Chosen Survivors

Is this movie really as gory as I remember it? My younger sister and I still talk about the time one of our older sisters dumped us off at the theater in order to get us out of the house while the parents were away. The movie playing that day was "Chosen Survivors". Yikes. If memory serves this one had plenty of blood on the walls and lots of bat attacks. Maybe there is more to this movie than blood and bats but that's all I can remember from it. I'd love to find this one on video to see how it has held up over the years.

Chosen Survivors is directed by Sutton Roley and written by H.B. Cross. It stars Jackie Cooper, Alex Cord, Richard Jaeckel, Bradford Dillman, Barbara Babcock, Diana Muldaur and Lincoln Kilpatrick. Music is by Fred Karlin and cinematography by Gabriel Torres.

It's the eve of nuclear war and a government computer has selected a specialist group of people to live 1,758 feet underground in a nuclear proof, purpose built housing facility. The purpose is that these people can start to repopulate the Earth in five years time. However, something isn't quite right about this set-up and things take a distinctive turn for the worse when it's revealed that a colony of vampire bats have also made the facility their home.

It's far better than any plot synopsis suggests. True, it's very 70s, both in characters (clothing/delivery of dialogue/hair), and the effects used, but it also captures the zeitgeist of paranoia running at the time. Fear of nuclear war and the government hangs heavy, while the group dynamic under a stress situation makes for a tellingly oppressive mood. The whole thing has a bleakness about it, and that's before the vampire bats turn up hungry for what is apparently the only source of blood left available to them. The downbeat feel is further enforced by Karlin's music score, which often sounds like the synthesiser strains favoured by John Carpenter for some of his well revered culters. There's the expected bad turn of events with some of the characters, I mean it would be a dull film if everyone just got on all hunky dory, while there's a wicked twist that propels the narrative to another level of enjoyment for the viewer.

Competently acted by the cast, and effectively put together by Roley, Chosen Survivors is a neat horror/sci-fi hybrid. Not without some cheese and gaps in plotting for sure, but very effective and recommended on proviso you aren't looking to be cheered up! 7/10

"Chosen Survivors" poses quite a few ethical questions, while taking extreme liberties with the reputation of vampire bats. The film has an almost fatal failing in that it introduces a dozen characters all at once. This of course means that character development is totally inadequate. We really know nothing about those unfortunate individuals who succumb to the blood sucking winged annoyances. On the positive side, many of the futuristic sets are intriguing, there are some unexpected twists, and the use of actual as well as animated bats lends realism. The movie occasionally grinds to a halt with meaningless small talk, but overall has definite entertainment value. - MERK

This is one film that, even though I have not seen it in years, deserves a DVD release. It was, when I saw it as a teenager, one of the scariest movies I had ever scene, and the ending sequence with the bat attack still brings back some shivers. I taught a Science Fiction class in a NJ high school and I had a budget for films - - I found this movie as a projection movie at a local distributor. After carefully discussing the plot with the class, and the graphic scenes, my class viewed the film and enjoyed it thoroughly as a message movie and a horror film. With more and more archive titles coming out on DVD, perhaps soon this "little gem" will be released. For those who have not seen this film, have patience - - - even though I have never seen it on Sci-Fi Channel or TBS or such - - this is a tidy little thriller that really delivers the goods!

This is a movie I've wanted to see for over 30 years now; I first read about it in horror magazines when it first came out, but it soon turned into a lost film that went completely out of circulation. It has now been made available by Fox as part of their Midnite Movies Collection, and I'm a little disappointed to say I wasn't missing all that much. It's not a "bad" genre film and it's got a good premise, but it's still rather ordinary in the way it's executed. A group of people are selected by computer, sedated, and then sent down 1,758 feet into an underground bomb shelter to see if they might sustain life in the event of a nuclear war. It was another of those perfect experiments hatched by the government, except they overlooked the fact that this project was built down within caves, so now swarms of hungry vampire bats manage to find their way into the bunker and chomp on these frantic chosen survivors. There's more talk going on than anything else, but when the bat attacks do occur, they're pretty satisfying, even if sometimes the special optical effects amount to little more than a flurry of dark splotches.

I got a kick out of seeing former Our Gang child actor Jackie Cooper as the main loudmouth of the bunch who at one point goes on a bender and becomes your basic arrogant pain in the ass character. Other '70s regulars among this cast are Richard Jaeckel (GRIZZLY) Bradford Dillman (BUG), and Lincoln Kilpatrick (THE OMEGA MAN). I thought I recognized director Sutton Roley's name from somewhere, and later I found out that's because he directed some LOST IN SPACE episodes and was primarily a TV show director. I'm not sorry I saw this, but it sure was some tepid tea. ** out of ****