Bats Review

So this is not direct-to-video and has a bigger budget. What's that gonna do for a horror flick driven by all the standard formula? Off course you will pay for average actors that you've all probably seen somewhere else. We have Lou Diamond Phillips as the sheriff, Dina Meyer as the bat expert, her assistant Jimmy Sands portrayed by Leon and the bad scientist starring Bob Gunton. Before any real bat action and I mainly mean their attack on the town in the middle of the film, everything is based on extremely predictable cheesy dialogue. Sands is supposed to be the funny character to ease up the tension (what tension?) and ends up being the least funny. That actually makes him funny, how ironic. The main point is that the mutated bats can make the normal bats also bloodthirsty and that would eventually lead to killer bats over all USA. Indeed frightening. Who cares actually about the plot, let's go to the bats.

I would have actually killed myself if it wasn't for the mutated bat design since it wouldn't be so enjoyable. Although when in great numbers they do look ok because you don't see them up close. Kinda surprising to have bad up close bat effects since it's made for cinema. What's the story behind these mutations? They were mutated by the bad scientist, guess for who? THE MILITARY!!! Quite shocking when it's revealed later on. There are no shocking factors, no gore, just some blood so what is the horror element here. From low budget you'd expect this sort of thing but usually in bigger budget they either throw in random shocker scenes or make things dark to achieve some sort of naive claustrophobic atmosphere. Here nothing. Or maybe the bat cave with tons of guano, that's scary if you come to think of being in a pile of bat droppings. Once the military steps in you begin to wonder if it's worth watching it to the end. They want to blow up the town, good guys know that ain't gonna help, they want more time, they get it, solve everything the last few seconds and happy ending. Obviously all the creative minds are in the video production area of badness.

Something more on the characters. Fascinating thing about the sheriff, later on we find out he's an opera fan!? Character development? It's followed by Sand's comment: "You're a sick individual". Great stuff. A 2 minute scene which makes absolutely no sense at all. Or the FBI agent I forgot to mention earlier, for whom we constantly believe to be a wimp, and suddenly sacrifices his life in order to save another. His death is tried to be filmed with emotion and you can only guess the result of that. Pure laughter.

So is it interesting? Not really unless you want a relaxing no brain and no thrill experience. Just the typical not scary horror with a few good laughing scenes here and there, but it's predictability combined with not too much likable characters brings it's demise. The bats are the main highlight and nothing more actually. They mixed too much budget with awful effects and what we got is something on the edge of carp and shit. Uninspired, dull and boring this is simply a bad movie that's bad. But gotta love the bats.