Nightwing (film)
| Nightwing | |
|---|---|
 Original poster | |
| Directed by | Arthur Hiller |
| Produced by | Martin Ransohoff |
| Written by |
Martin Cruz Smith Steve Shagan Bud Shrake |
| Starring |
Nick Mancuso David Warner Kathryn Harrold |
| Music by | Henry Mancini |
| Cinematography | Charles Rosher, Jr. |
| Edited by | John C. Howard |
| Distributed by | Columbia Pictures |
Release dates |
|
Running time | 105 minutes |
| Country | United States |
| Language | English |
Nightwing is a 1979 American horror film directed by Arthur Hiller. The screenplay by Martin Cruz Smith, Steve Shagan, and Bud Shrake is based on the 1977 novel of the same title by Smith. Its tagline is "Day belongs to man, but night is theirs!" It was one of many Jaws rip-offs that were popular in the late 1970s and early 1980s, including Orca: The Killer Whale (1977), Tentacles (1977), The Pack (1977), Piranha (1978), Alligator (1980) and Great White (1980). It also was Hiller's only horror film.
Plot
Youngman Duran, a deputy on a Hopi Indian reservation in New Mexico, begins to investigate a series of mysterious cattle mutilations. Abner Tasupi, an ancient and embittered medicine man who raised Youngman after his parents died, tells him he has cast a spell to end the world that very night, but Youngman assumes he simply is babbling while under the influence of datura root. The following morning, Youngman finds Abner's bloodless body on the floor of his shack, and nearby he discovers a dead shepherd and most of his flock.
Tribal Council chairman Walker Chee has discovered a stratum of oil shales in Maskai Canyon, the most sacred ground in the tribe's domain. Walker is dynamiting the caves in an effort to unleash oil, and is planning to sell the rights to process them to the tycoon Roger Piggott of Peabody Oil. Walker is desperate to keep word of the attacks from leaking to the media before he completes the deal.
Although common sense tells him otherwise, Youngman's faith in tribal beliefs and superstitions leads him to suspect the unexplained deaths may be connected to the spell Abner claimed he cast. British scientist Philip Payne is certain they are the work of vampire bats infected with bubonic plague. As they spread throughout the area, swarming through a missionary group's campsite and infecting everyone in their path, Philip and Youngman join forces with Anne Dillon, a young white medical student who runs a ramshackle clinic on the reservation and is in love with Youngman, to track the bats to their lair and destroy them.
Cast
- Nick Mancuso as Youngman Duran
- David Warner as Phillip Payne
- Kathryn Harrold as Anne Dillon
- Stephen Macht as Walker Chee
- Ben Piazza as Roger Piggott
- Strother Martin as Selwyn
- Charles Hallahan as Henry
- George Clutesi as Abner Tasupi
Production
The bats were the creation of special effects artist Carlo Rambaldi,[1] who previously had worked on King Kong and Close Encounters of the Third Kind.
The film was shot on location in Albuquerque, Santa Fe, and Cubero, New Mexico.
The soundtrack includes "Lucille" by Kenny Rogers and "Don't It Make My Brown Eyes Blue" by Crystal Gayle.
Critical reception
The movie failed critically and financially. Vincent Canby of The New York Times called the film "not very horrifying" and thought "it looks as if it had been put together from a child's instruction book." He added, "The screenplay . . . is terrible and the special effects third-rate."[2]
Time Out New York said the film "never really takes off" and added, "Hiller's direction simply plods to a corny and unsatisfactory ending after getting bogged down in subplots concerning whale-oil prospectors, Indian religious mumbo-jumbo, and inter-tribal rivalries."[3]
Channel 4 observed, "Quite why Hiller was selected to direct this suspense shocker is the most interesting thing about the project. A film-maker who has made a speciality of showing reverence for platitudes has no jurisdiction over a piece of schlock nonsense about bat-killers in the Arizona desert."[4]