Weirdhouse Cinema: Gargoyles

In this episode of Weirdhouse Cinema, Rob and Joe discuss the 1972 made-for-TV movie “Gargoyles,” starring Cornel Wilde, Jennifer Salt, Grayson Hall and Bernie Casey – with make-up effects by legendary Stan Winston.

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Episode Transcript

Speaker 1 (00:00):
Welcome to Stuff to Blow Your Mind, a production of iHeartRadio.

Speaker 2 (00:12):
Hey, welcome to Weird House Cinema. This is Rob Lamb
and this is Joe McCormick.

Speaker 3 (00:16):
And today on Weird House, we're going to be talking
about the nineteen seventy two made for TV horror film Gargoyles,
starring Cornell Wilde, Jennifer Salt, Grayson Hall, and Bernie Casey.
This selection has been waiting in the wings for some time,
hasn't it. It comes up frequently on our Connection segment

(00:37):
in multiple previous episodes, and also has been recommended by
multiple listeners. It was one of the It just seemed
we were faded to cover it at some point.

Speaker 2 (00:46):
That's right. Let's see Lee Steven, Bob Tato or Bob Tato,
I'm not sure which his pronunciation. Are just a few
of the listeners who suggested this film in particular and
said it would be a great fit. Yeah, It's come
up multiple times on the show before in our Connections,
and it's also one that I finally remember watching at

(01:06):
least parts of on television in the nineteen nineties, I
think on the Sci Fi channel and TV again is
the place to watch it. This was a film made
for television, and it has just this great TV wasteland
vibe to it. The sort of weird dated movie that
like during the nineteen nineties you discover on cable when

(01:27):
you were inside on a weekend afternoon instead of going
outside and playing in the sun, or that you discover
late at night instead of getting a good night's sleep,
that sort of picture.

Speaker 3 (01:38):
The spirit of television flows through it, even to the
extent that there's one character. We'll have to talk about
this in the plot section. There's one character who seems
to have gotten completely different notes on how to play
his character over the course of a commercial break.

Speaker 2 (01:54):
Can change during a commercial break, you know, it takes
you out of the action. I believe we're going to
talk more about this later. It takes you out of
the action, perhaps takes you out of the room as
you go to get your dinner, return your plate, get
a snack, use the restroom, put the kids to bed,
what have you, and then you're back in and yeah,
it might be a different movie by that point. Like

(02:16):
sometimes it is implied stuff has happened during the break.

Speaker 3 (02:19):
I guess that's true. The character I have in mind
is implied to have gotten drunk as over the course
of the commercial break, but he goes from being kind
of I don't know, sly in cagey to just being
a complete mass.

Speaker 2 (02:32):
Yeah, it happens pretty quickly. So yes. Indeed, this film
was originally broadcast on Tuesday, November twenty first, nineteen seventy two,
for CBS's the New CBS Tuesday Night Movies. The made
for TV werewolf movie Death Moon that we previously covered
on Weird House was also a CBS affair, though it
aired on a Wednesday.

Speaker 3 (02:54):
Was it one of the new CBS Wednesday Night Movies?

Speaker 2 (02:57):
Oh, I don't recall. Death Moon came out and said so,
I guess I knew it had become old or standard
by that point. I'm not sure. I get a little
foggy on how like the Tuesday Night movie would have
differed from the Wednesday Night movie. I just remember the
Death Moon aired, I think following an episode of The
Incredible Hulk. But this is a movie that certainly connected
with plenty of folks. It's a nice mix of early

(03:19):
seventies television, monster suits cinematic weirdness. In nineteen eighty one's
Dance maccob Stephen King singled it out as one of
the high points of the various one shot TV movies
and specials of the day, praising it as memorable and hideous. Likewise,
Michael Weldon in the Psychotronic film Guides highlights it as unusual.

Speaker 3 (03:41):
I'm a little perplexed at the amount of praise I
see people heap on this movie. But I will give
it that it is not boring, like it kind of
skips right along and is highly entertaining as to its
real horror credentials. I don't know if I can quite
go there.

Speaker 2 (03:59):
I feel like it is remarkably weird to have been
on television. You know. It's like other examples will point
to from this time period. When you're looking at made
for TV horror, a lot of them are a little
more you know, traditional in the sense that maybe it's
like Gothic horror, and you know, not that this is
completely non traditional. It is based, you know, basic format

(04:21):
of a monster movie, and it's set with a you know,
an American background. But yeah, I mean these scenes where
you have like reptilian gargoyle creatures like rebinon big furry
eggs and in an egg cave, it's it's weird stuff.

Speaker 3 (04:37):
Weirder even for its time than you might think because
we live downstream of gargoyles. An interesting claim I came across.
I can't verify this, but a claim of priority that
I found referenced in the Ashgate Encyclopedia of Literary and
Cinematic Monsters, edited by somebody named somebody named Jeffrey Andrew Weinstock.

Speaker 2 (04:59):
Uh.

Speaker 3 (04:59):
This book claims quote Gargoyles, the movie we're talking about today.
Gargoyles is the first work to present gargoyles as a
species as opposed to solitary creatures.

Speaker 2 (05:13):
Hmmm. Interesting, yeah, yeah, because that is how they're they're
positioned here. They are not statues, come alive. They are
an ancient species of creatures, perhaps with some sort of
origins going back to Satan in the Fall, the Rebel Angels.

Speaker 3 (05:31):
Well, it just seems kind of like a creative appropriation
of the word gargoyle, because otherwise they are treated as
just demons. They're just demons or devils, but they're also
sort of greedo.

Speaker 2 (05:43):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, they're they're reptile men. They but they
are gargoyles. They're also devils. But the title of the
movie is Gargoyles, and they make sure to call them
gargoyles at various points in the film.

Speaker 3 (05:57):
I should mention that that same Encyclopedia entry also flags
a short story by Harlan Ellison called Bleeding Stones, apparently
also published in nineteen seventy two, in which there are
gargoyles on Saint Patrick's Cathedral that are animated by pollution,
like industrial waste gets into them and it turns them

(06:20):
into monsters that attack New York City.

Speaker 2 (06:23):
I should go ahead and mention, now that we're talking
about this, if any of this sounds familiar. Back in
October of twenty twenty four, we did the Stuff to
Blow Your Mind episode titled Grimoure of Horror, Volume one.
We talked about a couple of short horror stories, one
of them being a nineteen thirty two Clark Ashton Smith
story about gargoyles in which a tormented sculptors gargoyles come

(06:49):
to life and commit crimes in this Gothic city, and
that is often pointed to as one of if not
like the first stories about animate gargoyle, But then again,
that would be different than what we have here today.
These are gargoyles that were never part of the particular
of a particular architectural uh creation. They instead are said

(07:13):
to have inspired architectural flourishes. And what are those flourishes. Well,
just a reminder we're talking when we talk about gargoyles,
we're generally talking about a decorative water spout to drain
water away from a building. Then the term is used
a little loose more loosely to describe, you know, hideous
monsters perching on the corners of buildings. That you get

(07:33):
you get into different terminology when you get into the
specifics of all these things. But this is linked to
the old French word gargoue as well as the Greek gargarazine.
And these words, of course may remind you of the
word gargyle that we use today, because you know, essentially
we're talking about a word used to describe the clearing

(07:55):
or washing of the throat.

Speaker 3 (07:57):
Right, So, from decorative water spouts the side of a
building to Reptilian Satanic gredo monsters that live in caves
in only a few hundred years, that's an evolution.

Speaker 2 (08:08):
Yes, from European cathedrals to the children of Lucifer living
in caves. In the Great American Desert.

Speaker 3 (08:16):
Now, we mentioned earlier that a lot of people have
had praise for this movie, a lot of good things
to say about it, and one thing that often gets
singled out for praise is the creature design itself, the
monster design. They've got these great rubber masks and suits.
And apparently this movie won a nineteen seventy three Primetime

(08:38):
Emmy for Outstanding Achievement in Makeup.

Speaker 2 (08:42):
That's right. It beat out a TV movie of Doctor
Jekyll and Mister Hyde starring Kirk Douglas and Donald Pleasants,
as well as a TV movie of Frankenstein starring Robert Foxworth,
who would go on to appear in Death Moon, as
well as the actor Bose S. Vincent, who I believe
Vincent played the monster, Foxworth played the doctor.

Speaker 3 (09:02):
Foxworth was the work beast and.

Speaker 2 (09:04):
Yeah, yeah, I mean who I mean, Doctor Frankenstein. Can
you think of more a bigger work beast than that?

Speaker 3 (09:11):
That's right, He's the original work beast. I wonder how
my feelings about Gargoyles might be different if if we'd
seen it with the hard burned Dutch subtitles. I think
that would bring a different spirit to the to the occasion,
wouldn't it?

Speaker 2 (09:24):
Yeah, probably so. But the costumes here do look amazing,
and as we'll get into in just a little bit,
it's the work of Stan Winston, like fresh baby face
stan Winston. This is his first big, big gig as
a makeup dude before he went on to a lot
of other legendary work and legendary monster design makeup effects

(09:46):
from the subtle to the extravagant. Now, are these suits
always presented in the best light? Is the rest of
the film like reaching its level? Well, you know, an
argument could be made that it is not. You know,
you put a suit like this in a gas station
in the middle of New Mexico, it might not look
as great. But I think on their own they look

(10:08):
amazing and compared to anything else it was on TV
at the time, I have no doubt that these really
stood out and obviously touched a nerve.

Speaker 3 (10:16):
I believe these suits and makeup effects could have popped
even more if they'd been photographed a little more carefully.
I don't want to insult the cinematography too much, but
we get a lot of just straight up looking at them,
even in slow motion, sometimes in broad daylight, sometimes busting
through a breakaway door into a hotel room not the

(10:38):
most creative or artful way of obscuring and keeping the
mystery of the gargoyle form alive.

Speaker 2 (10:44):
Yes, yes, yeah, they're often shot, and yeah, feels like
like noon sun they're out being stealthy. Just the in
broad daylight. People were like, what was that that flew over?
And it's like, you're in the middle of nowhere in
New Mexico. I think you probably could have seen it,
but I don't know. There are plenty of plenty of
animals in New Mexico that managed to carry out their

(11:06):
stealth roles successfully, so I guess an argument could be
made that these these creatures do as well.

Speaker 3 (11:11):
It's hard to stay stealthy when you're doing trampoline stunts
in slow motion.

Speaker 2 (11:15):
True. True.

Speaker 3 (11:16):
So I wanted to pause here for a moment to
think about the specific flavor of today's movie, because despite
the different setting and subject matter, I noticed what felt
like a significant esthetic overlap with the other seventies American
made for TV horror movie we've covered again. That was

(11:37):
Death Moon with the work Beast, and this got me
interested in thinking about these movies as their own subgenre.
The made for TV movie of the seventies as its
own horror subgenre. So I went digging around for any
academic literature that has explored this idea, and I came
across a passage in a book. So the book was

(11:59):
by Lorna Jowett and Stacy Abbott called TV Horror Investigating
the Dark Side of the Small Screen. This was originally
published in twenty thirteen. I haven't read this whole book,
but I did read some reviews, and in this passage
about made for TV films of the era in question,
it seems to me the central idea of this book

(12:20):
is that wild TV has long been thought of as
a poor venue for horror storytelling due to many things.
You know, restrictions on content that tend to be more
restrictive than what you would get in the movie theaters,
and horror tends to be by nature transgressive and contains
objectionable material. But also you can think about constraints due

(12:43):
to format format restrictions like the need to include commercial breaks.
Despite all those well known limitations, the authors argue that
the medium of TV also kind of presents its own
unique opportunities for horror, and that horror has long been
incorporated it into TV storytelling, even if in cryptic forms,

(13:03):
kind of expressing itself in little ways in you know,
in crime dramas on TV and things like that. And
in the words of the authors the quote relationship between
horror and television is one fraught with tension and potential.
And so when you try to think, like, what would
be the special potential for horror on TV as opposed

(13:26):
to other media like the cinema or in written literature.
One example that comes to mind for me, which they
do explore in the book, is the idea that back
before home video, when movies were something that you went
to see in the theater and you couldn't watch at
home unless it just happened to be playing on one
of the few TV stations you got, TV provided provided

(13:49):
an opportunity to project visual horror into the domestic setting,
and the domestic setting changed how frightening stories were received,
and to that last point. At one point in this book,
the author's cite the concluding voiceover from Colchak The night Stalker,
which is not a movie but a sort of mystery

(14:10):
horror TV series. We've talked about this in our anthology
of Horror episodes in the Halloween season sometimes but apparently
you know, at the end of this Colchak would always
say something like quote, So think about it and try
to tell yourself, wherever you may be and the quiet
of your home, in the safety of your bed, try
to tell yourself that it couldn't happen to you. You know,

(14:32):
the implication being, Oh, you think you're safe just because
you're at home on your couch eating a hungry man
dinner right now, but no paramoul fay, this moss monster
could come get you.

Speaker 2 (14:44):
That's a great point, you know, Like you could basically
have a no horror in the house rule where you
only go out to the theaters and see horror, but
then TV changes that in the same way that like
right now, I think most of us probably, well not
most of us. I can't speak for everyone out there.
I know we have some horror ficionados out there there,
but a lot of us probably have an unofficial rule

(15:04):
of no haunted attractions in the house. Where we go
out to a haunted attraction. We go out to a
professional haunted house, but we don't bring professional gruls and
goblins into our home to jump scarce randomly, you know,
and if we were to do that, that would drastically
change the way we might think about our house.

Speaker 3 (15:22):
Yeah exactly. Now, of course this would change with the
advent of home video, you know, that sort of reshuffles everything,
But you can still think of ways in which TV
is a different video. I've said this on the show before,
but I'm often very partial to medium is the message
type thinking kind of mccluinist view that we really underappreciate

(15:44):
how much we're influenced not just by the content that
we consume, but by the format that that content takes. So,
you know, whatever technology or media we use to consume
it that shapes us almost as much as the content itself,
and shape shapes over time the form the content takes.

Speaker 2 (16:03):
Yeah. Yeah, this has certainly come up before when we've
talked about movies where certain changes were made because they
wanted to make sure that like the first ten minutes killed,
you know, so people wouldn't leave the theater, or I
seem to recall an example where they were like, well,
let's offset the big moment a little bit so that
people who are late to their seats don't miss out
on the excitement. Things like that, you know, and I

(16:26):
guess with TV horre you're also probably having a factor
in well, some people are coming in maybe thirty minutes
into it. You know, there's no definite start time. It's
not like they bought a ticket.

Speaker 3 (16:35):
Yeah, we'll come back to that in just a minute,
but I did want to say so. The authors here
have a sub section discussing horror within the history of
the made for TV movie, also known as the single play,
a single play as opposed to like a series or
a mini series, and so they write about how the
made for TV movie was especially popular in the nineteen

(16:57):
sixties and seventies, with major productions in being networks in
the United States like ABC and then in this case CBS,
and then of course in Britain as well with things
like ITV. ITV actually had armchair theater going back to
the nineteen fifties, so we established even earlier there. But

(17:17):
then the authors cite a scholar named Waller who cataloged
more than one hundred made for TV horror films that
premiered on primetime in the United States between nineteen sixty
eight and nineteen eighty seven, and that was kind of
surprising to me that there were that many because I
don't think of horror as the most popular genre of

(17:41):
made for TV movies. I mean, I tend to think
of made for TV movies as like, you know, your
kind of comedies and your family dramas and things like that.
They were made for TV. Horror felt like a more rare,
rare exploration. But in discussing these movies, Jowett and Abbott right.

Speaker 2 (17:58):
Quote.

Speaker 3 (17:58):
These films include at daptations of Gothic novels such as
Count Dracula nineteen seventy seven, Frankenstein nineteen seventy three. Oh,
I wonder if that's the one we were just talking about.
I believe, Yeah, the Turn of the Screw nineteen seventy four,
or original contemporary horror such as Fear No Evil nineteen

(18:19):
sixty nine, Duel nineteen seventy one. I believe that's an
early Steven Spielberg movie.

Speaker 2 (18:25):
Yeah, I believe Matheson either a script by Matheson or
it's based on a work by Matheson. I don't recall
at the top of my head.

Speaker 3 (18:32):
Yeah, and then their final example is Gargoyles from nineteen
seventy two, but the passage continues. Quote John Kenneth Muir
argues that in this period, television became increasingly graphic, and
that the turn toward darkness in TV horror represented, as
with cinematic horror, a shift in national mood, due at

(18:54):
least in part to the shocking and graphic news footage
coming back from the Vietnam War. It was as if
for the first time Americans were aware of a darker world,
and television reflected that shift in perspective.

Speaker 2 (19:09):
Hmm, that's fascinating. Now.

Speaker 3 (19:11):
Another thing they mentioned here is about the production mode
of made for TV horror films, which was in some
ways similar to that of a cinematic film, but usually
with a lower budget and a shorter production schedule. One
major format difference that we've already alluded to here is
the necessity of incorporating commercial breaks. Now, you might be thinking, like, a,

(19:34):
do you really need to plan out commercial breaks? From
a writing perspective, maybe you just write the story like
you would otherwise and let the breaks fall wherever.

Speaker 2 (19:43):
Okay, that's how we do the podcast.

Speaker 3 (19:46):
That sort of is how we do the podcast now.
But like the podcast is a conversational informational exploration, it's
really hard to do that if you are writing a fiction,
a fictional narrative where you're you're trying to control tension
and you're trying to build to climaxes and all that.
I mean, if you just if you literally just randomly

(20:08):
place commercial breaks within a story. In fact, we've seen
what this is like when that happens on, like, you know,
something like you're watching a maybe illicit stream of of
a movie or something, and the ads just pop in wherever.
It's hilarious.

Speaker 2 (20:24):
Yeah, yeah, you know, I was thinking about this recently
as well, not only in watching Gargoyles, which has these moments,
but also as a family we've been watching and for
my wife and I rewatching the sci fi series Firefly, Oh,
which you know I love back in the day. I'm
getting reacquainted with now. The footage is not the most

(20:44):
restored that I've seen, so it feels a little rough
around the edges and places, but still very fresh in
many other ways. But it has those those obvious, baked
in commercial breaks where things lead up, you know, you
get to kind of like a little crescendo and then
there's just a little bit darkarkness and then you come
back and you know, for someone like our kids, seemed

(21:04):
less and less of that, So they're like, what's what's
going on here? Why don't we keep having these moments?
So they go, yeah, those are commercial breaks. Those were
those were necessary, mandated and you know, clearly constructed around Yeah.

Speaker 3 (21:16):
So the authors of this book talk about how it's
been recognized for a while that, or at least argued
by other scholars previously, that the need for commercial breaks
is especially devastating to horror as a as a genre
for storytelling because it interrupts the narrative flow and the
building of tension that is supposed to take place in

(21:38):
a horror story. But also they cite again the scholar
named Waller who says that it's really a problem that
the advertisements coming in in the middle of the story
quote themselves serve as reassurance that all is well in
the world and I can see what's going on there.

(21:59):
But then coming back on the other side, the authors
talk about how writers try to get around this by
of course structuring the story with these kind of mini climaxes,
placing breaks after each one. That's like what you were
just talking about, you know, the where even when the
commercials are no longer present, you're just watching it as
one continuous thing. You can feel where the commercial breaks are.

Speaker 2 (22:20):
Yeah, and I have to admit at times watching Gargoles,
I really kind of wanted to see those commercials. What
would they have been, you know.

Speaker 3 (22:27):
I want to see commercials for Towbor, the International Ladies
Garment Workers Union, all the good ones. But anyway, this
got me thinking about how there are multiple ways to
write around the idea of commercial breaks. The authors here
are talking about trying to structure it with many climaxes
before a commercial break, so the break doesn't unnecessarily cut

(22:49):
into the tension you're building. But I was thinking about
how it's actually often the case that people will try
to have a commercial break occurring right at a moment
of suspense, you know, like the door is opening, and
then you cut to commercial to I guess the ideas
that will leave you hanging and make you avoid changing
the channel during the commercial because you want to see

(23:10):
what happens next. I think that can lead made for
TV horror to feel kind of hokey that often does
not play very well. But at the same time, in
rare cases, I think the juxtaposition between story and commercial
breaks can itself be uncanny, like made for TV horror

(23:33):
with commercial breaks works especially well. I think in stories
where everything seems to be right with the world, but
there are hidden threats lurking behind a facade of everyday life.
It's kind of making you question the sort of interactions
and media that you go through every single day. You know,
that can kind of play well when suddenly it cuts

(23:56):
away to people trying to manipulate you by capturing your
tension and selling you on something.

Speaker 2 (24:02):
I could see that definitely having been the case with
Death Moon. Because Death Moon if you don't familiar, if
you're not familiar with it or you don't remember the episode.
This is about an overworked man going on a vacation
to Hawaii where he begins to change into a werewolf.
Much of what occurs in the film, though, is exactly
the kind of life that advertisements might have been selling

(24:23):
you on. You know, like a successful single man, you know,
looking for love, you know, working hard, but trying to
play hard a little bit as well, but then also
changing into a murderous monster at night.

Speaker 3 (24:36):
Yeah, he's a dapper dan man, but yeah, gargoyles.

Speaker 2 (24:41):
I don't know, it's maybe a harder case than you made.

Speaker 3 (24:44):
Yeah, I don't think it really fits that. As I've said,
I do think Gargoyles is very entertaining. There are some
elements of it that kind of work pretty well as intended.
It's definitely funny in some ways. I don't know how well,
at least for me, it holds up as actual horror building,
actual horror tens. But I do want to say I

(25:08):
think there is a special esthetic weirdness, and more specifically,
I would say a bleakness to the handful of made
for TV horror movies that I've seen from the seventies.
I don't know if I have exactly the right words
to explain this, but as close as I can get
is a couple of things. One is that they often

(25:31):
kind of incorporate a slightly alarming feeling of numbness, like
a spiritual an hedonia. Do you know what I'm talking about?

Speaker 2 (25:40):
It all? Yeah? Yeah, I mean this. You know, it's
impossible to think about these pictures without thinking about, like,
what's going on in the nineteen seventies, late nineteen seventies,
early seventies. Wherever a predicture work particular work happens to fall.
You know, you know, what does it say about about
the zeitgeist at the time and the like the general

(26:03):
like feeling about the world and about your place in
the world. And I guess, you know, part of that
comes out of like like being a kid who was
born in the seventies. You know, it's kind of like
this is this is the world that I like emerge from,
Like this is the alchemy that produced me. It's like,
what does it say about the world I came from?
What does it say about who I am now? And
so forth?

Speaker 3 (26:24):
Yeah, Well, I don't mean this at all as a
commentary on you where the world you came from. But
the thing I mean is, I don't know, there's this
background feeling in these movies of kind of searching after
pleasures that can no longer satisfy or something like that,
this kind of emptiness and longing.

Speaker 2 (26:44):
Yeah, the post nineteen sixties world, you know, to invoke
the famous quote by Hunter S. Thompson, you know, after
the wave has has crested and fallen and fallen back
from where we are now. Yeah, often a sense of
that vibe. And at the same time there's also a

(27:04):
part of it again coming back to having been born
in the seventies, like, these pictures sort of feel like home,
and I want and I feel comfortable in them, and
they make me want to to some extent, not to
like a literal extent, but it makes me, to some
extent like want to crawl into them and inhabit that
world and find some sort of safety there that, of course,
you know, has no real connection to what the nineteen

(27:26):
seventies were actually like or certainly the world's depicted in
these films.

Speaker 3 (27:31):
I belong in this gargoyle cave. But the other thing
I was thinking is that because these made for TV
movies are restricted to FCC content standards, nothing ever gets
north of PG you know, they're fairly tame. This one
is often singled out for being especially frightening and violent

(27:51):
by TV standards, but even in this case, I would
say it is very tame compared to the horror movies
of the same time. In his you know this is
not The Exorcist.

Speaker 2 (28:03):
Oh certainly not.

Speaker 3 (28:04):
And because of that, there is counterintuitively a feeling of
restrained viciousness that is actually quite menacing when you focus
on it. It's like the made for TV horror movie
asks you to imagine the version of the story that
you could not be shown.

Speaker 2 (28:25):
Yeah, that's true, that's true.

Speaker 3 (28:27):
Anyway, That's all I've got on made for TV horror
right now. But maybe we can revisit this topic as.

Speaker 2 (28:31):
We go on. Oh absolutely, absolutely, and I'm sure it
will also come back to more made for TV horror
in the future.

Speaker 3 (28:37):
I mean, as we just read, there are at least
one hundred of them by nineteen eighty seven, so you.

Speaker 2 (28:42):
Know, there's some real dogs in there, but probably plenty
of other gems as well.

Speaker 3 (28:47):
Is Dracula's dog one of them?

Speaker 2 (28:49):
Ooh yeah, maybe so maybe, so we'll come back to
Dracula's dog in this episode. All right, elevator pitch. I'm
gonna invoke Jimmy Rodgers Desert Blues here and say, way
out on the windswept desert where nature favors no man,

(29:10):
the gargoyle found Diana at rest on the sun baked sand.
That's beautiful. Now, I do not have some trailer audio
to include here. I'd really hope to find a little
like CBS promo like tonight on the CBS New Tuesday
Night Movie, but I could not find anything. I found
some things that might have been legitimate trailers of the
day other things that were definitely creations from a later point,

(29:36):
so we'll just have to imagine what it might have
consisted of.

Speaker 3 (29:40):
See, this is what I want AI to help with.
When there's like footage that you know is out there
but doesn't have the proper metadata and you can't locate it,
that's what I want AI to help me do is
find that promo for the CBS movie.

Speaker 2 (29:54):
Oh well, sorry, it's gonna make whole podcasts instead. All right,
So if you you want to see Gargoyles, luckily it
is widely available, and it's been widely available for a while.
There have been a few different vhs and DVD releases.
Ideal viewing is of course, on an old school television set,
but you know, do what you can with what you have.

(30:15):
There's been no Blu ray release that I'm aware of,
and it's widely available on streaming right now, like various
legitimate streaming platforms have at you can. I think you
can find a few different versions of it on YouTube
as well.

Speaker 3 (30:27):
I'm sorry, you're not allowed to watch this movie unless
at least seventy percent of the mass of your TV
is wood.

Speaker 2 (30:34):
Yeah, yeah, big wooden television set let's serve you well
here all right, Well, let's get into the people behind
this picture, starting at the top with the director. It's
Bill Norton born nineteen forty three American director Norton. Here
was coming off of his most well regarded feature film,
his first nineteen seventy one Cisco Pike, starring Chris Kristofferson,
Karen Black, Harry Dean Stanton, and Gene Hackman. Rip'ed all

(30:59):
four of those individuals. Norton also co wrote the movie
Cisco Pike. Gargoyles was his follow up, and he went
on to direct More American Graffiti in seventy nine, as
well as another film that I've seen, Baby Secret of
the Lost Legend. This is a nineteen eighty five film
about people going to the jungle and finding a cute
baby dinosaur. Definitely watched this so on VHS as a kid,

(31:22):
and he also did a lot of TV work, both
series and films. His credits include episodes of Buffy the
Vampire Slayer as well as the nineteen eighties Twilight Zone revival.

Speaker 3 (31:33):
Okay, I looked up Baby Secret of the Lost Legend.
I want to assure people it's cuter than what I
had in mind, which was the baby from the TV
show Dinosaurs.

Speaker 2 (31:43):
Yeah, this is a different baby dinosaur. This is like
Brontosaurus or something to that effect, some sort of sarapot.

Speaker 3 (31:50):
The original poster for it is kind of nice. It
has that old school jungle adventure look. A more recent
poster for it. I guess this is box art for
a re release of the DVD. Seems to steal the
visual theme of Jurassic Park.

Speaker 2 (32:05):
Oh well, you know, it made sense. It's like, look
around and see, wow, this dinosaur movie is really making
a lot of money. Well, we have one already on
the shelf, ready to go. Let's go ahead and bust
it out. I don't remember anything else about it except
scenes where they're engaging with the dinosaur in the jungle.

Speaker 3 (32:24):
As I said, haven't seen it, but it looks to
me like it fits in the e Walk adventure kind
of market.

Speaker 2 (32:30):
Yeah, yeah, definitely. With a score by Jerry Goldsman. All right,
moving on to the writing. This is the work of
the husband and wife writing duo of Stephen Karf and
Eleanor Karf. Stephen was born in nineteen thirty nine. Eleanor
lived nineteen thirty nine through twenty thirteen. Their credits include

(32:50):
the nineteen eighties daytime soap opera Capital, four, episodes of
Kung Fu, and the nineteen seventy eight TV movie Devil
Dog the Hound of Hell starring Krenna.

Speaker 3 (33:01):
Oh that's the one we keep thinking is called Dracula's Dog.

Speaker 2 (33:04):
No, this is a different one. Oh yeah, there's Devil
Dog Hound of Hell. And then there's Dracula's Dog, which
we will come back to in a bit because it
also is connected to this movie. And so.

Speaker 3 (33:16):
I can't even count our blessings today.

Speaker 2 (33:20):
All right. Getting into the cast top build is Cornell Wilde,
playing the character of doctor Mercer Bowley. Wild lived nineteen
twelve through nineteen eighty nine. Hungarian born American actor of stage, screen,
and TV, who is nominated for an Oscar for nineteen
forty six. Is A Song to Remember, in which he
starred and nominated for a Hugo Award in nineteen seventy four,

(33:44):
No Blade of Grass, which he directed. His uncredited acting
where it goes back to the mid nineteen thirties and
it's His actual credits include nineteen fifty two's The Greatest
Show on Earth and episodes of Such TV shows as
I Love Lucy Night Gallery, Fantasy Island, and Murder, she wrote.
He's also in Charles B. Pearce's nineteen seventy eight Viking
movie The Norseman.

Speaker 3 (34:05):
Oh I've never seen that, but that's been on my
radar for a while. Charles B. Pearce is the buggy
Creek guy.

Speaker 2 (34:11):
Right correct, Yes, yeah, yeah, yeah. He did one Viking epic.
So there's a lot to say about this character, not
really as much as say about the performance. I mean,
Cornell wild is fine in this.

Speaker 3 (34:25):
He's playing it just right down the middle.

Speaker 2 (34:27):
Right down the middle he does. There is a major
you know, I could be shirtless in this scene energy
in this film, which makes sense once he takes his
shirt off. So he was in his sixties at this point,
and I was looking back at I wasn't super familiar
with Cornell Wilde's work, but looking back through his filmography,
he was off in shirtless. So you know, kudos to

(34:48):
him for being in such great shape at age sixty.

Speaker 3 (34:51):
I can't believe he's in his sixties, can't believe how
good he looks. I was thinking he did not look
old enough to be Jennifer Saltz's Cater's dad, Like, yeah,
she's She's apparently supposed to be like thirty, and I
was reading him as like, I don't know, early forties.

Speaker 2 (35:08):
Yeah, yeah, yeah, I mean that's one of the reasons
he had such a long career. But the character here,
there's much, there's much, I don't know how much we
want to get into right now, but he's maybe not
the most likable protagonists. Like not to say he's in
like full blown anti hero domain or anything, but a

(35:29):
lot of a lot of questions early on, like this
is really the guy we're gonna stick with? This is
our hero.

Speaker 3 (35:34):
This is not on Cornell Wilde as an actor, but
just the way the character is written is strange. He's
characterized oddly from the get go with the they make
some strange choices about his level of sincerity in his
own work, and then also at the end, yeah he
he you really get into like, wait, who's the real

(35:55):
bad guy here? Territory that does not seem to be
acknowledged by the film.

Speaker 2 (36:00):
Yeah, yeah, I agree. Now, playing his daughter, Diana, who
we just mentioned, is Jennifer Salt born nineteen forty two
American actress who previously appeared in nineteen sixty Nine's A
Midnight Cowboy, which her father Waldo Salt wrote the Academy
Award winning screenplay for. She was also in seventy two's
Played Again Sam for TV and sixty five episodes of

(36:23):
the TV series Soap. She's remained very active as a producer,
and this is interesting talking about TV horror because she
is Slash was a producer on American Horror Story, which
is in a totally different TV horror ecosystem than what
we have in the nineteen seventies, but notable.

Speaker 3 (36:43):
Nonetheless, you know who though in this would really fit
in on the season of American Horror Story would be
Grayson Hall as Miss Parks. Doesn't that Oh?

Speaker 2 (36:52):
Yes?

Speaker 3 (36:53):
Like an American Horror Story character.

Speaker 2 (36:55):
I would say, yeah, out out of the characters we encounter, definitely,
definitely speaking yeah of Grayson Hall, her character Miss Parks.
This is our noisy hotel lady who is always nursing
a water glass half full of dark liquor.

Speaker 3 (37:10):
You know, Julian from Trailer Park Boys.

Speaker 2 (37:16):
Yeah, yeah. So. Grayson Hall lived nineteen twenty two through
nineteen eighty five an American actress who was nominated for
an Oscar for her supporting role in nineteen sixty five's
The Night of the Iguana, directed by John Houston, and
she's perhaps best known for playing the psychologist doctor Julia
Hoffman on TV's Dark Shadows and the nineteen seventy movie

(37:37):
House of Dark Shadows. I'm only vaguely familiar with the
Dark Shadows world via seeing like bits and pieces of
episode I think on the Sci Fi Channel back in
the nineties, but this was apparently a major character. This
was essentially, i think, originally sort of a Van Helsing
sort of character who becomes more of a collaborator with

(37:58):
the family of supernatural characters. Huh. Grayson Hall also appeared
in nineteen sixty two Satan in High Heels and nineteen
sixty five's That Darn Cat. I hear, it's pretty darned yeah,
But in this film, definite character work, you know, and
it's it's amusing for what it is.

Speaker 3 (38:17):
So you mentioned she has a glass of liquor in
her hand in all of her scenes, which starts off being,
you know, she's in her apartment, or then she's walking
next door from her apartment to another apartment, but it
becomes increasingly absurd because in later scenes she's that way,
like in a police station or like getting into a
truck as a passenger.

Speaker 2 (38:37):
Yeah, it's like it's glued to her hand or something.
It's absolutely part of her ensemble the whole time, all right,
playing the gargoyle, not the only gargoyle in the picture,
but the main gargoyle. The leader of the gargoyles is
Bernie Casey, who of nineteen thirty nine through twenty seventeen
NFL Pro football player turn actor, artist and poet. He

(38:59):
had to look up at the football details here for sure,
but he apparently played for the forty nine Ers and
the Rams, not at the same time, like one and
then the other. I don't remember which one came first.
I think forty nine Ers first, then the Rams played
for them in the nineteen sixties, and then made the
transition into acting first with nineteen sixty nine's Guns of
the Magnificent Seven. So at this point in his career

(39:20):
he'd had a string of credits, but it was still
pretty early, and this might be part of the reason
I'm guessing why his voice ends up being cut. More
on that in a minute. But we don't actually hear
Bernie Casey in the picture it's but still it's a
solid physical monster suit performance. Bernie Casey was like six',
four you, know and you, know strongly, built so he

(39:44):
occupies that monster suit rather well and looms very well
over the human. Characters also has very expressive eyes that work.
Well you, know all this works well to establish the
presence of the lead. Gargoyle.

Speaker 3 (39:56):
YEAH i would say this is one of those cases
where the performance comes through even though the actor is
hidden behind makeup in a costume and we're not hearing
their original. Voice you. Know Some santo movies we've watched
are like, that where like a physical performance is good
enough that it gets through all of the apparatus and
through the.

Speaker 2 (40:16):
Dubbing, yeah, YEAH i, mean and again coming back To spanish,
cinema Like Paul, nashy we almost never Hear Paul nashiy's actual,
voice and the same goes for a number Of spanish
actors at the. Time, so but, yeah So Bernie casey
is our. Gargoyle early on in his, career he appeared
in such black'sploitation pit titles As Black chariot seventy, One
Cleopatra jones seventy, three as well as seventy six Is

(40:39):
Doctor Black Mister hyde that we've mentioned that, before because
that was the follow up To blackula by Director William,
crane WHICH i haven't seen. Yet i've got the disc
but i've heard good things about, it AND i haven't
seen these other pictures THAT i just mentioned. Either and you,
know as we've talked about before when we've brought up

(40:59):
blacks exploitation cinema is that sometimes that's kind of a big,
tint and it may include films that are more or
less in the exploitive category of, things you. Know SO
i can't speak to any of these pictures, individually except
For Black, elow which we did an episode on last
year and recently re. Ran but out of This Bernie

(41:20):
casey ends up moving into all manner of, films Including
The Man Who fell To, earth which we previously discussed
On Weird, house a small but poignant. Part he won
a nineteen seventy FOUR Naacp Image award for his role In,
maury in which he starred Opposite Bose, vincent who is
Not frankenstein's monster in that. Picture subsequent film roles included

(41:41):
eighty One Sharky's, machine eighty Three's Never Say, Never, AGAIN
A James bond, picture eighty Four's revenge of The, nerds eighty,
Eight So I'm going To Get you sucka eighty Nine's
bill And Ted's Excellent adventure nineteen nineties and other forty Eight,
hours ninety, Twos Under, siege ninety five's in The mouth Of,
madness ninety Six's once on A Time When We Were,
colored and his final film was two thousand and Seven's Vegas.

(42:04):
Vampires he also did a fair amount OF tv, work
including seventy One's Brian, song nineteen, Eighties The Martian chronicles
based on the work Of Ray, bradberry And Star Trek
Deep space, nine among. Others Now. Again in this, picture
he is. Dubbed he's dubbed By Vic, perrin who's also
the narrator at the beginning of the. Picture paren lived
nineteen sixteen through nineteen eighty, nine perhaps best known as

(42:27):
the control voice on the Original Outer. Limits you know
we control the, horizontal we control the. Vertical he also
appeared on SUCH tv series as the Original Star trek
and the Original Mission.

Speaker 3 (42:36):
Impossible they give him a real metallic voice in, this don't?
They he almost sounds like HE'S i don't, know echoing
through a ten box or.

Speaker 2 (42:45):
Something, YEAH i can't SAY i loved, it BUT i
mean it works well. Enough AND i don't know what
the original audio sounded. LIKE i Think i've read that
the filmmakers just thought that the original vocal performs didn't
match the creature that they were, creating and you, know
they decided they needed to go With Vic. Pearen SO

(43:06):
i don't. Know and again early on in the career
of the Actor Bernie casey, here SO i don't know
if that played into it at all as.

Speaker 3 (43:12):
Well, well no offense To Vic, peren but give us
The Bernie casey. Cut give it to us, cowards you've got.

Speaker 2 (43:18):
It, YEAH i Mean Bernie casey had a great, voice
so you, Know i'd like to hear. It BUT i
looked around for, it in, fact BUT i couldn't find
any evidence of. It All, right moving on through the cast,
here we also Have Scott glenn popping up playing the Character.
James what is this Reager? Reger, yeah one of the
dirt bike.

Speaker 3 (43:37):
Boys we didn't mention right at the top that this
in some ways is a gargoyles versus bikers.

Speaker 2 (43:43):
Movie, yes, Yeah, eventually the threat of The gargoyles will
unite the natural enemies of bikers and cops will come
together to battle the gargoyle. Menace So Scott, GLENN i,
think is a name THAT i think most of you
are probably familiar, with perhaps born in nineteen thirty, nine
Though i've seen some pages and databases that are a

(44:05):
little vague on, this as if it's. Unknown but he
is still alive because he's very, Active like he's just
in THE tv Series Bad, monkey WHICH i really, enjoyed
and also he's in the latest season Of The White,
lotus so again very. Active Great american character, actor perhaps
most appreciated for those grizzled character roles that he would
do a mid and later, career but his, SCREEN tv

(44:28):
And broadway credits go back to the mid, sixties so
he'd already been in a handful of things Before. Gargoyles
he went on to appear In Apocalypse now in seventy,
nine which was kind of a shock to me because
he's largely unrecognizable to my eyes, anyway he's, bearded he's
kind of not one of the more prominent, characters but
he is in.

Speaker 3 (44:47):
IT i don't remember that.

Speaker 2 (44:50):
He's in More American, graffiti nineteen Eighty's Urban, cowboy and
he Plays rick in the nineteen eighty Two John frankenheimer
Kickboxer samurai Film The. Challenge, YEAH i haven't seen, it
But i'm familiar with. IT i Think i've watched the
trailer a few. Times but things really picked up at
this point in his career because He's the subsequent pictures
he was in included nineteen eighty Three Is The Right,

(45:12):
stuff in which he Plays Alan. Shepard he's In Michael
Mann's The, keep and his other credits include eighty Five, silverado,
Nineties The hunt For Red october ninety, One The silence
of The lambs two thousand and One's Training, day and
SUCH tv shows As, Daredevil The, leftovers and Again Bad.
Monkey in the latest season Of White.

Speaker 3 (45:30):
Lotus, Uh i'm not gonna Say scott glenn is swinging
for the fences in this. Movie he's it feels like
he's just kind of turning in a workaday. Performance but
he's a good, actor so he does better than you
might imagine selling lines about you, know he's like in
a prison cell talking To Jennifer salt about whether gargoyles are,

(45:51):
real and he at one point he hasked to say
something like they were attacked by one of those gar,
things and you know he's making it.

Speaker 2 (45:59):
Through, Yeah let's see a couple of small. Performers i'm
including them because you did a screenshot of their credit
at the. End we HAVE tv style credits at the
end of this picture where we see their picture in

(46:21):
the name of the actor the name of the. Character
we Have William stevens playing Police. Chief dates unknown as
far AS i could tell on this, actor mostly A
tv player whose credits include the Original Outer limits in
nineteen seventy One's The Mephisto. Waltz and then we also
Have John gruber Playing, jesse another cop who lived nineteen
forty two through nineteen eighty, one mostly A tv player

(46:43):
whose credits Include Night. Gallery now this according TO. IMDb
i have not been able to verify this, elsewhere BUT
IMDb claims that he is the father Of Joshua, todd
the lead singer often shirtless of the Band Buck. Cherry
AND i have to say this feels too random to
not be, true so please correct me If i'm wrong out,

(47:06):
there But i'm going to at least for now accept
this is.

Speaker 3 (47:10):
Reality it would be a hilarious project to just make
up facts like.

Speaker 2 (47:14):
That, YEAH i, MEAN i think people are that. Bored
they've done it before ON. IMDb so that's WHY i
do want to add the caveat that this might not be,
true but it also feels too weird and specific to
be anything but.

Speaker 3 (47:26):
Reality you know this seventies actor you've never heard. Of
he's the dad of the like the cocaine.

Speaker 2 (47:32):
Guy so, wait, wait they had a song about.

Speaker 3 (47:35):
Cocaine that's the One Buck cherry. SONG i know you
know what the song. IS i love the. Cocaine oh,
MAN i.

Speaker 2 (47:42):
Don't maybe maybe We're i'm remembering the same, song BUT
i didn't know what they were saying in. IT i
haven't thought About Buck cherry in a long. TIME i
just remember that he was like shirtless in the music.
VIDEOS i think we've got a lot of tattoos. Done, yeah,
yeah shirtless and, tattooed all? Right and then uh, oh
we have the character Of Uncle willie played By woodrow

(48:02):
Or Woody, chambliss who lived nineteen fourteen through nineteen eighty,
One american character actor of, stage, screen AND tv who
made numerous memorable appearances on THE tv Western gun. Smoke
and you know he has already popped up on Weird
house because he plays a very similar role In The
Devil's rain from nineteen seventy.

Speaker 3 (48:20):
Five oh, yeah, yeah he just really slots right in
as the kind of weird old desert. Codure.

Speaker 2 (48:28):
Yeah you need a weird old dude in the desert
mumbling about dark, secrets, well then call call Up woody
because he'll he can totally do. It his other credits
include nineteen fifty seven's three ten To yuma and nineteen
seventy Eight Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Hearts Club, band which of
course Starred Peter frampton and The. Begies i'm ALWAYS i

(48:51):
have had that revelation many times over the years that
this is not a movie with the Actual beatles in.

Speaker 3 (48:56):
It, well you know what the song, Says Sergeant pepper
he taught the band, play so it's you, know it's
like the second. Generation.

Speaker 2 (49:03):
YEAH i Think woody plays the like the Senior Sargant
peppers in, that BUT i Can't i've never seen, it
SO i can't say much on, that BUT i will
say That woody's a lot of fun in. THIS i
feel like it's perhaps the best performance in the whole, movie,
though as you mentioned, earlier it does change drastically over
the course of a commercial. Break.

Speaker 3 (49:21):
Yeah he goes from shrewdly negotiating a book deal to
suddenly just being like shaky and drunk and clearly making
up lies about something about like folklore he was.

Speaker 2 (49:32):
Told, yeah and he also goes from being like, like,
hey you need to help me write my book to
you believe me or you get out of my shed right,
Now and it happens rather rather. Swiftly, yeah all. Right
we mentioned that Stan winston was behind the look of the. Creatures,
indeed he is credited with The gargoyle. Makeup Stan winston

(49:52):
lived nineteen forty six through two thousand and. Eight legendary,
name multiple Time Oscar award winner and nominee for such
films as eighty Seven's alien, Eight, predator ninety One's Edward Scissor,
hands ninety Twos terminator, two and ninety Four's Jurassic. Park
he had studied sculpture and moved To hollywood to pursue
a career in, acting but ended up taking a makeup
apprenticeship At Walt Disney. Studios gargoyles was his first, picture

(50:15):
and he followed this up with a number of early
pictures of, note including nineteen seventy four as The Bat,
people WHICH i believe that one was featured On Mystery
Science theater and handsome as you'd, expect cool monster. Effects
he also did makeup on nineteen seventy Six's Doctor Black Mister,
hyde which we just. Mentioned his mini credits range from
small pictures to big, ones from serious dramas without any

(50:38):
kind of speculative element to just, horror sci fi and
fantasy pictures with extravagant visions of monsters and robots and
what have. You as a, director he gave us a
handful of, films including nineteen eighty Eight's. PUMPKINHEAD i will
also throw in, That. Yes his other credits include nineteen
seventy Seven's Dracula's dog Aka zoltan Of dracula.

Speaker 3 (51:01):
Aka a different movie than the other one we, mentioned.

Speaker 2 (51:04):
Right, Right, yeah they're a number OF i don't, know
is this like canine'sploitation. Cinema there's like a whole supernatural
dog cinematic universe out. There during the seventies and.

Speaker 3 (51:16):
Eighties Satanicus, Rex The Bow wow Of.

Speaker 2 (51:19):
Hell all, right and then finally the. Music the composer
here Is Robert, prince who lived nineteen twenty nine through
two thousand and. Seven and you, KNOW i often talk
about films that have a nineteen Seventies Night gallery, sound you,
know kind of slightly, surreal slightly disturbing music that's maybe
a little bit, jazzy AND i honestly can't get enough

(51:42):
of it with these. Films but today's selection certainly has that,
sound and the man responsible for it actually composed music
for episodes Of Night, gallery so not the theme song
From Night, gallery but he did do the episode music
for three season one. EPISODES i would say.

Speaker 3 (52:00):
The music In gargoyles is for what it, is it's pretty.
Good there aren't really any especially memorable themes or melodies
or anything like, that but a lot of it's just
kind of, eerie ambient, sound and for that it's pretty.

Speaker 2 (52:17):
GOOD i wonder how much of That AND i don't
know enough about how theme songs and episodic episodic music
worked ON tv in the, day BUT i wonder how
much of it was Around like you're not supposed to
stand out in the episode, itself like you don't want,
to you don't want to interfere with the theme. Song
like the theme song is doing the heavy lifting and

(52:38):
you're just here to add the necessary ambiance and emotional
support throughout the. Episode, uh and maybe that's part of
the character of what we have. Here you, know we
don't have something that feels like The gargoyles theme. Song
though what if we, did that would be amazing as
well with the. Lyrics, yeah but. Anyway prince worked also
worked on THE Tv Richard mathieson anthology Series circle Of,

(53:01):
fear which is hosted hosted by The Sebastian. Cabot he
worked mostly IN, tv but also scored a pair of
noteworthy nineteen seventy six, films the black exploitation horror Film
JD's revenge And Jeff Lieberman's.

Speaker 3 (53:14):
Squirm, Sorry i'm distracted thinking about what nineteen seventies rocker
would write the Best gargoyles theme. Song i'm kind of
thinking in The Steve miller. Zone. Yeah can can you
imagine that it's a sort of jaded seventies rock?

Speaker 2 (53:32):
Tune? Yeah, yeah, YEAH i could see that. Working Like
i'm instantly reminded of the nineteen seventy one film Zat
or The bloodwaters Of DOCTOR z which we've talked, about
which has that great theme song that is really like
all about sympathizing with the villain of the picture in
ways that the picture maybe doesn't completely back. Up SO

(53:54):
i could see something like that working, here some sort
of folksy ballad about the plight of the car. Coil
what's that?

Speaker 3 (53:59):
One that was Like World war three boy or? Something
World war two?

Speaker 2 (54:02):
Boy that's World war two? Boy oh, yeah and, Yeah
i'm trying to remember who did that. Offhand jamie, Defrates jamie,
Defrats that's who it. Was sache through the.

Speaker 3 (54:11):
Sarcasm, okay you ready to talk about the?

Speaker 2 (54:14):
Plot, yeah, yeah let's dive right in with some.

Speaker 3 (54:17):
Woodcuts, yeah so we get a cold open with The
Outer limits voiceover. Narration it's that metallic electronic sound Of
vic Paren, right he's the one doing, It, yeah, yeah
talking at us, forcefully while we see various images of,
yeah old, woodcuts paintings with demonic. Themes there's definitely some

(54:37):
bosh in, there and also photos of grotesque statues on cathedral.
Architecture the very first critter we see is kind of interesting.
LOOKING i don't know what this is, from but it
looks like a cross between a lamb's face and The
Lance henrickson morph of pumpkinhead for Another Stan winston tie.

Speaker 2 (54:55):
In oh it, does doesn't. It, Yeah but.

Speaker 3 (54:57):
ALSO i pulled out a screenshot for you to look at, Here.
ROB i like the demon with the kind of, lumpy bulbous.
Face it's kind of a tumor. Face AND i did
a reverse image search and found, nothing so this could
be original to the. MOVIE i don't.

Speaker 2 (55:10):
Know, yeah it almost looks like a, Tattoo like it's
a picture of somebody's like abs or. SOMETHING i don't.

Speaker 3 (55:16):
Know, yeah, Anyway i've got to read the opening narration
because this will lay the. Groundwork So Vic parrin, says
as if speaking through kind of decaying, Circuitry parents, says
the devil was once the most favored of the host
of angels serving The, lord but pride welled in his.

(55:37):
Breast he thought it unseemly for him to serve the
devil in his band of, followers who likewise suffered the
sin of, pride were defeated in battle by The lord
and his, host and were banished to the outermost depths Of,
hell never to know the presence of The, lord or
look on heaven, again smarting with his, wounds but all

(55:58):
the more swollen with the devil cried out from the.
Depths it is better to rule in hell than serve in.

Speaker 2 (56:05):
Heaven all, right so you know thus, far you know
there's a very strong paradise lost theme here.

Speaker 3 (56:13):
Exactly war in, heaven the, demons the rebellious, angels are.
Defeated they fall to. Pandemonium and, yeah better to serve in,
hell or rule in, hell than serve in. Heaven but
it goes, on it says the devil proclaimed what was
lost in heaven would be gained on. Earth he, said my,
offspring the gargoyles will one day rule The lord's works

(56:34):
earth and. Man and so it came to pass that
while man ruled on, earth the gargoyles, waited, lurking hidden
from the. Light reborn every six hundred years in man's
reckoning of, time the gargoyles joined battle against man to
gain dominion over the. Earth in each, coming the gargoyles

(56:56):
were nearly destroyed by, men who flourished in greater. Numbers
now it has been so many hundreds of years that
it seems the ancient statues and paintings of gargoyles are
just products of man's. Imagination in this, year with man's
thoughts turned toward the many ills he has brought upon,
himself man has forgotten his most ancient, adversary the. Gargoyles

(57:21):
this is funny to me in so many. Ways first of,
all no acknowledgment really of the architectural, connection except that
it says like it says, now it's been many hundreds of.
Years it seems the statues and paintings are just. Imagination
SO i guess it's saying every six hundred years of
what from nineteen seventy, Two that would mean in thirteen
seventy two the gargoyles were, last they emerged and were,

(57:44):
defeated people made statues and, paintings and then since thirteen
seventy two people were, like, ah that was all just made. Up,
also the movie seems to simply believe gargoyle equals. Demon
it's just the.

Speaker 2 (57:58):
Same, so of, course feels like one of the most
tacked on intro narration bits That i've ever, heard you,
know where someone's, like, yeah we really need something to
the beginning to draw folks in and let them know
what's to, Come so let's bring In vic paren and
have him or read, something write something up for.

Speaker 3 (58:15):
Me, yeah you've got to kind of reconcile everything also
while that's going. On so AGAIN i, said we see
a bunch of these paintings and, stuff BUT i wanted
to pull out rob one picture that was pretty. Good
who's this, like shirtless guy who's laying back while just
a stream of unidentified liquid pours into his. Mouth.

Speaker 2 (58:33):
Nice, NICE i feel like this was partially. Recreated And
labyrinth there's a scene where goblins drinking drippings from some
sort of a. Barrel but, yeah we see a lot
of horrific imagery in the, background some of it like
ultimately a little harder than anything we see later. On
but it makes sense if you're wanting to get something

(58:54):
right there at the top to let folks know that
they're in for a demonic horror, picture even if it's
going to be mostly boring desert scene at. First this
is a pretty cheap way to do, It like have
narration that mentions the devil and all, this and then
throw in a bunch of clip, art you, know a
bunch of you, know old woodcuts and details From bosh
paintings that're gonna really drive that home for. Folks.

Speaker 3 (59:16):
Yeah, so, anyway once the ancient mariner has let go
of our arms and stopped yelling at, us we plunk
down on an airstrip in The American southwest and we
see like there's a single engine prop plane coming to
a stop in the, foreground a bigger passenger plane landing
in the, background and the title of the movie slams
up on the screen in the same green slime font

(59:39):
used for The goosebumps.

Speaker 2 (59:40):
Books this font just screams. Fun i'm not saying that
fun will necessarily be had in the opening sequences of this,
picture but the font is very.

Speaker 3 (59:50):
Fun so we come up on a park lot next
to the airstrip and Here's Cornell. Wild he parks his,
car which is a sort of, pale, drab toothpaste foam
green color of station, wagon and he gets. Out he's

(01:00:11):
waiting for. Somebody one THING i briefly wanted to flag
just because it interested. ME i noticed while pausing and
taking screenshots of this movie that there are different visual
artifacts than WHAT i usually see WHEN i pause a.
MOVIE i paused it here With Cornell wild in motion
running from his, car and he's, blurry which is not,

(01:00:33):
surprising but the way that he's blurry is that he
seems to be surrounded by a haze of, horizontal dark
spines protruding from the outline of his, body almost taking
the form of a sort of data. Pinhead i've got
a zoom in here for you to look. AT i

(01:00:54):
don't know exactly what causes, this BUT i have to
suspect it has to do with the fact that this
movie was made FOR, tv so maybe it was shot
on a different kind of, camera maybe A tv video
camera of the kind of maybe shot on video to
magnetic tape instead of to. Film AND i don't really,
know BUT i thought that was. Interesting.

Speaker 2 (01:01:12):
Yeah, YEAH i don't THINK i did much pausing on.
MINE i wasn't getting any screen caps at, all SO
i didn't notice, this but this is a great point.

Speaker 3 (01:01:21):
Anyway the character played By Cornell wilde is Again Professor Mercer,
bully and the person he is waiting for here at
the airstrip is his adult, Daughter Diana bully played By Jennifer,
salt and she gets off the. Plane we see her like,
disembarking and she is clutching in the crook of her
arm a cat sized demon. Statue so she meets up

(01:01:43):
with her father and they hug and have their you,
know they're, reunited and he, Says i'm so glad you
decided to join me and bring Me. Calamudri and we see.
This we never get a really good look at this,
statue but it does look tremendous from from the angles
we do get And, rob you ended up digging up
something about where this demon statue came.

Speaker 2 (01:02:04):
From, YEAH i mean part of. IT i didn't remember
that i'd seen this, before BUT i. WASN'T i didn't
remember all the plot, elements AND i WAS i was
looking Up calumudry Because i'm, like all, right this is
going to factor into the plot, Maybe AND i was
curious if this name had any actual connection to demons
in any culture, mythology AND i don't think it. Does

(01:02:26):
BUT i ended up running across the details of the
sculpture that we see. Here as it turns, out the
sculpture of the demon in question was made By california
based Artist Jim. Rump that's R U. M P h
who lived nineteen forty two through nineteen ninety three and
as far AS i can tell he was a mad
potter in the grand tradition of mad potters for.

Speaker 3 (01:02:47):
Sure, yeah there's a there's like a website about his
career THAT i didn't get all that deep, into but
it just it exudes weird.

Speaker 2 (01:02:56):
Wildness that's, right the rump dot. Com so that's thhg
R u m P h dot. COM i highly recommend
checking it. Out you can see a lot of his work.
There so he was highly active in the late sixties
and the seventies and the, eighties and he worked out
of his own Slime factory studio In Santa. Monica that's
s L y by the. Way AND i even found

(01:03:18):
a business card printed on cardboard for The Slime factory
there for, You. Joe it has the original address AND
i think phone number of the studio AND i looked
it up to see what's there, today and it's you,
know it's like a modern house or condo or. Something
but back in the, day this is where the Slime factory,
was and it's where it, apparently from WHAT i could
gather on the, website various counterculture bohemian artists seem to

(01:03:41):
gather for what was called The Mind. Circus according to
the rump Dot, com this is Where jim created all
manner of, sculptures from like demon helms and wizard bongs
to officially Licensed Star wars. Tankards so you, know we're
talking like Handcrafted Star wars mugs straight from the. Kiln

(01:04:02):
and apparently the situation here is Like lucas knew of his.
Work George lucas like officially allowed him to produce these
as Licensed Star wars memorabilia in the late nineteen seventies
or early.

Speaker 3 (01:04:16):
EIGHTIES i could be wrong about, this but from my,
understanding that is a rare, honor like not Have lucas say, like, uh,
oh you can't do.

Speaker 2 (01:04:26):
That, yeah But i've seen some pictures of and some of.
Them a lot of his work is readily available On,
eBay like he can pick up A rump mug or
What i'm believed to be an Official rump mug for
like twenty. Bucks but if you want to get A
Star wars one like An obi Wan, kenobi you're looking
at two hundred bucks. Thereabouts look, around explore the world

(01:04:47):
for yourself if you want to invest in some, art
but they're at the slime. Factory according to The rump
dot Com they also made casts of everyone's navels so
they could display them on the. Wall and, yeah it
sounds like he was a real wild. Character and, Yeah
i've just found it really interesting that this one little
sculpture that doesn't factor into the plot much at all at. All,
yeah has this connection to this underground artist who seems

(01:05:11):
to have enjoyed us a kind of a resurgence in recent.
Years according to that, website like a lot of people
have kind of forgotten About Jim rump and a lot
of it's you, know coalescing once. More but that website
includes listings for not only the sculpture we see, here
but also like a painting or drawling THAT i guess
was kind of like the concept art for the.

Speaker 3 (01:05:31):
Piece well Maybe Jennifer salt's character is supposed to be
a friend Of.

Speaker 2 (01:05:36):
Rump's maybe, SO i, mean she seems like a free spirited.
GAL i don't know where she's flying in. From he's
got some hippie.

Speaker 3 (01:05:43):
Energy, yeah. Yea so she gives it to her, Dad Mercer,
bolli and he's, like oh Boyd he like puts it
in a box and he, Says calimudri will just about
complete my collection of. Demons so through dialogue we learn
a bit about their family. Situation mercer And diana's mother
are now divorced and the mother has, remarried and it's

(01:06:06):
discussed That diana and her mother don't see each other.
Much diana seems to be maybe in her like late
twenties or maybe about. Thirty and we are going to
learn That mercer is a professor who, researches it seems
both archaeology and, anthropology AND i guess also like folklore under,
anthropology and he writes books for a. Living and this

(01:06:28):
involves a lot of. Travel so it used to be
normal For diana and her mother to accompany him on
these research, trips but that hasn't happened in a, while
and Now diana is excited to join her dad for
a new. Project it's not spelled out, explicitly, well it nearly.
IS i think she is a photographer who takes pictures
that will be used in his. Books did you understand

(01:06:50):
it that?

Speaker 2 (01:06:50):
Way? Right? Right, yeah he's put working on the next,
book like That's ali makes The bacon and he needs
some photographs of something going out into the field to
get some content for the next.

Speaker 3 (01:07:04):
Book so they're about to talk more about, that but
before we get, THERE i have to MENTION i typically
am going to avoid making fun of the appearance of child,
actors BUT i have to point out there's this kid
in the. Background like the way the light is falling
on this blonde child with dark. Eyes he looks like
he's like sorting through the baggage card at the, airport

(01:07:26):
and he looks like the spawn Of Rutger hower And Emperor.
PALPATINE i was confused by this kid because at, first
like AS i was beginning to sort of ease into.

Speaker 2 (01:07:35):
The, PICTURE i thought this kid was with, them and
THEN i even thought he was in the station wagon with. Them,
later because it looks like there's something moving in the
back of the station, WAGON i was, like, oh as a, Person,
yeah So i'm, LIKE i guess this is the younger.
Brother but then THEN i realized, later, like, no this
kid has no connection to these, characters so he's just.
Gone we never see him.

Speaker 3 (01:07:53):
Again, yeah bye. Bye, Anyway mercer And diana they get
in the station, wagon they drive off into the desert
and then chat awkward About mercer's career for the benefit
of the. Audience ROB i think you were calling attention
to some of these dialogue scenes in the car at
the beginning as being especially. Funny.

Speaker 2 (01:08:10):
Yeah, yeah we have some sequences where it's just the
station wagon driving, along no interior shots and his dialogue. Voiceover,
yeah we eventually do enter the vehicle with them for.
Conversations and, YEAH i enjoy all of the scenes with
the station, wagon including some later on that are very
GARTH marangi dark. Place oh, like it's clearly like filmed,

(01:08:34):
inside with people shaking the car on both, sides with.

Speaker 3 (01:08:37):
The gargoyles clinging to the roof that's obviously secured there
by some. Anyway so we learn from their dialogue That
Mercer bowley, is AS i, said archaeologist and, anthropologist but
his work focuses especially on demons and, monsters and he
is not just your average. Academic he is a media

(01:08:58):
superstar who writes best selling books and he gets booked
ON tv talk. Shows apparently his gig is telling people that, demons,
devils and witchcraft are not, real they are only. Superstition
so they're they're setting him up as a kind Of
James randy Of satanic. Monsterdom you may think demons and

(01:09:20):
devils and monsters are, real but they're.

Speaker 2 (01:09:22):
Not. Yeah you can imagine him even being On carson
back in the, day like you, know like A Late
Tonight show guest that pops up and has some fun
With johnny talking about some demon like maybe he even
brings in this.

Speaker 3 (01:09:35):
Sculpture but Then diana is, like she, Goes, dad do
you really believe the world of evil is nothing more
than a? Fantasy and he, replies who knows it sells my?
Books what a bizarre aura of anti viisimilitude the writers
have conjured here with this. Character so a few. Things

(01:09:56):
first of, all the idea of like he's a professor
who specializes in demons and monsters and who rakes in
the cash by publishing books claiming the demons and monsters
are not. Real let me tell you that is absolutely
where the money.

Speaker 2 (01:10:11):
IS i, Mean i've bought plenty of books about demons
and monsters and those authors are not claiming they're.

Speaker 3 (01:10:19):
Real, well but it's not just that he's not claiming they're.
Real he's writing books to be like that demon not?

Speaker 2 (01:10:25):
Real yeah, Real, yeah He's it's not just about this
is an important folk. Belief you get more of the
sense that he's, like demons are. Nonsense, now let me
show you some.

Speaker 3 (01:10:33):
Pictures, yeah and they like set him up on THESE
tv talk shows to like argue with witches and. Stuff
so that's his public, persona but we find out in
private he doesn't actually have a position on whether demons
are real or. Not it's just a character he insincerely
adopts because that's how he makes, money that's what the public.

(01:10:55):
Wants Bizarre, anyway he is currently working on a book
called five Thousand years Of, demonology and the goal of
this book will be to quote Trace man's conception of
evil from three THOUSAND bc to the.

Speaker 2 (01:11:10):
Present, yeah and he said it's going to be a
big seller Come christmas, season like this is the one
everyone's gonna want on their uh there there on their
living room, table like big coffee table vibes.

Speaker 3 (01:11:21):
Here, yeah and of Course diana's photos are going to
be in the book as. Well but SO i guess
this is like the first leg of the trip to
research this. Book they're currently en route to meet a
gin guzzling desert crank the professor has been corresponding with
who claims to have knowledge of devil monster uh and
so they're going to be driving for a while to get,

(01:11:42):
there and boy strap yourself in for these driving. Scenes
there's even a scene where they take a wrong turn
and have to go back five.

Speaker 2 (01:11:48):
Miles, yeah, yeah you. Can this is this is where
you begin to understand why we have that that tact
on narration and the sequence of demonic.

Speaker 3 (01:11:57):
Imagery BUT i will, say, ACTUALLY i guess the Wrong
turren scene is the first time we see a, gargoyle
not actually, see but indirectly, see because as the car
comes to a, stop we see it framed from far.
Away we're like up on a rocky hill, nearby and
suddenly there is a winged humanoid shadow that falls over the,
rocks and this, unsettling fluttering electronic music kicks, in and

(01:12:22):
you know it's conjuring some decent.

Speaker 2 (01:12:24):
Atmosphere yeah, YEAH i mean it's often pointed out, that you,
know nighttime is certainly a great place for supernatural threats to,
reside but sometimes if you do it, right the daytime
can be equally. Terrifying AND i mean here we do
have a desolate desert. Environment there is kind of a
weird sense that, like how could they not see something so?

(01:12:45):
Big but THEN i don't know you're thinking, about like direct,
sun it is possible for things to sort of hide
in the, Sun So i'm willing to grant the believability
to this.

Speaker 3 (01:12:56):
SCENE i think daytime in the desert can be a scary.
Environment there's kind of, stillness stillness to desert air that
can be a little.

Speaker 2 (01:13:04):
Creepy. Yeah, yeah and, again like the sun can be
be bright, thing and there are plenty of natural creatures
that can hide quite well in the open desert so
that humans can't see, Them and we can easily imagine
that a gargoyle could do the. SAME i like these, Gargoyles.

Speaker 3 (01:13:20):
YES i like out on the way to the meeting.
Place next they start seeing these these signs beside the,
road like they're about to meet The. Riddler they're just
these Big riddler question.

Speaker 2 (01:13:31):
Marks big like weird unofficial, Signs like there's no sense
that these are official like highway, signs like some old
kook has been setting these up to try and get
the tourist.

Speaker 3 (01:13:42):
Traffic, yeah they promise a two headed mystery, lizard a
snake in and a monster that flies fl ys as
well as cold. Beer and so when we get to the.
Destination it is Called Uncle Willie's Desert. Museum, yes the
pick of fence is falling. Over, yes there's a donkey out. Front,
yes the roof is littered with cow.

Speaker 2 (01:14:03):
Skulls it looks, great it.

Speaker 3 (01:14:06):
Does, yeah and inside it looks like The sawyer family lives.
Here It's tcum. Mansion.

Speaker 2 (01:14:12):
Yeah, yeah and Again Uncle woody is. Great this is
a great character performance. Here end up wanting more than we.

Speaker 3 (01:14:19):
Get, Right so he's, like already, sweaty AND i think
probably been drinking when he first meets. Them he comes
out and he's, like why DON'T i just get you some?

Speaker 2 (01:14:26):
Beers how cold do these beers end up?

Speaker 3 (01:14:29):
Looking by the, WAY i don't know about, that.

Speaker 2 (01:14:41):
All, Right so the cold, beer presumably cold, beer has been. Served.

Speaker 3 (01:14:44):
Yeah so the short version On willie is that he
wrote to Doctor bowley saying he has records of Local
Native american exorcism rights and he also has some artifacts to.
Share But willie tries to kind of flip the. Script he's, like,
HEY i saw you ON tv with all your fancy book.
LEARNING i am in possession of a gargoyle skeleton AND

(01:15:07):
i want you to co author a book with. Me
with my picture on the, cover BECAUSE i, MEAN i
agree that would sell. BOOKS i would buy any book
that had a picture Of Uncle willy on the.

Speaker 2 (01:15:17):
Cover and at, first the professor is just, like see you.
Later we're gone. Walking we're just walking now and walking
out of this. Store AND i guess maybe in the long,
run like this was a negotiating, tactic but when it
occurs in the, film it just makes him seem like
a huge, jerk, like, dude you just flew in, here

(01:15:37):
drove however long through the desert to Meet, willie and
you're just gonna immediately walk out on him without hearing
him out a little.

Speaker 3 (01:15:44):
Bit, yeah, yeah But willy's also driving a hard. Bargain.
Yeah So willy takes them out to his gargoyle shack
where he keeps the. Skeleton it's like a human skeleton
in the body sort. Of, ACTUALLY i guess it's not so.
Much it's by pal you, know it's, upright but it's got,
wings it's got claws instead of, toes and then the

(01:16:05):
head has horns and a giant.

Speaker 2 (01:16:07):
Beak. YEAH i think someone who has a better head
for anatomy might look at this skeleton and have some
serious questions about how it all comes together.

Speaker 3 (01:16:17):
Here, yeah and of Course bully doesn't believe it at.
First he's, like this is a concoction of unrelated. Bones he,
says he admires the, artistry but he rejects the reality of.
It But willie is. Adamant so he's got a bunch
of stories of how the local tribes had to hold
off these monsters with sacrifices and rituals for hundreds of.

(01:16:37):
Years and then there's a little moment Where diana starts
taking pictures While willie's back is, turned and he gets
very upset about. This no pictures without a.

Speaker 2 (01:16:46):
Deal, yeah and he's really good in the. Scene he's totally.
Raving but, NOW i will say that this mention of
the native practices that were so effective at containing and
holding off the, gargoyles this sounds really, Intriguing and you
might be tempted to think this is going to come
into play now that they've rolled this cannon out on,
deck but, no, no it's not gonna come up.

Speaker 3 (01:17:06):
Again, Well willy gets drunk and he starts trying to
like tell some of these tales as told to, him
but it sounds like he's just making it up as
he goes.

Speaker 2 (01:17:14):
Along, mmm, NO i don't, know are just having a
hard time remembering. It it would have been an interesting twist
if like these were really the native lore was really
key to defeating the. Gargoyles and you, know all these
our contemporary characters here are unable to defeat the gargoyles
in the end because they no longer have access to that.

Speaker 3 (01:17:34):
Information, no it turns out what's crucial to defeating the
gargoyles are, guns, gasoline and bashing with.

Speaker 2 (01:17:40):
Rocks that's.

Speaker 3 (01:17:41):
Right so in the middle of all, this the gargoyle
shack is suddenly it comes under. Attack. Outside there is
a fluttering of leathery, wings the walls start, shaking and
something is shredding through the door with huge catlike. Claws
and in the middle of all, this a big roof
beam falls down and Hits. Willy everything catches on. Fire

(01:18:01):
mercer And diana run, Away they like run out to
their car to, escape And diana's, like, oh, look Uncle,
willy And mercer's just, like leave. Him he's.

Speaker 2 (01:18:10):
Dead, yeah very quick to write him. Up and then
he gets hit in the head and then he's caught on.
Fire BUT i don't, know it seemed like there was a.

Speaker 3 (01:18:18):
Possibility, yeah they didn't really investigate too. Close they just you,
know get to leave. Him he's dead very. Easily but
they do stop to grab the gargoyle. Skull so there's
an escape sequence in the station wagon that involves several
more gargoyle attacks in the. Dark there's like one clinging
to the, roof WHICH i believe they dislodge by way

(01:18:39):
of a three point. Turn and then also you, know
they're attacking the. Window the car gets really banged. Up and,
meanwhile while they're driving, away they're listening to the playback
of the audio tape they were making Of willy when
the shack was.

Speaker 2 (01:18:53):
Attacked, yeah on all this section, here this is where
we get some of those Great GARTH marangi dark place
ask shake the car in a dark, room. Yes.

Speaker 3 (01:19:03):
Effects so after they finned off the gargoyle, attacks it's
time to go to the gargoyle. Motel they like drop
their car off at an all night service station in
the middle of the. Desert that's. Convenient there's a motel right.
Nearby and the gargoyles really tore the car. Up it
is slashed to, pieces and so they go over to this.

(01:19:23):
MOTEL i looked this. Up this was a real motel Near,
Carlsbad New mexico that was called The Cactus. Motel as
like a sort of Roadside america POST i found refers
to it as The Gargoyles.

Speaker 2 (01:19:38):
Motel, yeah and apparently no longer. AROUND. I you, KNOW
i might otherwise be inclined to say it's a tragedy
that we lost such an iconic filming. Location but this
place looks pretty rough in nineteen seventy, Two and according
to this Roadside america, post apparently now it's a Registered
New mexico historical, site not because of The gargoyles, movie

(01:19:58):
but because of some archaeologic digs in the, area real,
ones not gargoyle.

Speaker 3 (01:20:04):
Related so at the, motel they check in with the,
Proprietor Missus. Parks she answers the door with a tall
glass of. Liquor this is that, Character and she takes
them to the, room and she keeps trying to Get
Cornell wild to like come back and party with. Her
and she also won't stop telling stories of grizzly car
accidents she has.

Speaker 2 (01:20:23):
Witnessed, yes hers is a curious seduction. Style it does
not quite work in this, film but apparently it has worked,
before so who can?

Speaker 3 (01:20:33):
Falter AND i think this is sort of the end
Of act. One they go to, bed so, HERE i
guess we can zoom out and talk in some broader.
Strokes the next, morning they sort of report what, happened
or at least a partial version of what happened to the.
Police mercer holds back the full gargoyle, ENCOUNTER i think

(01:20:53):
because he hasn't gotten the gargoyle skull carbon dated.

Speaker 2 (01:20:57):
Yet mercer is, very very relaxed in all of, this, Like,
okay there was a violent encounter with creatures and somebody,
died And will he's out, There willi's out there in
the desert. Dead let's go and get a good night's.
Sleep let's make sure we get the car turned into
to a. Mechanic we'll report this to the police in the.

Speaker 3 (01:21:16):
Morning, yeah and not tell them everything Because i'm a
little fuzzy on exactly why they couldn't. Yet he's, LIKE
i haven't fully done all the research, yet so.

Speaker 2 (01:21:26):
Yeah and we do continue to see this as a character,
trait like at Times diana accuses him of being unfeeling
and he's like, well this is like the maximum of
what we can do right. Now like we we can
come back later with more info and get more, done
but right now this is all we can. Do and
SO i, MEAN i WILL i would acknowledge that to
a certain. Degree, YEAH i guess. So.

Speaker 3 (01:21:48):
Uh, anyway so the police go to investigate the scene
of the fire and they find a gang of young
motorcycle enthusiasts loitering around the crime. Scene their leader seems
to Be Scott glenn played by Or Scott glenn playing
this young guy Named James rieger who's a very very
good looking bad boy on a. Motorcycle the bullies do

(01:22:09):
not implicate the bikers in the, crime but the cops
arrest them, anyway and the bullies do not reveal what
they do know would that would make it clear that
the bikers were not were not to.

Speaker 2 (01:22:21):
Blame and this shuld becomes no surprise to anyone who's
watched any amount of biker in the. Media even though
these guys are not really a motorcycle, club they're just
as pointed, out they're just dirt. Bikers but, still bikers
and cops do not like each, other and our natural,
enemies and of, course the cops are going to arrest
the bikers for anything they can get them.

Speaker 3 (01:22:42):
On, yeah the cops are just, like, yeah you know
how these dirt bikers are, There they probably did. Something.
Yeah so later that, night the bullies are back in
their motel room at The Cactus motel and they are
attacked by several. Gargoyles we get some great scenes of
breakaway doors and and the motel attack that just kind
of crumble like they're made out OF i don't, know gram.

Speaker 2 (01:23:05):
Crackers, yeah and it's not a siege sequence, either because
the gargoyles are just right in, There like there's one
in the. BATHROOM i don't know what that gargoyle is
doing in the. Bathroom When mercer opens the, door it's
like it's like the first stage of this attack is
to rifle through his pills or. Something.

Speaker 3 (01:23:21):
Yeah they just kool aid man bust through the.

Speaker 2 (01:23:24):
Walls.

Speaker 3 (01:23:24):
Yeah but they're, there in fact to retrieve the gargoyle,
skull which is. Interesting that means it seems these creatures
must be intelligent and they are trying to cover up
evidence of their. Existence but during this this attempt to
retrieve the, skull one of the gargoyles gets hit by
a truck and, killed And bully takes the body back
with him and so and here we get to see

(01:23:48):
like the different kinds of. Gargoyles they are like some
gargoyles that are more lizard, men others that have more
bird like, features kind of with.

Speaker 2 (01:23:56):
Beaks, yeah, YEAH i think this is of course fitting
with the very designs of like actual architectural. Gargoyles but
the main ones we see attacking here are, wingless which you,
know we can interpret as being due to the fact
that wings are extra work and maybe you don't have
time to make wings for. Everybody but also maybe these
are worker gargoyles or. Juveniles but, yeah there's a great

(01:24:19):
deal of varied morphology, here and if you want to
see some like better imagery behind the scenes imagery of
the different masks and. Costumes The Stan Winston school has
a great article About stan and his cohorts work on,
gargoyles with lots of cool pictures and masks and, suits

(01:24:40):
so look that up at Stan winston school dot.

Speaker 3 (01:24:43):
Com so there's a scene Where diana goes to the
police station to get them to Release Scott glenn and his.
Bros because you know they didn't do the, murder but
the police will not release them. Yet and, again the
bullies could tell the whole truth now because they've got
a dead gargoyle boty is proof they've got it in their,
Car BUT i Think bowley doesn't for some, reason still

(01:25:05):
can't reveal. It he like doesn't want to get scooped
on the discovery or.

Speaker 2 (01:25:09):
Something, yeah, yeah it's like he it's not that he
doesn't want to help, people but he's very calculated in
how he wants to roll everything.

Speaker 3 (01:25:17):
Out Look out for number, One.

Speaker 2 (01:25:19):
Yeah look out for number. One maybe make sure you
have a good press release prepared, beforehand even if the
bikers are just stewing in the jail.

Speaker 3 (01:25:27):
Cell BUT i like this is one of those movie
jails where you can walk into the police station and
then just walk up to the cells and like talk
to the people in.

Speaker 2 (01:25:36):
Them, yeah it's Basically Desert.

Speaker 3 (01:25:38):
Mayberry, yeah So diana walks up to the biker is
and kind kind of semi flirts With rigor here but
talks to him about, Gargoyles and there's a good exchange
Where Scott glenn, says so you and your old man
you're not afraid of them gar. Things, Huh and she
says gargoyles are a scientific fact and they're no more
dangerous than a high school dropout on a. Motorcycle.

Speaker 2 (01:26:02):
YEAH i don't, Know. DIANA i feel like the Guard
things by this point in the film have proven themselves
to be rather shockingly, effective you, know tearing up the
car and all. Like there is violent as a supernatural motorcycle.
Gang BUT i think they obviously trump just the motorcycle
dropout squad that she's referring.

Speaker 3 (01:26:19):
To, Yeah gargoyle's on wheels, Anyway so there's another gargoyle
attack on the. Bullies this time the gargoyles take the
body with, Them they take the professor's, books and they Kidnapped,
diana taking her back to the gargoyle home base within
a local cave, system which Is Carlsbad kenyon Or Kenyons,

(01:26:39):
caverns isn't.

Speaker 2 (01:26:40):
It, yeah, YEAH i look this. Up the cave scenes
were filmed In Carlsbad Caverns National. PARK i don't THINK
i have actually been, there been To New mexico? Once
have you been To? Carlsbad?

Speaker 3 (01:26:51):
No, NO i have been In New mexico but didn't
make it to the.

Speaker 2 (01:26:53):
Caves. Yeah i've been to some other cave systems in
this part of the, country but not. These but, yeah
this is one of a number of pictures that were filmed, there,
also including nineteen Fifties King Solomon's, minds fifty One's Unknown,
world fifty Eight's The, spider fifty Nine's journey to The
center of The, earth seventy Three's John Livingston, seagull and
seventy four Is The Bat, people which we already. REFERENCED

(01:27:15):
i Believe Stan winston worked on that one as.

Speaker 3 (01:27:17):
Well so from here the movie finally starts to arrive
at its core, proposition which is a gargoyle hunt featuring,
yes of course, cops but also. Bikers So Cornell, WILDE
i forget how he somehow convinces the cops to release
the bikers from jail and they team up to help
find the gargoyles layer and Save. Diana this is after

(01:27:38):
the second attack, there SO i guess the cops have
been convinced. Somehow, also Missus, parks the alcoholic lady at the,
motel and the local mechanic drive away in a pickup
truck to get help from out of. Town but later
the posse finds the truck, wrecked smeared with, blood and
they come across Missus parks's body hanging upside down from

(01:28:00):
a telephone, pole which is a very creepy shot in,
concept but a little bit less so in. Execution AND
i think she should have still had the rumglass in her.

Speaker 2 (01:28:10):
HAND i think. SO i think maybe downing the last
of it would have been like the last act that
she committed before.

Speaker 3 (01:28:17):
Passing, anyways the posse hunts the gargoyle. Cave we get
some action scenes of cops and bikers fighting gargoyle warriors
and the scrub. Desert the gargoyles can, fly but they
are not, invincible so it's a you, know it's a tough,
fight but a somewhat fair. Fight, meanwhile as all this
is going, on we also follow what happens To diana

(01:28:38):
in the gargoyle. Cave while none of the gargoyles that
we see earlier in the movie ever, Speak diana is
taken to the leader of The, gargoyles who has quite
a lot to, say and this Is Bernie casey in the,
suit but again dubbed By Vic, parrien the voice from
the outer. Limits so he explains that the history that

(01:29:00):
we learned at the, beginning The gargoyles keep popping up
in human history every six hundred years or so to
try to destroy humankind and take over the, world but
the humans keep beating them each, time after which they
go into another six hundred year. Incubation but this time
it will be. Different The gargoyles will really they're going
to defeat us this, time and the gargoyle leader Makes

(01:29:22):
diana read aloud to him From Doctor bowley's books because he's,
LIKE i find your voice pleasing. Now the head gargoyle
is clearly interested In. Diana he is attracted to, her
though for some, reason they pause to make it explicit
that the gargoyles do not need humans in order to.
Reproduce in, fact they've got huge chambers full of more

(01:29:45):
gargoyle eggs already, incubating and WHAT i thought was kind
of a strange and interesting. Choice it is The King
gargoyle's attraction To diana that ultimately helps the humans win
at the end of the, movie because it seems that
The Queen gargoyle sort of the his gargoyle wife becomes
jealous of this and, causes and this causes The Queen

(01:30:09):
gargoyle to help lead Doctor bowley to the rescue.

Speaker 2 (01:30:13):
Later, yeap that seems to be how it plays. Out
maybe it's the soap opera writing credentials of the writing,
team but that seems to be how it plays, out
which isn't you? KNOW i, MEAN i guess on one, hand,
yeah monster kidnapping the girl is just a standard monster
movie trope and they felt like they needed to employ,
that and so maybe they're adding just a little soap

(01:30:33):
opera nuance to all of. That but it does seem
like The gargoyle mission here has gone rather off. Track
like you only get to do this every six hundred, years,
guys you need to pull it together beyond target because
during those six hundred years you have fallen behind in
technology a. Lot, yes you, know whether you realize it or,

(01:30:54):
not things are going to be different this, time and
don't count too much on next. Time it could be,
harder maybe it'll be, easy but the six hundred years
is a long, time that's.

Speaker 3 (01:31:03):
TRUE i, MEAN i feel like the jealousy is a
weird thing because it makes the gargoyles seem more, human
which also makes the ending less palatable where the ending.
Is it's very ripley in aliens Like Scott glin And
Cornell wilde go into the cave and they're, like we
got to destroy this, whole all the, eggs you, know

(01:31:23):
burn them all. Up but like the jealousy thing has
made it seem, like, oh these are not just like,
weapons not just like destruction. Machines they kind of are
people in a, sense like they might want to destroy,
us but they are they feel kind of.

Speaker 2 (01:31:37):
Human, now, yeah we see like hatchling gargoyles as, well so, like,
yeah you end up feeling for them quite a. Bit
and you, know, granted The gargoyles have discussed wiping out
all humans and you, know we obviously can't get on
board with that, constat but the humans also seem to
to be very much in favor of wiping out the,

(01:31:59):
gargle so you, know we're in a bit of a standoff.

Speaker 3 (01:32:02):
Here well, yeah but the show of sort of betrayal
of The King gargoyle by The Queen gargoyle suggests there
could be differences of opinion within The gargoyle, people like
what if instead we just depose The King gargoyle and
empower some one of the gargoyles that wants to live
in harmony with.

Speaker 2 (01:32:20):
Humans it seems very, possible, RIGHT i, mean gargoyles probably
have a lot to teach. Us we have stuff to
teach them they're interested, in so why.

Speaker 3 (01:32:28):
Not, anyway so we get a final confrontation where Doctor
bully has led to the gargoyle, leader who wants to
Carry diana away with. Him as they're, ESCAPING i think
maybe some MORE i don't, know maybe some more people are.
Arriving oh oh, WAIT i almost forgot to Mention Scott
glenn blows himself up in order to destroy the eggs
in one. Room Scott glenn is already that dedicated to

(01:32:50):
the destruction of gargoyle.

Speaker 2 (01:32:52):
Kind you, know he may have been no good biker,
kid but he just needed a cause to get. Behind
and here is.

Speaker 3 (01:33:00):
So, anyway AS i, said the gargoyle main gargoyle wants
to fly away With, diana But Doctor bowley comes up
with a solution to this. Problem he bashes the Gargoyle
queen's wing with a rock so she can no longer.
Fly so if the gargoyle king wants to escape with,
her he has to carry, her meaning he cannot also Carry,

(01:33:22):
diana so he has to Leave diana. Behind and he
has a line he, says how clever you. Are your
choice has allowed you and your daughter to. Survive it
also allows me and my kind to, survive perhaps at
the price of your supremacy On. Earth one, day and
he flies, away and that's the ending we'd like, see
and they show him. Flying we get a kind of

(01:33:44):
slow mo flyaway.

Speaker 2 (01:33:45):
Shot looks pretty good. TOO i have to, say all things,
considered you, know, OKAY tv movie, budget it could have
looked a lot flappier and on the, wire BUT i
thought it looked pretty. Good but, yeah our heroes end
up sort of taking the high, road but most out
of self interest and after like getting in a cheap
shot against the very female gargoyle who put her own

(01:34:08):
species ascension aside to help them. Out, yeah, so you,
know mixed.

Speaker 3 (01:34:13):
Feelings it's unclear to me exactly how conscious the film
is of the moral ambiguity of its, heroes especially Of
Cornell wilde's. Character BUT i don't. KNOW i don't know
if this was an attempt to create a kind of
morally gray protagonist who uses a lot of dirty tricks
and often acts in self interest or if that or

(01:34:35):
if that was just kind of like going over their.
Heads there's not a lot of acknowledgment of.

Speaker 2 (01:34:40):
It, yeah it's hard to tell if this is something
that was diluted in the execution of the film and
maybe more prevalent in the, script or is this something
an energy that kind of emerges out of the filmmaking.
Process but, yeah you can imagine if someone were to remake,
this like imagine The Rob zombie remake of Gard Rob

(01:35:02):
zombie would get in, there he would explore these.

Speaker 3 (01:35:04):
Themes Sid haig as Doctor Mercer, Bowley Sherry Moon zombie
As Diana.

Speaker 2 (01:35:11):
Bowley, yeah, yeah OR i think now this should Be
zombie's next, film like get her in that she can
play The Queen. Gargoyle, okay, yeah and who else is
he fond of casting these? Days, Oh Richard. Brake Richard
brake is The King. Gargoyle that's that's somebody That zombie
cast a. Lot not as tall as A Bernie, casey

(01:35:31):
but you, know good monster makeup.

Speaker 3 (01:35:34):
Guy oh, okay, well, anyway That's.

Speaker 2 (01:35:36):
Gargoyle's, yeah it's a fun. ONE i, mean you can
really see. WHY i read subsequently was reading some other
like little reviews on letterboxed and you know a lot
of people were saying things about how when they were,
kids this movie resonated with, them you, know, Yeah and
you can totally get that with these these fun monster.
Suits and also the kind of subversive nature that it

(01:35:57):
might feel like it has if you're a kid just
watching stuff on, television like what is? Gargoyles like it's,
again it's it's weirder than it probably has any right to.

Speaker 3 (01:36:07):
Be CAN i offer another thing that is interesting about
television as a venue for horror movies compared to the.
CINEMA i don't know this for sure about historical practices
and movie, theaters BUT i bet it was hard for
little kids to get into a movie theater to see
like AN r rated horror, movie or maybe NOT r
rated at the, time but a mature horror movie in

(01:36:29):
the theaters in the. Seventies but you know who controls
what kids are watching ON tv in the? Home, Parents
maybe they're not even in the, room so the kid
turns this. On that might be a different kind of
reception thing about the medium as, Well like it's easier
for kids to tune into a horror movie that they
are not technically mature enough for when it's shown ON.

Speaker 2 (01:36:49):
Tv, yeah, yeah because especially at the, time it's like it's, implied,
well if it's on network, television they should be able
to handle.

Speaker 1 (01:36:56):
It.

Speaker 3 (01:36:57):
Yeah, Yeah so that kind of changes the way the
horror work as, well because it's like a different audience
and different. Setting, anyway the made FOR tv nous it
really is strong. Here it is part of what this
film is for good and for.

Speaker 2 (01:37:11):
Ill all, Right, well we'd love to hear from everyone out.
There do you HAVE i know a number of you
do have thoughts About, Gargoyles so write in and tell
us what your connection is to this. Movie what do
you think about some of the themes we've discussed. Here,
likewise any other gargoyle related media out? There were you
a big fan of the Animated gargoyles series and have
thoughts on? That right, in we'd love to hear from. You.

(01:37:33):
Do joe AND i need to watch the twenty fourteen
FILM I, frankenstein in Which frankenstein's monster Battles. Gargoyles, maybe
so make a case for it or anything else we
may be missing out. There it's all fair.

Speaker 3 (01:37:46):
Game huge thanks as always to our excellent audio, PRODUCER Jj.
Posway if you would like to get in touch with
us with feedback on this episode or any, other to
suggest a topic for the, future or just to say,
hello you can email us at contact stuff To blow
Your mind dot.

Speaker 1 (01:38:01):
Com stuff To Blow Your mind is production Of. iHeartRadio
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