Gargoyles!

I remember very distinctly seeing this movie when it first aired on CBS in late 1972. This was at a time when my bedtime was in dispute, and by in dispute I mean I wanted to stay up late but my parents didn't.  I would slyly pull this stunt of taking too long with my homework so I would be up when whatever I wanted to see on TV would be on.  I remember purposely doing that this night so I could see Gargoyles! in its 9:30 PM time slot. 

My big brother was doing babysitting duty that night with me and didn't seem to mind the movie so I guess it wasn't that bad.  He'd watched worse with me in those days before the VCR and only one TV in the house.  I also remember the next morning at school asking my third grade teacher if she'd seen it.  She was horrified, first saying she didn't watch such movies, and then that I shouldn't be up so late. 

Such movies were my kind of thing though.  Raised on "Dark Shadows" and "Thriller" and Dr. Shock, this was my kind of movie even if it wasn't Mrs. Scott's.  And there were enough of my friends in class who also watched it - they were also the ones who had Aurora monster models and liked Alice Cooper, if that says anything.  Nevertheless when I saw coming attractions for Gargoyles!, I knew I'd want to see it and planned for it appropriately. 

The movie has been out of print for years now, and is occasionally available on YouTube, but I most recently saw it on MeTV's Svengoolie.  Like the aforementioned Dr. Shock, Svengoolie, played by Rich Koz, is one of dozens of horror movie hosts across the country.  Svengoolie, the second to go under that name has been enjoying national success for some time now on the nostalgia network.  Sometimes he's annoying but usually has lots of good info on the flicks.  He's truly a movie fan, and that's really appreciated. 

Now all that said, Gargoyles! is actually a pretty darn good horror film, both typical of its time and yet better than most.  The flick is scary as well, one wonders how I slept that night back in the day.  It also features early work by Stan Winston which won him his first Emmy.  Most frightening of all is the make-up work on Bernie Casey, former football player and character actor, who plays the lead gargoyle.  That is one scary dude.  And it was written by Stephen and Elinor Karpf who also wrote the camp horror classic Devil Dog: Hound from Hell! 

The movie opens with a montage of photos of gargoyles, interspersed with the ones from the movie, and including one from the classic Swedish and Danish silent Haxan: Witchcraft Through the Ages if I'm not mistaken and the narration of Vic Perrin.  His bit is perfect as he was also the control voice at the start of each episode of "The Outer Limits," and he tells us the tale of the Devil banished from Heaven, and his minions the gargoyles who rise up every six hundred years to battle mankind. Guess what time it is? 

The premise has Hollywood leading man Cornel Wilde in his twilight years as an anthropologist/demonology/writer Professor Boley and Jennifer Salt as his daughter Diana who stumble upon a colony of these emerging gargoyles.  This was the first place I ever saw Wilde, so even his finest roles bring the Oscar nominee back to Gargoyles! for me.  Salt mesmerized me in Brian DePalma's Sisters and has done amazing work behind the scenes on "Nip/Tuck" and "American Horror Story" so for me, she's not all just this.  And she's rocking those halter tops.  Together they are perfect 1970s protagonists for this horror film. 

They set off into the desert, probably the same one Dennis Weaver raced through in Steven Spielberg's Duel, to visit Uncle Willie's Desert Museum.  Willie has something for the good professor, and serves a gateway to this hero's quest.  Already however the couple are being watched, lending chills before we even get started. 

The Desert Museum is a tourist trap, full of crap, but old Uncle Willie (played by Woody Chambliss, a TV western regular who was also in another horror classic of the time, The Devil's Rain) does have something of value for the professor.  After nightfall he takes them out to his barn and shows them a gargoyle skeleton.  Boley disbelieves at first but listens to Willie's tales of demons at war with the Native Americans. 

To the tune of crazy music by Robert Prince sounding like it was played on police sirens, something attacks them and kills Willie.  The couple escape with cassette tape recordings of Willie and the gargoyle skull in their beat up station wagon.  One of the monsters pursue and jump on, invoking Race With the Devil. As they get away we get our first eerie slow motion look at a gargoyle, scary. 

Dad and daughter get a motel room while their car gets repaired.  The motel is run by Grayson Hall of the aforementioned "Dark Shadows."  She plays a lush who always has a drink in her hand, which is funny as she was frequently rumored to be drinking on the set of the soap and blowing her lines.  At least here it's in the script. 

When Dad and Daughter report Willie's death to the police, leaving out all the gargoyley details, the cops immediately place the blame on local bikers, one of whom is Scott Glenn, most recently seen as Stick in "Daredevil" and soon "The Defenders."  A real young Scott Glenn.  Later on he has one of the movie best and most memorable lines, "one of them gar things is gonna get her," and he's not talking about the Podcast either. 

Eventually the gargoyles attack and steal back the skull, moving in crazy scary slow motion, and featuring the one very frightening scene of the gargoyle looking over the end of the bed - a major reason I never watched this flick late at night in bed.  When a gargoyle is killed by a hit and run truck, Boley takes in the dead body for proof.  It's his undoing. 

Like the skull, the gargoyles come again for their dead, and this time, they take Diana as well.  Winged head gargoyle Bernie Casey takes a shine to her and brings her home to meet his family.  The more we're exposed to the gargoyle costumes and make up the less scary they are, but by this time, we're fully invested and it doesn't matter.  We are in this world, and they're still scary. 

Still, this is where the flick starts to fall apart a bit. Casey, with Vic Perrin's dubbed voice (!), wants Diana to teach him to read, so the gargoyles can get smarter and be on more even ground to fight man.  Eggs are hatching and the menfolk are getting a posse together, so time is dear. The movie spirals downward from there. 

Gargoyles! is still a great horror flick, even all these years later, and even with the obviously cheap special effects.  It's a piece of my childhood, and still scares the crap outta me.  Recommended, but don't watch alone, or in the dark. 

Daredevil S02 E08: Guilty as Sin

In the last episode of "Daredevil," the Punisher went to trial, from which Matt was absent, Elektra tampered with a witness, and Foggy and Matt had it out finally.  Oh yeah, and Daredevil and Elektra discovered the Yakuza guarding a seemingly mysterious bottomless hole about forty stories deep.  As we open, they're beset by ninjas, and this is only the beginning. 

Just before the ninjas nearly take them out, Daredevil and Elektra are rescued by Stick.  Cue opening credits.  As they try to escape by car, wave after wave of ninjas attack.  This is, no doubt, The Hand.  Badly wounded, they go to Matt's apartment where Stick does some wacky holistic voodoo on Elektra to save her.  Then the revelation comes that not only does Stick know her, he trained her. 

Obviously, Matt doesn't show up for the trial the next day as Frank Castle's former commanding officer takes the stand.  Colonel Schoonover is played by perennial heavy Clancy Brown, formerly The Kurgan, the voice of Lex Luthor, and most recently General Wade Eiling on "The Flash."  He tells a gripping tale of Castle's heroism on the battlefield, adding more pieces to the secret origin of the Punisher. 

While The Kurgan weaves war stories, Stick tells a tale of a different war, an ancient one involving The Hand.  These 'pieces of shit,' as Scott Glenn's Stick calls them, learned the secret of immortality in ancient times and used it to run rampant over much of Asia and the rest of the world.  They seek power and weapons, specifically something called Black Sky, which Daredevil ran across last season in the form of a child. 

The Hand has only one enemy, The Chaste, those warriors trained by Stick to oppose them, to fight them without mercy.  And Elektra is one of them.  Hell's Kitchen is to be ground zero for the battle between The Hand and The Chaste.  Matt treats this tale as a fiction, a power fantasy of Stick's to excuse his homicidal sociopathic behavior.  Unfortunately it's all he's got right now. 

Sigh.  This isn't the Daredevil series I want.  Yeah, it's good, very good, but rather than the Punisher, and Elektra, and The Hand, I think I'd rather have Gladiator, the Owl, the Stilt-Man, hell, even the Jester.  I guess I'm too old school for this stuff.  If they wanted to do a Punisher series (which is already on the schedule) or an Elektra series, why didn't they just do it? 

Frank Castle meanwhile is going to take the stand, supposedly in his defense.  Knowing they will need Matt to question him, Foggy sends Karen (perhaps deliberately?) to tell Matt.  She does, and gets a full view of not only crazy old blind man Stick, but also the dying/recovering Elektra in Matt's bed.  Kiss that relationship goodbye. 

In court, Matt makes a good case for both a mentally ill Frank Castle and the Punisher as the kind of hero we need, and then Frank starts talking, seemingly prodded by a guard.  Screaming that he's guilty, that everyone he killed deserved to die, and that he'd do it again - Frank effectively buries anything his defense was trying to accomplish. 

Back home, Matt throws Stick out after convincing Elektra to stay with him, and stop killing.  As soon as Stick makes his exit, a ninja of The Hand attacks and puts an arrow in Matt's chest.  Despite this obstacle, Matt and wounded Elektra finally subdue him.  The arrow made this fight for me, another wonderfully choreographed combat. 

And then Elektra kills him.  Just because she can, or wants to.  Elektra has a problem, a bad habit.  It would almost be funny if it wasn't so serious.  She's a killer, a sociopath, a psychopath.  All Stick did was channel her sick energy toward his goals.  I doubt Matt can do the same.

The mic drop of the episode is at the end where the suspicious guard takes Frank Castle through the prison to a gym area occupied by one man.  He turns around and we see him - Vincent D'onofrio as Wilson Fisk, the Kingpin, mentioned several times but unseen since the season one finale.  Cue end credits.  Now this should make things interesting. 

I'm ambivalent about the return of D'onofrio and Fisk.  While admittedly one of the most interesting characters and intense performances of the Marvel Netflix Universe, I would like to think his arc is done.  This is television, not comics where villains return every two months.  Still, I'm game to see what happens. 

Next: Seven Minutes in Heaven!

Daredevil S01 E07: Stick

I had mentioned before that I'm not a big Daredevil guy. If that's not embarrassing enough, the next bit will be. My introduction to Stick was Splinter. That's right, the rat sensei of the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles, Splinter, was my introduction to Stick, Daredevil's martial arts teacher and enemy of The Hand - or as they're known in the TMNT universe, The Foot. And the thing is, I was only barely aware of the Turtles.

When the TMNT cartoon was hot, a friend who was really into them pointed out that they were originally based on a comic I might enjoy. He thought it was a comic I would dig because it mocked the comics I didn't like. TMNT was a parody of all that ninja mumbo jumbo nonsense that Frank Miller had made Daredevil into. My Daredevil was a swinging swashbuckler in San Fran who fought the Jester, the Owl, and the Stilt-Man - not what I'd seen in that title of late. But TMNT intrigued me. I loved the parody, and shameful as it is, it's where I learned of Splinter, I mean Stick.

In the comics, Stick was also a blind man, and like Daredevil possessed a kind of radar sense, and so when he encountered the young Matt Murdock, trained him in the use of it. Stick was the leader of a martial arts/super powered group called The Chaste, whose students also included Elektra. The Chaste's mission was to eradicate The Hand. Stick eventually died in that pursuit. He might have also encountered Wolverine back in the 1930s. As I've said, I'm not a big Miller fan, so beyond that, details are iffy in my mind.

Stick, as portrayed by Scott Glenn, makes his first and supposedly only appearance in Netflix's "Daredevil" in this self-titled episode. Rumor has it that originally showrunner Steven S. DeKnight wanted Sonny Chiba for the role, but I think this works out better. Of course as we see in our pre-credits scene, Scott Glenn is pretty damned Sonny Chiba...

In the opening, Stick is after a businessman in Japan, and by after, I mean Quentin Tarantino style. Somebody is going to die horribly either by gun or sword. Stick is looking for something called Black Sky, and takes first the guy's hand, and then his life to find out what he wants to know. Whatever Black Sky is, it's on its way to New York.

Back in New York the Owl is doing some accounting for Mr. Nobu, and intimates that he knows that his people (are they The Hand?) are bringing something into the docks. Owlsley's intention is an unofficial alliance in case the Kingpin turns on them as he did the Russians, but Nobu will have none of it. Just as they leave and we know whatever Black Sky is, Nobu's people are getting it, Daredevil confronts The Owl, and as he's about to get the info he needs, his prey gets the upper hand and tases our hero. When Stick coincidentally finds Daredevil, it's flashback time.

Folks who are regular readers of my reviews know my feelings on superhero secret origins especially in film and television. Get in and get out, or don't mention it at all, and get right to the real story. I was so proud of this "Daredevil" in that they did the origin in just a couple minutes in the first episode. Daredevil is a Silver Age Stan Lee superhero, blah blah blah, radiation creates heroes, villains, and monsters. We get it, move on.

Based on those thoughts, one might think I would hate this episode. Logically you'd be right, but I don't. Scott Glenn, doing his curmudgeonly best David Carradine crossed with Robert Durst, saves these sequences. I love the bit in the park where Stick trains young Matt to open his world and read it, and equally love when he judges the adult Matt for what he's done with his life.

Stick is here in Hell's Kitchen, fighting the war he spoke of so often when training young Matt. This war this night involves the weapon called Black Sky, what Stick refers to as the bringer of shadows. It's not something Matt wants in his world. The two strike an alliance. Matt helps Stick stop Black Sky, and Stick promises he won't kill anyone. Yeah, that's gonna work, especially when he says it Robert Durst style.

We also get a bit of our work triangle - Matt, Foggy, and Karen. Over and above their discussion of the vigilante the paper is calling 'the devil of Hell's Kitchen,' we get just enough of the three actors' chemistry to know we want more. Charlie Cox and Elden Henson are especially good together, as I've said before. Even Foggy knows now what we've known since episode one, Karen is hiding something. Maybe she's a vampire? Oh yeah, that's right.

Speaking of Karen and her secrets, no matter how good Deborah Ann Woll and Vondie Curtis-Hall are separately, they unfortunately lack that same chemistry I mentioned above. When Karen and Ben Urich get together to trade notes, even the master actor can't save the scene from seeming awkward and long. At least he's aware he was the target last episode. Perhaps in the future the awkwardness might be saved as Karen finally brings Foggy into Ben's house of cards circle.

Black Sky turns out to be a child, in torn clothes and chains, delivered to the docks in a big storage unit. While Black Sky appears to be a boy, Stick only refers to him with the 'it' pronoun, as if he is a thing. In the comics, The Hand does have an interest in artifacts of supernatural or demonic origin, just as Stick himself has an interest in powered individuals. Witness his seeking out Daredevil and Elektra as students with The Chaste.

Stick claims to have killed Black Sky but it happens off-screen, and given his past with the truth, I wonder if it happened the way he says it did. "Daredevil" takes place on the edge of a universe of superheroes. Matt and company co-exist with the Avengers but the worlds don't really intersect. I think this is one case where the edges start to blur, and we'll be seeing more from this particular episode in future Netflix series as we build toward "The Defenders."

The appearance of Stone at the end seems to be an assurance of that, whether here, in future series, or in the second season of "Daredevil." Scott Glenn is amazing as Stick, and equally amazing are the fight sequences between him and Matt, both as a kid and as an adult. Props go to Skylar Gaertner as young Matt. The kid is really good too. Excellent episode all around.