Gryphon

aka Attack of the Gryphon

2007
Directed by Andrew Prowse

SciFi Channel strikes again with another monster movie where CG runs amok and kills people, this time medieval people, and again their effort is less than stellar. At least it wasn’t painful. Parts of the film seem to be borrowed from many popular movies: the villain is Emperor Palpatine’s lame nephew, certain elements are directly culled from Lord of the Rings, and even parts reminding one of Braveheart are onscreen. The movie follows SciFi Channel’s Type A monster movie, where there is only one monster (or a small group) who is invincible.

The heroine is named Princess Amelia, which is also the name of the actress who played the princess in Dragon, another movie that Gryphon resembles. It’s low budget, has a single word title that is the monster, has a Princess Amelia (even if not by name), has a witch wife of the King who sees the future, and has bad CGI. It’s spooky how much Gryphon reminded me of Dragon. Princess Amelia actress Amber Benson played Tara on Buffy the Vampire Slayer, and as I have only seen one episode of that show I have no idea who she is. The hero is Prince Seth, played by Jonathan LaPaglia, from The District, another show I didn’t really watch (but I saw several episodes of it, I just don’t remember him, either.) Where is Coach? He should be playing one of the kings.