Welcome to PICKIN' THE CARCASS, the new column by yours truly, Michael Arruda, where each month, we'll look at movies you might have missed the first time around.

You know how it is.

You've seen everything you wanted to see, but you're still not satisfied. You're hungry for more. So, you decide to go back, to see what's still out there, looking for that one last tasty little morsel to make your horror movie fix complete. You're picking from the carcass.

Let the pickin' begin!

Up this month, it's RISE OF THE GARGOYLE (2009), a made-for-TV movie, one of those Sci-Fi Channel originals, now available on digital cable. I tend to avoid Sci-Fi Channel originals like the plague, and so I didn't have much hope for this carcass entry. However, I was pleasantly surprised.

RISE OF THE GARGOYLE is the story of a professor/author named Jack (Eric Balfour) teaching in Paris, France. Jack's not a happy fellow these days, as he's divorced, he doesn't get to see his kids, and his latest book was a flop.

His friend Carol (Tanya Clarke), in an effort to get his creative juices flowing, takes Jack to an abandoned church that is scheduled to be demolished, where rumor has it, a strange underground architectural marvel has been discovered. At the site, Jack discovers some gargoyle architecture, but flees when he hears strange noises and sees "something" moving in the shadows. Baby.

Soon afterwards, a series of grisly murders begin in Paris, and when his friend Carol becomes one of the victims, Jack joins forces with a TV reporter Nicole (Caroline Neron) and her cameraman (Justin Salinger) to solve the mystery. At the same time, Jack is hounded by Inspector Gilbert (Ifan Huw Dafydd) who believes Jack is the prime suspect in the murders.

They soon discover a ferocious gargoyle loose in the city of Paris, in search of eggs that Carol had taken from the site. Of course, Jack realizes that if the gargoyle retrieves the eggs, and they hatch, the world would be in for a lot of trouble. Jack and Nicole team up with a priest (Nick Mancuso) to battle the gargoyle and send it back to where it came from.

Silly stuff, but somehow, it works, mostly because RISE OF THE GARGOYLE plays like an old-fashioned monster movie. If monster movies are your thing, you'll like RISE OF THE GARGOYLES, because it's a throwback to those films where the monster was the villain, and the villain simply killed its victims without torturing them first. Ah, the good old days!

Director Bill Corcoran has made a movie that is surprisingly scary--- that is, when the film's silly plot isn't getting in the way. The opening sequence where two demolition workers are attacked by the unseen gargoyle is suspenseful and creepy. It works because of some frightening sound effects and some nifty camerawork.

Also, for a TV movie, there is some gore, just the right amount to make its point, and this helps the movie pack a heavier punch.

The best "fright" scene in the movie comes when the gargoyle pursues Carol in her apartment in search of its eggs. The scene begins with lots of suspense, as Carol is alone in her apartment when the menace arrives. Unlike many theatrical films, in which a scene like this might go on forever with the woman looking around her apartment, checking behind every door and into every dark corner before the inevitable happens, this scene moves briskly. And once the gargoyle attacks, the suspense builds, leading up to a roof top encounter, in which, a la PSYCHO, the woman who thus far had been a major character in the movie is beheaded by the gargoyle. It's a shocking scene, nicely done by director Corcoran.

The screenplay by Andy Briggs tells a fairly interesting story that is better at the start than by the end. The more we learn about the gargoyle, the sillier the proceedings become. Early on, when we don't know so much, and the gargoyle is a barely seen killing machine, the film works much better.

Still, I liked the story. Again, it's a throwback to the old monster movies, and the gargoyle is an effective monster here. I also thought the setting, Paris, was refreshing. It was fun to see a story not taking place in New York or Los Angeles.

RISE OF THE GARGOYLE is certainly not without its flaws, however.

The acting is just OK. Eric Balfour is fine in the lead, though he doesn't stand out by any means, and Caroline Neron as the reporter also delivers a good performance. The rest of the cast is OK, the level of acting here being the type you might find on a daytime soap.

The one exception and the one stand-out is veteran actor Nick Mancuso as the priest. At first, I thought, here's another cliche crazy priest, out to "save the world" from an "evil demon," and I was not looking forward to watching this character. Truth be told, the character is another cliche crazy priest, but Mancuso almost makes you forget that his character isn't very real, because his performance is real. He truly delivers the goods, and his is the best performance in the movie, even though the character he plays is strictly cliche.

RISE OF THE GARGOYLE is also hindered by the ever present CGI effects. In general, CGI creatures work best when you don't see them much. The gargoyle in this movie is no exception. A glimpse of the creature here and there, combined with frightening sound effects, provides some creepy scares, but when the creature is seen in its full form for a lengthy duration, the effect is diminished. The creature looks like a cartoon, and with relatively few exceptions, cartoons just aren't that scary.

But overall RISE OF THE GARGOYLE is a very entertaining movie. There aren't a whole lot of gargoyle movies in the horror movie canon. The one that comes to mind was also a TV movie, way back in 1972, a film called GARGOYLES (pictured), notable because the special effects were done by Stan Winston. RISE OF THE GARGOYLE holds its own against the 1972 film, and is a worthy successor to the little family of gargoyle movies.

So, if you find yourself in the mood for a good horror movie, and you've already seen all the new theatrical releases you want to see, check out RISE OF THE GARGOYLES. No classic by any means, it nonetheless provides 90 minutes of decent horror entertainment.

Certainly not a first course, but if you're picking from the carcass, RISE OF THE GARGOYLES will satisfy that late night snacking urge.