One of the first things I noticed while re-watching NIGHTWING (1979) this afternoon is just how wonderful the film's score by Henry Mancini is - moody, dreamy, melodic and dramatic with haunting wind instruments to make it reflective of the movie's Native American heart.
Like John Frankenheimer's PROPHECY from the same year, NIGHTWING was a late entry in the 70s "eco-horror" craze that used the issue of Native American land rights as the topical backbone on which to grow their genre ingredients. Interesting to note the different angles they take: in PROPHECY the horror is borne from technology and "progress" (chemicals leaking into the river from a nearby paper mill), while in NIGHTWING it's the more "traditional" curse placed by the aging "Medicine Man" figure, who was usually represented cinematically as possessing some form of supernatural mystique.
I wish some of the vampire bat sequences were better, many of the effects look pretty rushed, though the climactic image of the burning bats was effectively surreal and beautifully composed. A nice couple of lead performances from Nick Mancuso and Kathryn Harrold and solid support from David Warner (essentially playing a similar character to his one on THE OMEN three years earlier, though swapping his camera for vampire bat detection equipment and suffering not so gruesome a fate). The film also makes good use of the stunning New Mexico desert locations. Watching movies like TARANTULA (1955) and GARGOYLES (1972) on late-night TV when I was a kid definitely helped me develop an appreciation for genre films set in the American desert.
