Creepy Crawly Number 6 - The Bat (that Science Made)
Bats
* The creepy crawly up for show; The title tells you what this movie is about…
and that’s exactly what you get. Bats! Lots and lots of bats! A mix of
Arachnophobia meets The Birds, Bats came out at a time where monster movies
weren’t big at the cinemas, but it has enough horror movie undertones to make
it qualify for the climate of slasher flicks that were popular in the late
90’s. And for as many movies as there have been over the years with bats in the
background (mainly vampire flicks or any of the Dracula pictures) the nocturnal
rodents hadn't realy had their moment in the spotlight. In this film, it’s all about
the bats. Of course there are stock-standard human characters, who either
battle the bats or get killed by them,
but the movies soars best when it focuses on the flying killers.
* How they are portrayed in this film; set in the small town of Gallup, Texas, the local bats are actually far from local. As we quickly learn, they were a science experiment overseen by a controlling doctor who wanted to see what would happen if he could make the bats better. Claiming they escaped the lab and were probably breeding with local bats, the scientist is joined by two wildlife zoologists and the local sheriff, who are all pulled into the dilemma to find the bats and bring their blood-soaked reign of terror to an end. And as you might have expected, these are no ordinary bats. They are highly aggressive, coordinated in their attacks, and seek out humans as a snack.
* The humans who try to squash them; Our human characters in Bats are not very-well written, but most of the cast does their best within their cliched roles and limited character development. Some of the lines are downright garbarge in every sense of the word, or mostly just exchanges between characters which serve as providing key information to the audience. The film is most enjoyable when the people just stop talking and the bats start stalking.
Clearly, Bats is a B grade movie all the way,
but after watching it again recently after only seeing it once when it came out
in 1999, I recognised some qualities about I didn’t notice earlier. It appeared
to me there is actually good movie hiding somewhere in this merely competent movie. If
you can tolerate the poorly written dialogue, wooden characters and dodgy
performances from some of the cast, there are some intense action scenes on
display here. The idea of thousands if not millions of vicious bats filling the
night sky to the point they black out the moon, and descending on a small, unsuspecting
town to wreak havoc, is enough to make anyone run and duck for cover. And it’s
in these scenes, even with their inconsistent special effects, that the
director shows some talent at staging a variety of climatic moments. There is
the standard attack at the beginning of the film, where the bats pick off a
couple making out in their car. Then there’s the attack on the towns people,
followed by our heroes barricaded in a school they’ve boarded up with wood and electric
fencing.
The film does explore imaginative ways to show bats attacking people,
and whenever a close up of the feral creatures are on screen, you will see a
face that is angry, evil and sinister, which can often come across as comical,
but also a bit frightening when handled properly.
* The grossest moment; Bats is not an overly gory movie, although there’s a few blood splattering scenes. When it does give you a close up of some helpless person being ripped apart by the bats, you will cringe and maybe even look away a bit, but it’s certainly not a film that is unbearable to watch. Well, if you don’t like B grade movies about bats killing people, you won’t be interested, but if you’re open to this kind of thing, you will have some fun with Bats. It’s short, swift, often funny, occasionally exciting and never demands very much from you.
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