Bats - Fliegende Teufel

Absolutely surprising carnivorous bats tale , derived from abysmal story . The film starts in Skull Valley , Arizona, where the scientific Casper (Dina Meyer) and his assistant Jimmy (Leon) are investigating about bats . They're brought by a government scientist (Bob Gunton) to a small town called Callup , in Texas . There appears a pack of carnivorous bats that prey on citizens , terrorizing the small community . The chiroptera specialist Casper , his helper , along with a policeman (Lou Diamond Phillips) attempt to stop the genetically altered flying foxes before the military comes into action , bombing the caves.

This is a slam-bang chiller about flying foxes , full of scares and lots of blood and gore . It delivers the goods with suspense , tension and hair-raising chills ; plus , the astonishing special effects of this nature , as the ferocious bats seem alive . It's an eerily effective thriller , quite entertaining , though many will undoubtedly find repulsive when the bats attack and eat their victims . The tale can't bear such close scrutiny , but while this thrills ride is going, you won't mind . With a final budget of 5.25 million, the film went on to gross well over 30 million worldwide in theatrical , DVD , Digital and Television sales . Although considered somewhat unsuccessful at the time, the film recouped its entire budget during its first week of release . The vampire bats are splendidly made by means of Animatronics in charge of Robert Zurtzman , Greg Nicotero and Howard Berger . The bats in the film were a combination of Animatronics, CGI , and 2 live bats. The 2 original bats in the film were brought over from Indonesia . The acting is uneven , an attractive Dina Meyer , Lou Diamond Phillips as the patrolman who along with the scientific facing off the creepy bats and killing them in their caves . Bob Gunton is an oddball baddie acting as a mad doctor and the comic relief in charge of Leon .

Interesting screenplay by John Logan , today writer for blockbusters (Aviator , Last Samurai , Star Trek : nemesis , Time machine) . Produced in just under 6 months , the picture continues to hold one of the top spots for fastest produced 35mm feature films to receive a wide-release . The motion picture was well directed by Louis Morneau , in his best movie . He's a B series director, with no much success (Hitcher 2 , Retroactive , Quake , Soldier Boyz , Carnosaur 2). With similar premise , ten years earlier (79) was shot the movie titled ¨Nightwing¨¨ directed by Arthur Hiller with Nick Mancuso , David Warner and Kathryn Harrold , but it was a flop, this one is a superior film .

"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.

This is not a very good movie. If I had seen it at a theater, I would have felt ripped off, certainly. But at home, I watched it with an undemanding mood, and with the feeling this was a basic update of a low budget animal-attacking movie of the '70s. Seeing it that way, the movie was good enough to pass the time. No more, but I wasn't bored.

Certainly, there's a lot of the movie that's dumb. Some of the puppets and computer generated effects look really bad. The black character is only there for humor, and his treatment is somewhat offensive. Lou Diamond Phillips can't act. Sometimes you can't tell what's going on with all the close-ups of flapping wings and bad editing.

There are a few good things. Some of the cliches I was expecting actually didn't happen. (For one thing, the authorities are quick to the danger for once.) The cinematography is excellent, and occasionally the movie has a "big" feeling that makes it look more expensive that its $6.5 million budget.

So if you like B movies, are feeling undemanding, and can see it cheaply or for free, you might want to give it a try.

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.