GARGOYLES - "Watch Out" (1972)

Good Grief! It's time for another WTF!? Wednesday in The Dungeon!

Tonight's feature was a 1972 TV movie called "GARGOYLES"! As a real movie, it sucks, but as a TV movie, it's more interesting than most! If "GARGOYLES" was 30 minutes long, then I would give it five stars, but since the other 42 minutes are useless, it's more like a one! This is one time when being number one doesn't make you a winner!  It does have it's moments though, like this title card is awesome!

That sign sure couldn't be more prophetic!

Just a fun Father and daughter day out! Here's Cornel (The Devil's Hairpin) Wilde as Dr. Mercer Boley, and his lovely daughter, Jennifer (Midnight Cowboy) Salt as Diana Boley! Jennifer was also Eunice Tate on 67 episodes of "Soap!"

Good olde "Uncle Willie's Desert Museum!" Too bad it just ain't been the same since they moved the highway!

Not too bad of a moon shot!

Mercer Boley is a writer who specializes in myths and legends, and Uncle Willie's got one to tell about that skeleton back there behind them! Woody Chambliss is Uncle Willie, and he probably had more than one story to tell since he was the olde Sergeant Pepper in the movie "Sergeant Pepper's Lonely Heart's Club Band!" Somehow Salt and Pepper are here together in this scene! It's funny how those things just happen!

Jennifer Salt stopped acting in 1990, but from 2013 - 2016. she produced 37 episodes of "American Horror Story!" This shot proves she had the creds!

Something attacks Uncle Willie's while he's telling the story and the whole place goes Ka-Blooey!

Uncle Willie gets killed and the Boley's take off like a bat out of Hell! Unfortunately, it seems like a bat out of Hell is also after them! Those are some powerful claws!

 This looks like a shot right out of "Twin Peaks!"

Grayson (Satan In High Heels) Hall as the owner of the Cactus Motel, is the epitome of hot in a 1972 TV movie!

 

..... GOOD MORNING!!!!

 This Gargoyle fellow was just trying to get his skull artifact back, but he ends up getting creamed by a truck just like in "The Creep!"

"GARGOYLES" was obviously not the height of Cornel Wilde's career, but the guy walks around for about 10 minutes with no shirt on, and he was in pretty good shape for a 60 year old dude! This is about as sexy as TV movies got back then!

Now if the whole movie looked like this, it would have been amazing! In fact, it was good just to see an actual monster again!  But...............

Yeah, I think it's pretty weird that the only black actor in the whole movie is essentially The Devil, but on the other hand, he's also the coolest character in the movie!

Carlsbad Caverns have never looked better!

Bernie (Blacula) Casey is the Boss Gargoyle, and Diana makes his blood boil!

We lost way too many cool people last year, and Bernie was one of them! Talk about being multi-talented, Bernie had 79 amazing acting credits, and that was after being a professional football player for the San Francisco 49ers, and the Los Angeles Rams for 8 years, but what he really liked doing the most was painting! Sadly, Bernie Casey passed away on September 19, 2017 at the age of 78!

 It turns The Gargoyle on when Diana reads to him, and it's just about to get real sleazy but.........

..........Mrs. Gargoyle isn't digging this action at all, and that's pretty much for all rights and purposes, where the story ends!

The HORROR And SCI-FI MOVIES Of DON DOHLER

Well, here we go with another Monday Monster Mash, this time we take a look at the Don Dohler movies. Don has 10 credits for producer, 10 credits for writer, 7 directing credits, 10 editing credits and a pile of other miscellaneous credits. All his movies were released direct to video as far as I can tell. In 1972 he launched the movie magazine "Cinemagic," which had a run of eleven issues that lasted until 1979. Don was a filmmaker from Baltimore, using nearby locations for his backdrops, he was only 60 years old at the time of his death in 2006...

In 1978, Don releases his first mind-boggling movie, THE ALIEN FACTOR! I like this goofy towering creature the most!.. Hey, watch yer head!!

In FIEND from 1980, a spirit enters into a grave site and reanimates a corpse back to life as Mr. Longfellow. In order for him to stay alive, he needs to absorb the life energies out of the living by wrapping his hands around his victims' throats..

In the sci-fi adventure NIGHTBEAST from 1982, Don brings in his space alien with a wicked sense of humor!! Like, man, he really seems to enjoy his work!

Next up is THE GALAXY INVADER from 1985, a real degenerate story about a space alien being hunted by a gang of drunken hillbillys who saw him crash-land his big old spaceship in their back yard!

Apparently, Don needed a break from sci-fi, because, six years later in 1991, he releases BLOOD MASSACRE. In this crazy tale, four punks rob a video store and kill the owner's daughter. They decide to hole up in a farm house but don't realize these farmers are actually blood thirsty cannibals!.. Oh, hey George!

Looks like Don needed another break, this time from movies themselves, because, ten years later in 2001, he gives us... HARVESTERS! It's a thriller about a small-time gang of misfits led by lesbian Gulf War veteran, Frankie Falzone. After she kicks a redneck's ass at a strip club, the gang moves on to a small town to cause even more trouble...

Also in 2001, it's back to sci-fi for Don with ALIEN FACTOR 2: The Alien Rampage! Man, this is one whacked out follow up to the original story, watch in horror as alien space specimens escape to pillage the countryside, leaving pandemonium in their wake!

Okay, bring on the vampires!!.. In 2002, Don gives us STAKES! Okay, so, try and imagine a parallel Earth where vampires have savaged humanity, the disease is so bad, the bloodsuckers begin feeding on each other! Three surviving humans create a jump gate to our Earth, but, the Queen of the Vampires and her evil bodyguards use the gate to come to Earth as well!

Keep 'em coming!!.. In 2004, we get VAMPIRE SISTERS, a twisted erotic tale about three of the world's most beautiful, yet horrific, creatures of the night, who engage in the world's oldest profession. Utilizing a web site to entice victims to their lair, the seductive Vampire Sisters fulfill their unholy desire to feed on human blood.

Our last sci-fi tale is CRAWLER from 2004! This is wild 'n' weird, but, I cannot find any info on this damn movie, WTF!!

Our last movie is DEAD HUNT from 2007, released a year after Don's death. In this story, ten movie reviewers are invited to a party by the host of a website devoted to horror films. The party is in full swing when the power abruptly goes out, a mysterious, black-hooded figure starts terrifying the group, who find that they are trapped in the house!

Check in again Wednesday for even more precious Dungeon Cargo!

FEAR IN THE NIGHT - Jimmy Sangster - "Dynasty Of Fright" (1972)

I'm assuming we're going to run out of material one of these days, but until that day comes, welcome to yet another Saturday Freakin' Night Special in The Dungeon!

"Fear In The Night" was a 1972 Jimmy Sangster - Hammer film that was one of their last together!

Ralph (Horror Of Frankenstein) Bates hangs on from finish to start, because this opening scene is actually the end of the movie!

"Fear In The Night" is mainly a vehicle that showcases the beauty and acting talents of Judy Geeson, whose talents have graced these pages a half dozen times or more, in super-classic titles like "Berserk," "Goodbye Gemini," Doomwatch,"Star Maidens," and "Inseminoid!"

Judy's character is Peggy Heller, and she goes from being terrorized to.....

............Totally demure!

The rest of the talent quotient is incredibly high in "Fear In The Night" ranging from Peter Cushing...

.........To America's favourite bitch of the entire 1980's, the fabulous Joan Collins! How ironic that the U.S. video release was titled "Dynasty Of Fear!"

But the bottom line is that this is Judy's movie!

I'm not even going to try and explain this!

This is one of the best phone shots I've seen in a while!

I'd like to give a big shout out to cinematographer Arthur Grant for this shot! Look at the composition his eye saw just to get the actor framed by that little door! It's like Escher!

Arthur's credits include everything from "Quatermass And The Pit" to "Frankenstein Must Be Destroyed," and almost literally everything in between! "Fear In The Night" was his second to last film! And now you know one of the main reasons why all those Hammer films look so great!

Judy's all twisted up inside! 

 And Joan is "Twistin' The Night Away!"

Another big thanx to Lord Litter in Berlin for reminding me this movie existed! When your mind is craving music that is always full of surprises, do yourself a favor and check out one of his radio broadcasts! Just trust me on this one! If I wasn't doing this, that's where I'd be! And if you can't make a choice, here's a good place to start!

"Fear In The Night" wasn't exactly an original title! This version of a completely different story came out in 1947, and one of the stars was DeForest Kelley, aka Dr. McCoy of "Star Trek" fame and fortune! "It's a strange, strange world we live in, Master Jack!"