"Nightwing" (1979) d/ Arthur Hiller

I once had to rescue a gothic concubine of mine from a tiny bat that had trapped itself on her porch roof. She called me, calmly declaring the furry little fellow a gift of love to me, though I knew she was secretly petrified to go near the thing, and only called me so I'd remove it, and maybe pull a few orgasms out of her afterwards. It took less than a minute to capture it in a critter carrier, one of the least tense minutes I can remember, to be honest, because bats aren't scary. And neither are the bats in tonight's review, a major release that I went to see in the theater back in 1979 after enjoying Martin Cruz Smith's novel beforehand. I never envisioned the book's characters being terrorized by puppets whose on-screen hokiness rivaled even Val Lewton's floppy bat-props of the forties either, in the book's defense.


"I track and kill vampire bats, exclusively. Sixty thousand in one clip. That's what I do, that's who I am. It is my raison d'etre, my joie de vivre. Just a bat killer...killing some bats. You still rolling?"
A huge colony of vampire bats has migrated to New Mexico, leaving a trail of dead livestock and ammonia piss in their wake. Two utterly fictitious tribes of American Indians, the Pahana and the Maski, are at odds over the discovery of oil in the mountain range that houses the sacred burial ground for both groups. Representing the Pahana, is Walker Chee (Stephen Macht), a progressive, slick young entrepreneur who wants to sell the land to Peabody Mining Co.,  using the revenue to drag the tribes into the twentieth century with updated medical care, education, etc. On the Maski side, is Duran (Nick Mancuso), a reservation lawman who's got the interests of his tribal elders in mind when he isn't skinny dipping in the hot springs with his paleface arm candy, Anne (Kathryn Harrold). His elderly pal and resident witch, Abner (George Clutesi), isn't concerned with the upcoming rain dance festival in the least, and only wants to end the world with an angry sand painting.


"Well, the forecast did call for ominous darkness with a chance of phony bats..."
Then there's Payne (David Warner), the British scientist who tracks and kills vampire bats from his state-of-the-art radar-equipped vehicle, when he isn't raving on at great dramatic lengths about killing them, their inherent evil, the bubonic / pneumonic plague they spread (both, I guess...what evil bastards, these bats), and the excess blood they piss out becoming ammonia. He'll later track them directly to their massive cave, only to fall through the entrance, tangled in a length of rope and dangling helplessly, after less than a minute of trap setting. Wonder if the other four professional vampire bat killers in the world are that bloody clumsy. Anne serves the colony a midnight snack in the form of some Christian missionaries( that include the late Charles "Norris" Hallahan of Carpenter's Thing fame) camped out on a small desert set, Duran chews jimson weed and trips his balls off, sending the whole mountain range up in a phony blaze in disposing of the equally artificial-looking desmodus rotundus, effectively ending any mining schemes (and the movie) in the process.


Is she laughing or screaming? It's hard to tell from here.
Hiller, who directed things like Love Story(1970) and Silver Streak(1976), had never taken the director's chair for a horror vehicle prior to this, and thankfully never tried to do so again. David Warner has always been a favorite of mine, and his hammy turn as Quint/Hooper here might be the best thing about this one, if it weren't for the lovely Kathryn Harrold, who memorably starred opposite of Ahhhnold in 1986's Raw Deal before embarking on a long career in television. Carlo Rambaldi, who'd provided unforgettable effects for classic genre fare like Una lucertola con la pelle di donna (1971), Flesh for Frankenstein (1973), Blood for Dracula (1974), and Possession (1981), clearly phoned it in here. You're allowed a few of those once you've worked with Mario Bava and Lucio Fulci, I would think. On the scale, Nightwing scores a solo, scareless pile of guano that it no doubt is. Avoid.


"...so this is Dianetics, New Mexico."

"Prophecy" (1979) d/ John Frankheimer

1979 was a good year for monstrous eggs in horror movie advertising, as evidenced by the provocative one sheet art for tonight's review, a schizophrenic slice of late seventies eco-horror from director John Frankheimer, the man responsible for such memorable films as The Manchurian Candidate (1962) and Black Sunday (1977). While the other egg-vertised genre feature that year, Ridley Scott's Alien, did over a hundred million in box office business, the Canadian-made Prophecy managed to pull in fifty four million dollars itself, a respectable draw considering the self-proclaimed monster movie's inability to juggle serious social and environmental issues with it's man-in-a-goofy-rubber-mutant-bear/half-chewed gum-monster-suit pay off.

Maggie(Talia Shire), Rob(Robert Farnsworth), and Ise-ly(Richard Dyshart), on a routine expedition...
After seeing some rescue team members die some horrible off-camera deaths at the bottom of a ravine, we're introduced to the Verne's. Robert (Farnsworth) is a doctor who's trading in the frustration of urban sprawl for a job with the Environmental Protection Agency, while his wife Maggie (Shire) accompanies him on his first assignment reporting on a logging camp in Maine where the loggers as led by one Bethel Isley (Richard Dysart) have been feuding with the nearby First Nation tribe as led by one John Hawks (Armand Assante). Isley blames his rescue team disappearance on the natives, while the natives attribute the incident to Katahdin, a protective forest spirit that has been awakened by the loggers' ecological carelessness. After an anti-climactic chainsaw v axe fight, a huge mutant salmon swallowing a duck, and a schitzed out raccoon attack, Hawks fills the Verne's in on all the stillbirths, birth defects, and mental illness that have plagued his people of late, and they meet his grandfather (George Clutesi), who feels no pain and notes that Katahdin is part of everything in God's creation, before his son nets a softball-sized tadpole to illustrate their sordid tale. At the paper plant, Maggie's boots turn up trace mercury deposits...


The last time I saw bears looking this jacked up, it was right after THIS.
The Nelson's, a family who've been camping in the woods, are set upon by what looks like an enormous female grizzly bear that rolled halfway through a whole mess o' chewed gum, and violent death ensues. Or a pillow fight, I'm not exactly sure at this point. The deaths are blamed on the First Nationers (of course), until Dr. Verne uncovers huge scratches on the trees during the investigation of the site, and Maggie one up's him, by finding two horribly mutated bear cubs, one of which is still alive, in a poacher's net. Verne plans on bringing the live cub to the authorities as evidence, but high winds start whipping around, keeping their chopper grounded, forcing them to hike to the elder tribesman's tee pee homestead. Maggie comes clean about her pregnancy and ingestion of contaminated fish, just as the affected animals they've encountered had. Yeah.You might not wanna go messin' 'round with bear cubs, guys, knowing their pissed off n' disfigured momma isn't gonna take kindly to your knee jerk environmentalism...eh, too late. Katahdin shows up, head chomping and paw-swatting greedy palefaces and superstitious indians alike, until the doctor and his wife alone, are left to cross the river and evade the berserk bubblegummy bear. Robert manages to drown the cub after it chews on matriarchal Maggie's neckpiece, and eventually stabs the last life out of it's arrow pin cushion mother, who sinks limply to the bottom of the river like the hokey latex suit she was. As the couple leave, flying over the area, the audience is treated to...another phony latex mutant rearing it's ugly prop head, as the credits roll. If you didn't see that coming, get your eyes checked.


Camper or down pillow? You make the call.
Frankheimer claims that the movie failed to live up to it's potential, in part, due to his rampant alcoholism at the time of filming. Fair enough. For me, Prophecy has enough unintentional laughs and snicker-worthy goopy creature effects to avoid goose eggs on the scale, and makes for an interesting-if-not-entirely-satisfying flick on those boring mid-week evenings. Just make sure you're partied up enough to appreciate it beforehand, otherwise, you might catch yourself sawing logs before the campy final reel. One wop.


When Statler and Waldorf greeted his corny jokes with raw meat, Fozzie's act suddenly went Grand Guignol.