Murciélagos

This movie is an absolute riot! The best part about this movie was "Heather". I wanted to see more of her as she kept the movie going by taking off with it from the very beginning. Heather (Corina Marie) hits the comedic beats perfectly to make her "cliche" character of a Valley Girl real and hysterical. Her performance was completely believable...I wanted to see more!!!!!!! Make "Heather" live again!

Confession. I will watch any monster movie, especially really really bad ones. And this definitely ranks with the worst ever. With scenes poorly revisited from almost every other monster/horror movie, this is what I refer to as a "Movie-Loaf". Shamelessly dragging "Jaws", "Carrie", and even bits of "Twister" (Aluminum cans come in sooo handy sometimes), this movie makes the entire "Piranha" series look realistic and highbrow. A pair of ultra precocious teenage surfer types add a gut churning touch for those unaffected by the cheapness of the bat effects. I almost fell off my sofa when I learned that these bats use RADAR as opposed to the usual echolocation (sonar). The computer jargon, thrown in apparently at random, will insure that this movies remains "dated" for all time, if anyone ever has the shamelessness to re-run it (thank you Sci-Fi). That said, if you love to laugh at movie making at it's worst, this is a real gem. Where's the Mystery Science Theater 3000 crew when you need them? I suggest watching it with some good humored friends and a case of beer. You may want to start in on the beer before you put in the movie however.

The first time I saw this, I agreed with all the other posters who say this is a BAD, BAD movie. Watching the acting is like eating old, cold popcorn with no butter, salt or anything. And the better I knew the actor to be, the worse the acting seemed. For this I blame the director. The plot was transparent, the characters cardboard, the motivations only hinted at or missing entirely. For this I blame the writer. The second time I saw it, it was vastly more entertaining because I knew not to expect any better, and I could appreciate the flashes of creativity, humor and even humanity that are peppered through the film.

The writer, Jim Geoghan (if that really is the writer's name/identity -- have you taken a look at his photo? is that for real?), has mostly written for sitcoms. The punch-punch-punch, joke-every-ten-seconds style needed to keep the attention of the average sitcom watcher does not translate well onto the movie screen, and the 22-minute time frame doesn't lend itself to the habit of thinking deeply or extensively (or sometimes at all) about character, meaning, emotion, motive or the nature of creativity.

The director, Kelly Sandefur, appears also to have gotten his start in sitcoms, and the same comments apply. But he also seems to have mainly done Visual Effects Filmography, which explains a lot. Just as movies directed by long-time stunt performers tend to have lots of spectacular stunts, sometimes (often) to the detriment of the story and music video directors tend to create chaotic, nihilistic, iconoclastic films, this film looks just great, but the other qualities suffered.

In fact everything about the look of this film is really very good. The cinematography, lighting, staging, focus, sound -- everything technical is in fact excellently done.

The serious film student, especially one with ambition to make films of one's own some day, can definitely profit from a study of this film and its faults and its strengths. The main lessons: writing is important. Match your writer to your subject. For example, the humorous parts of this film fell flat because the writer is used to a laugh track guiding the audience to the (intentionally) funny parts. A playwright can often write a more effective script because he's not used to relying on a sound track to guide the emotion of the viewer -- he has to do it with the story. Also, match your director to the material. Don't ask a music video director to direct a tender love story, or any scene that lasts longer than three minutes. And if you ever get to make a movie (and if you can afford it), get all the technical crew of this movie to work for you! But first, see to the writing. A badly filmed great story will be easier to watch than an excellently filmed mediocre story.

FANGS is indeed a movie about genetically-altered, killer bats that attack a small town. As such, it's not unendurable. Yes, the CGI is sub-par, making the offending mammals appear like super-imposed cartoons. Yes, the town's citizenry is collectively doltish.

However, the leads aren't bad, including intergalactic mega-star Whip Hubley as the Animal Control guy, and Tracy Nelson as the visiting "big city" cop.

The real reason to watch this movie is to witness Corbin Bernsen do his thing as the reprehensible real estate magnate, Carl Hart! He's on fire here! If you enjoyed him in his DENTIST films, then you'll love him in this. Of course, this is a PG-13 movie, so, there's not much gore, but Bernsen's attitude and demeanor carry the day! No one can portray an unholy a$$#ole like he can. No one! Just ignore the preposterous premise of the movie, and watch BERNSEN!...

The only thing that FANGS seems to have been made to do is make the theatrically released BATS look like it deserved every Oscar award that is given out. I was actually happy to own BATS after seeing this, because after I was done watching this film, I watched BATS just to let myself know that not all films suck this badly.

The first thing that really lets you know this film will be major low-budget and hokey all the way is that it stars Corbin Bersen. A good actor, but then again, he did star in the highly terrible, direct-to-video flicks RAPTOR and KILLER INSTINCT. So, forgetting Bersen, there is the rest of the cast. Whip Hubley (brother of Season Hubley) isn't all to bad, but the main thing that kills FANGS is sloppy direction and a screenwriter who tried all too hard to try to make this film funny. Basically, he wanted to try to make FANGS into a BATS, that had the humor that David E. Kelley gave LAKE PLACID. But, it fails miserably here and most of the 'humor' just sounds plain retarded. It's sad too. It always upsets me when somebody says something that you know was meant to be funny and it just isn't.

Having not been given very many killer bat flicks in the past (the only two I can think of would be BATS and an early 70s film called NIGHTWING) so I guess FANGS does well considering that only two other films of this caliber have come before it. But, it borrows heavily from them and end is almost laughable. Like other users said, it seems like you were almost expecting the line "The killer is really..." somewhere in there. The thing that saves FANGS from being a complete atrocity is the fact that the special effects were not *that* terrible (but still, you could obviously tell the bats were computer designed) and the fact that there are a few sarcastic lines that are given by performances that are not all that bad. But, the film is loaded with mindless cliches and has dialogue and situations that are just n-o-t belivable.

FANGS: 2/5.