Devil Bat's Daughter

Devil Bat's Daughter (1946)

1/2 (out of 4)

Nina MacCarron (Rosemary LaPlanche) believes that she is evil just like her father who murdered several people after creating a bat to attack them. She begins seeing a psychiatrist (Nolan Leary) to try and make sense of whether she's going crazy or perhaps there is something evil around. This here is a sequel to THE DEVIL BAT, a fun Bela Lugosi picture but this thing here is just downright awful on just about every level. We'll get to the awful things in a bit but the most disappointing thing is how stupid it treats the viewers and fans of the original film. In that film Lugosi was a murderer but this sequel pretty much throws everything out and completely contradicts what the original film was about. Why on Earth they did this is anyone's guess but it really wouldn't shock me if the screenwriters of this thing never actually saw the picture. Being a PRC film you should expect a low-budget but I'd really be shocked if this thing took more than a couple days to shoot. The entire thing looks as if it was shot on just a couple sets and everything from the performances to the editing to the direction are downright horrid. The weird thing is that director Frank Wisbar and actress LaPlanche would fair much better together the same year with STRANGLER OF THE SWAMP, which proved they could deliver something of quality. I think this film perfectly shows how very little effort anyone was putting into it because the studio simply wanted a film to get into theaters and hopefully milk some horror fans. DEVIL BAT'S DAUGHTER was released the same year as SHE WOLF OF London, another horrid film dealing with a female monster.

German director Frank Wisbar was a rising star in his own country before he was forced to flee the Nazis and emigrated to the U.S. Whatever talent he had apparently disappeared on the way over here. Most of the films he made in the U.S. were cheapo horror junk for PRC Pictures, which was pretty much at the bottom end of the Hollywood food chain. The only good thing that can be said for this picture is that it's not as lousy as the film it is a sequel to, 1940's "The Devil Bat"--and, since that was one of the absolute worst films ever made, is not saying much. The story is about a woman (former Miss America Rosemary LaPlanche, who is basically the only good thing in the movie) who believes herself to be possessed by the spirit of her dead father. The film is treated more like a mystery than as a horror film, but what "mystery" there is is painfully obvious. The film didn't do much for the career of Rosemary La Planche, Frank Wisbar or anybody else who had anything to do with it, and for good reason--it stinks.

1946's "Devil Bat's Daughter" proved a sad finale to a decent run of horror titles from Producers Releasing Corporation (PRC), director Frank Wisbar coming off the more impressive "Strangler of the Swamp," which also starred Rosemary La Planche, former Miss America of 1941. Screenwriter Griffin Jay had an interesting resume, first at Universal with "The Mummy's Hand," "The Mummy's Tomb," "The Mummy's Ghost" and "Captive Wild Woman," then Columbia with "The Return of the Vampire" and "Cry of the Werewolf," plus PRC's recent "The Mask of Diijon," a vehicle for Erich von Stroheim. What most of these admittedly minor efforts show is a proclivity to headline strong female characters, in particular Acquanetta and Nina Foch, screen newcomers like Rosemary who all enjoyed backgrounds in modeling before Hollywood came calling. Bela Lugosi fans still rejoice that their hero got to play the title role in "The Return of the Vampire," as it was his only actual vampire other than two films as Dracula, while this curiosity was intended to be a sequel to the Lugosi classic that kick started the studio's Poverty Row reign, 1940's "The Devil Bat," but with no one on board from the original it's no wonder that this storyline is so sorely lacking. This may well be the first instance where the original was altered for the sequel though hardly the last, as in 1981 the John Carpenter "Halloween" was granted a prime time airing with new footage added to make it better 'fit' the upcoming Rick Rosenthal follow up "Halloween II." Rosemary's character hardly speaks for much of her limited time on screen, relating how Lugosi's Paul Carruthers was a Romanian (like Armand Tesla in "The Return of the Vampire") who wed her Scottish mother before abandoning the family when the daughter was only 4, her mother soon dying of anemia eventually blamed on a 'vampire.' The original midwestern town of Heathville is now the New York locality Wardsley, where Carruthers engaged in experiments on 'cell growth stimulation,' escaped bats claiming a small number of innocent victims including the doctor himself, a far cry from setting them up with shaving lotion that attracted the flying death by fangs and claws. The girl spends much of the running time in a trancelike state, in the belief that her father was the 'Devil Bat' and that she must also suffer from inherited tendencies of vampirism. The actual villain of the piece comes as no surprise at all, Michael Hale as Dr. Clifton Morris clearly revealed early on as cheating on his wealthy wife (Molly Lamont) with her best friend (Monica Mars), intent on using poor Rosemary as the perfect foil to dispose of said spouse to gain access to her money (death implemented by scissors), only to run afoul of a stepson (John James) who inexplicably falls for the pretty headcase while simultaneously building a case against his mother's killer, a man he despises for obvious reasons. Griffin Jay's mastery at recycling meant that old ideas now became part of the new backstory at odds with the events from "The Devil Bat," and with its slim running time of 67 minutes occupied with discussions about things never shown or points already seen it becomes a struggle coming to grips for the viewer trying not to drift off into blissful sleep. Rosemary La Planche made a good impression in the lead of Wisbar's "Strangler of the Swamp" but here is largely absent during the second half, and dog lovers will not approve of one canine's demise, very different to the Great Dane in Monogram's John Carradine vehicle "The Face of Marble." June Lockhart played a similarly distressed victim in Universal's "She-Wolf of London," completed roughly two weeks before "Bat" shooting began on Jan. 9, more manipulations in store for the Jekyll family in 1951's "Son of Dr. Jekyll" and 1957's "Daughter of Dr. Jekyll."

Do not watch this movie expecting to see any monsters or vampires because all you'll get are some bats. Actually this film is more of an identity crisis drama and murder mystery rather than a horror movie. The best parts are the dream sequences which are reminiscent of surrealist experimental films (has David Lynch seen this?) and also LSD sequences from 60s films like HALLUCINATION GENERATION or BLONDE ON A BUM TRIP.

Okay, unless you're a fan of mystery and horror films, you likely find all the stuff from the 1930's and 1940's intolerable, but what's the point of putting that in a review? I AM a fan, and I liked this sequel (of sorts) to The Devil Bat. It has classic 1940's styling and 1941's Miss America in the lead role. I thought the flashbacks to the first film were handled well, and the storyline is plausible. The whodunit aspects and ending are relatively predictable, but not unsatisfying. Miss LaPlanche and Mr. Leary starred in the same year in The Strangler of the Swamp, which I liked a little more. I also liked the use of the newspaper's vampire headlines which provided a link to Bela Lugosi and a theme of the previous film.