Bats - Fliegende Teufel

"Bats" was a treasure i found on the shelves of Blockbuster video way back in the 90's, a great time to be obsessed with movies like i was as there was constantly new & exciting looking movies out all the time & with Cool artwork on the covers & one that caught my eye was BATS.

The case looks Awesome & the cast was great with the super stunning & beautiful DINA MEYER, who i loved from Starship Troopers, here she was with the Cool LOU DIAMOND PHILLIPS (Young Guns flicks) as the two leads in a Creature Feature about killer mutant Bats & i was sold.

Although "Bats" is a B-movie at heart it still had a very decent budget of around 5 million & every penny is well spent in it's production. The look & setting is perfect B-movie Horror with it's All American little town that gets attacked by mutant bats, it's a great setting that felt like "Critters" or something & our two leads are great together with sexy Meyer as an expert/scientist type & Philips as the tough local Sheriff, a perfect old school 1950's sci-fi B-movie story just transported to the 90's.

The special effects are fantastic as they use everything from practical puppets & c.g.i to real Bats & all expertly done. Great mutant bat designs.

The music is exciting & there's some really thrilling set pieces such as the Town attack sequence!!! A few years later i felt the same sort of sequence of the towns full attack was very similar in another Throwback B-movie Creature Feature called "Eight Legged Freaks" the big budget spider movie. I love these small towns under attack from creatures films & "Bats" is one of my favourites, a real GEM.

"Bats" is pure 90's Monster fun & a great late-night film & a treasure amongst the B-movies of the 90's & with two good leads.

This is what the direct-to-video market was all about, good entertainment & a fun nights viewing.

I have always liked these kinds of creature feature movies. They are a lot of fun and unlike Friday the 13th, Halloween, Nightmare on Elm Street etc it is clean enough that I don't mind the kids watching it. With Halloween around the corner they are already all about the scary, spooky, fun movies but the boys are only (almost) 10yrs old and finding fun stuff that doesn't have nudity and sex throughout isn't easy. We mostly have to stick to the old black and white spooky classics to avoid it. With the exception of a few things like this. Overall, a fun little watch that shouldn't be taken too seriously.

Bats is a very generic late-'90s killer animal flick that follows most of the genre rules to the letter. All of the expected characters are present and correct—untrustworthy government scientist, brave local sheriff, doomed-to-die deputy, dedicated (and sexy) animal expert, wise-cracking sidekick—and the plot develops in an extremely predictable manner, opening with young couple alone in the dark falling victim to the bats, before introducing a whole townful of potential victims, and climaxing with our brave heroes risking their lives in a showdown against the deadly critters.

It all gets very silly at times, with perhaps the most unbelievable scene being the securing and electrification of a whole school by just four people in the space of a few hours, but it still proves to be quite a bit of fun, director Louis Morneau keeping the action moving at such a swift pace that such nonsense is fairly easy to forgive (unlike the director's tendency to 'skew', stretch and blur the image during the frenzied bat attacks, which I found bloody irritating).

What really helps to elevate this formulaic nonsense to slightly-above-average are the solid cast and some fairly decent special effects. Dina Meyer (of Starship Troopers fame) and Lou Diamond Phillips make for a likable protagonists, and Leon is far less objectionable as 'token comedy relief black guy' than one might expect. As for the bats, they're a mixture of more than reasonable CGI and nifty puppetry from KNB; my only gripe, FX-wise, is a lack of splatter—a bit more gore would have been very welcome.

"Bats" had its theatrical run and was widely distributed on rental VHS/DVD. Videostores carried multiple copies which got rented fluently. Yet from the looks of it - its rating on here - most people thought this was bad. Boy, have they not seen 'bad' yet. Things would get a lot worse in years to come with these type of films. For one thing, try watching the alleged sequel to "Bats" called "Bats: Human Harvest". The thing was made in 2007, for TV and then dumped to DVD as well. Go watch it; it's about 5 times worse than this film. Then come back and tell me which is the bad film out of those two. Or go watch "Fangs" from 2001 (starring Corbin Bernsen). It's the silly version of "Bats". I tell you, things can get a lot worse than this modest piece of killer bats entertainment. It even stars Lou Diamond Phillips and Dina Meyer. In 'worse' movies, you can't even count on a cast like this anymore. So why the complaints & puss-poor ratings on here?

I've seen quite some crappy horror-movies already, and you can say what you want about "Bats", but it's not a bad movie. Clichéd? Yes, kind of. Seen it all before? Yes, most likely. But the production values are more than just okay. It's well made. It looks good. Good camera work. The acting is more decent than what you normally can expect from a movie like this these days (like stuff produced by Sci-Fi Channel, The Asylum, need I continue?). I've seen much, much worse special effects when it comes to the CGI used in this one. And there are actually some cool shots of animatronic bats to be admired (from puppets with full body movement to close-ups of their heads with moving ears, grinning teeth and blinking eyes - it's always a kick to see SFX artists go the extra mile on this). The film's fairly fast-paced, keeps you going and never gets boring. It's basically a B-movie that looks damn good, sort of like stuff similar to "Tremors" (a fine early 90's monster movie classic) and its sequels. Or if you bump down the ladder a bit, you'll find a lot more (lower budgeted) genre outings telling pretty much the same story ("Skeeter" from 1993 comes to mind).

Of course "Tremors" works better on a variety of levels and "Bats" isn't as great by a long shot. For one thing, it misses some wit, and that black guy (Leon playing Jimmy Sands) trying to provide it didn't do a lot of good either. Still, a fun popcorn-movie for the somewhat less demanding horror-fan. If you have this feeling that genetically altered killer bats might amuse you, then ignore the low rating on here and just watch it.

Now, can someone recommend me a better movie with a whole bunch of killer bats in it?

As usual, I find myself on the opposing side of the critics. This movie has NO BUSINESS in the bottom 100 here at IMDb! It's FAR from a masterpiece, but it's also just as far from deserving that low a rating.

As is often the case, whenever you have a good monster/creature feature, lurking somewhere in the shadows is a mad scientist. Such is the case in this film. In fact, I found the mad scientist a tad too mad. I think that is the main contributor to the low ratings this movie receives here at IMDb. The "doctor's" performance went WAY over the top. Well, he's supposed to be insane, but he plays it like pure camp, and that's horribly out of place in this otherwise serious work concerning a lab experiment gone awry...or has it?

The animated/CGI bats are well done, and all performances besides the doctor are enjoyable and on target. Unfortunately, he was bad enough to have brought down the whole film.

This is fun, generates some good suspense, and isn't afraid to show you the nemesis. The story itself is quite competent to hold up, and does, IF you can ignore the wretched performance given by Bob Gunton. I must say that I do not believe it to be wholly his fault, as he has given some great performances in the past, and since. The fault must lie with the director, Louis Morneau, who has never done much of note.

I like this film and can enjoy it, in spite of the doctor, and do find myself watching it from time to time.

It rates a 6.8/10 from...

the Fiend :.