- Directed by Bill Norton
- Written by Stephen Karpf, Elinor Karpf
- Stars Cornel Wilde, Jennifer Salt, Grayson Holl, Bernie Casey, Scott Glenn
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 14 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl85KZ7Q4II
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
This one takes some religious history and myth and gives it a tangible explanation. Turns out the monstrous gargoyles on churches and such were modeled after real creatures. Who knew? This was tame but pretty entertaining for its age.
Synopsis
We hear about how the fallen angels were thrown out of Heaven. The devil predicts that his offspring, the gargoyles, will someday rule the Earth. They are reborn every 600 years to battle against man to gain dominion over the Earth.
Dr. Boley waits at the airport as his daughter Diana lands on a plane. They’re doing anthropology in Mexico. He collects ancient demon statues, but he doesn’t believe in anything supernatural.
Boley writes books about legendary monsters, so he wants to interview an old man who’s said to have some crazy stories. They take a wrong turn and watch something really big fly overhead.
They eventually get to “Uncle Willie’s Desert Museum.” Uncle Willie saw him on a TV talk show and wrote to him about some of his stuff. He takes them out to his shed, where he’s got the skeleton of what he calls a “winged demon.” It does look pretty authentic, but Boley says he assembled it out of random bones. Willie swears that this is the real thing, and he gets positively offended at the idea. “The Indians named this place ‘Devil’s Crossing’ in their language. These devils used to live up there in the rocks.”
Night falls, and Willie continues his story. They hear something flapping outside, and something starts clawing through the roof. The roof collapses, and Willie burns to death. Boley and Diana get out of the burning building, and he grabs the “demon’s” skull on the way out.
In the car, they listen to the audio recording of the attack. Something lands on the roof of the car and breaks their windshield. It eventually falls off, and the humans stop at a nearby gas station. They stop at a motel for the night, and Mrs. Parks, the old woman who runs the place, is weird. She’s drunk and is all over Boley, who isn’t interested.
The following day, Boley and Diana get the police involved, reporting the “accident” with Willie. They find looters digging through Willie’s place, and the police immediately assume they were the ones who started the fire last night. There are five of them, and the police chief arrests them all. Diana sticks up for James and the other guys; she didn’t see anyone else out there last night.
That night, Boley hears something outside the motel room, and later, we see something in his room. It’s a gargoyle, and there are two of them. They steal the skull and leave, but Boley and Diana both see them clearly. One of the gargoyles gets hit by a truck and killed. It’s a big lizard-looking thing, but it doesn’t have wings.
Boley talks about the myths and legends of gargoyles, which are obviously true. They want the bones of their dead, and they’ll be back for the dead one soon. Mrs. Parks wants to know what all the noise was, and they make up a cover story.
Diana goes to the police station to get James and the looters released. She says she’s got proof that they didn’t do it, but the deputy can’t help her that late at night. They all think she’s crazy. On the way back to the motel, she hears some crazy noises.
Boley and Diana run off with the dead creature in tow, but the creatures soon attack again. Their leader, the one with wings, is there this time, and he likes Diana. They run off, taking Diana with them this time. They all go to a cave somewhere.
Mrs. Parks goes to the police about the attacks on the motel, but the police don’t have working phones either. James and the deputy tell him about Diana’s “monster,” and then Boley comes in and tells them everything. James and his friends volunteer to join the search party. They send Mrs. Park to the next city to bring in the state police, and everyone else goes to search the hills.
Meanwhile, Diana explores the gargoyles’ cave system. The leader can talk, and he shows her many books, all written by her father. He wants her to read to him. He says that they have lots to learn, and they’ve only been awake for a few weeks. There are currently only about a dozen of them so far. We see many eggs in the cave, and some of them are hatching. He says they mean no harm and want to live in peace.
Outside, the sheriff finds Mrs. Parks’s truck covered in blood. They find her body hanging way up high on a pole that evening.
The female leader comes and tells the main leader that the eggs are hatching, but men and dogs are approaching in the desert. The leader then sends all the gargoyles to attack the men in their trucks.
The gargoyles kidnap Boley and explain everything to him. They need time to hatch enough soldiers to conquer all the humans. The gargoyle leader has Diana read to him some more, and the female gargoyle doesn’t like it. Meanwhile, Boley watches more eggs being hatched.
The female grabs Boley and takes him to where Diana’s being held. The leader rushes off with Diana in tow, and everyone runs through the caves. Boley gets out of the caves, and he gets the other humans outside to watch the outside while he and James go inside with cans of gas. He wants to burn up all those eggs.
The gargoyles kill James, but he burns the egg nest. Boyle injures the female, and the leader has no choice but to carry her away before the men with dogs arrive. The leader vows that his kind will one day wipe out humanity, and then he flies away with his female.
Commentary
The gargoyles are just actors in rubber suits, but they’re pretty effective. The leader with wings looks pretty good here; the others are less effective. It’s obviously a very low-budget movie, but it used to get a lot of air time in the 70s; I remember seeing this several times when I was small.
It’s pretty tame, but it’s still fun.