the most part GARGOYLE is a fun enough movie to make it worth watching.With that being said, if you're looking for some sort of art film then you're going to be depressed by the time this ends. I actually thought the opening sequence was the highlight of the film as the director wastes no time in introducing us to our monster. The older setting actually looked really good and it really made me wish that the entire movie was set in the past. The CGI gargoyle obviously doesn't look like something you'd see in a Spielberg movie but I thought it was fun.The film really does suffer whenever the monster isn't on the screen. I just believe that movies like this are always better when there's a fun monster and when it's on the screen. I thought Michael Pare and Sandra Hess were both fun in the lead roles and they certainly made the film easier to watch. The supporting characters weren't all that memorable and at 97-minutes the film does go on a bit too long.

Kirpianuscus ...I saw this film just as a childish joke. sure, in some measure, as new demonstration of stupid cliches. it is a B film. wit not the worst beginning. and with a handsome Michael Pare. but nothing more. few Romanians actors in small roles. mix of mythology and fake believes. Romano - Catholic priests in Greek - Orthodox churches. Brasov as near place of Bucharest. and decent special effects. yes, I am profound subjective . but this film, like others , are only proofs of experiments in a cheep place from East Europe, with few nice locations, good actors and chance to say absurde stories without limits or good sense.

Elswet I was surprised by this work. Although told poorly, this video venture features an intriguing, well-developed story. Quite frankly, the film quality was poor; the CGI was choppy and ineffectual; the dialog ranged from campy to crappy; the performances were cute but inexperienced; and what was supposed to be witty repartee between the two CIA agents came off as glib and overdone.So why watch this? Purely for the story. It draws you in and wraps you up in its membranous gargoyle wings. It entertains. It amuses. It tries, without trying too hard, or ever taking itself too seriously, which enables you to find the humor in it without feeling the need to laugh at it, and allows you to enjoy it without feeling the compunction to add it to your "guilty pleasures" category.All in all, we had fun with it, though it is NOT a Friday/Saturday night movie. Watch it when it rains and all is dark.It rates an 8.2/10 on the B scale, which is somewhere around a 5.4/10 on the A scale, from...the Fiend :.

Paul Andrews 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.