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In Gargoyles' Revenge, 16th century Romanian villagers
go after the last gargoyle. A priest shoots it with a crossbow
arrow anointed with the blood of Christ (from the priest),
and it's sealed beneath the ground with a huge boulder and
an incantation. We then jump forward to the present as two
American FBI agents (Ty "Griff" Griffin and Christina Durant)
are making a kidnap exchange. A gunman is chased to a rooftop
where he simply disappears leaving only blood and money. Meanwhile
a church is undergoing study and modernisation. An ancient
painting depicting the gargoyle hunt is discovered hidden
behind another. A recent earthquake has revealed a giant cavern
beneath the graveyard. Inside are dozens of eggs waiting to
hatch. The gargoyle is free and it wants the crossbow...
I must say, I expected the worst here... and didn't get it.
It's not exactly Shakespeare, and it's leagues below the likes
of The
Exorcist and Halloween in terms of style
and content, but it is a fun fantasy-horror (very much in
the vein of Hammer) which rattles along at a fair pace. Just
don't expect too much from it.
The
cavern of eggs is straight out of Alien
(even the same design), and the expression on the faces of
those using machine guns against the newly hatched gargoyles
is completely blank (no determination, no fear, nothing) making
it all too plain to the viewer that the special effects were
added later.
The
male FBI agent is somewhat smarmy and self-assured (what do
you mean, no wonder he's got my name!?), but maybe that's
just how the character is written. One other point of interest:
I wonder how many people have noticed that most of the character
names are connected with horror or fantasy - Griffin, Soren,
Durant, Lex, Aslan, Gogol, Gregor, Boris and Yuri.
In Deadly Swarm, Jacob Schroeder, a bio-prospector
working for an American pharmaceutical company, tracks a medical
breakthrough to a small Indian village deep in the Mexican
jungle. Forcing the locals to reveal its location, he comes
away with a huge nest of deadly wasps known as "black fire".
He pays a truck driver to smuggle the cargo over the border,
but when the vehicle turns over the massive cloud of killers
is freed. In a nearby Mexican town entomologist Daniel Lang
is working to reduce an outbreak of malaria. The mayor tells
him his work is done, but he is recruited by the sheriff to
examine the body of the truck driver. A series of deaths and
the knowledge that human hosts can be used to lay eggs, means
the race is on to track the swarm and kill the queen. But
Lang and the sheriff haven't reckoned on the ruthless determination
of Schroeder...
Before
watching this film I was immediately reminded of my review
of The
Swarm (people still occasionally mention it
to me now). So I was expecting a lot of running around, screaming
and windmilling of arms. Thankfully it didn't happen. Yes,
it was mainly cheap effects-driven, with lots of black dots
whizzing around in the air, but at least they tried to build
a believable story around the b-movie scenario.
I
would say that the character of the female reporter is completely
superfluous to events, and seems to exist only to look good;
and like many horror stories this one reduces its effectiveness
by eluding to the past, in this case with the ancient journal
kept by the priest which is a centuries old hand-written account
of the swarm.
In Snakehead Terror, we are told over the opening
credits about a new species of fish discovered called Snakehead.
It is viscous and has no predator. Eventually the authorities
were forced to poison Cultus Lake and kill them all to prevent
the possibility of any spreading elsewhere. Now, when a few
mutilated bodies turn up (including his daughter's boyfriend)
the sheriff tries to get the lake closed to tourists. But
local business is bad, culminating in human growth hormones
being dumped in the lake to increase the size of the fish.
The surviving Snakeheads are multiplying at a phenomenal rate
and are mutating into monsters which leave the lake to look
for prey...
Fans of Babylon 5 and The X-Files might recognise
Bruce Boxleitner and William B. Davis, and there's no prizes
for guessing who plays the hero and who the villain. Judging
by the synopsis above (pretty much Piranha/Alligator/Lake
Placid) this one has got to be cringeworthy, yes. You
might think so but it's rather fun in its own way.
Unfortunately,
these people will always step over the line. There's the Jaws-like
music, and then one depiction of a Snakehead. I have to tell
you first that the fish creatures are very well realised...
all except one. A glove puppet fish has hold of the daughter's
arm and instead of chewing it off like you might expect, simply
hangs on long enough for the girl to dangle it in front of
a boat's propeller. There's no ill after-affects, not even
a bite mark.
Anchor Bay, who always seem to care about their releases,
have made a shrewd move here. What do you do when you have
three average creature flicks to put out? Why, you simply
package them together as a box set to make it a more attractive
purchase. None of these films will rock the genre, but together
they're worth twenty quid of anyone's money.
Ty
Power
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