La Nuit des chauves-souris

Bats, a film that should have premiered on the Science Fiction channel on cable, somehow got a theatrical release. If it had been made fifty years earlier I can definitely see Boris Karloff or Bela Lugosi in the part that Bob Gunton plays as the mad scientist.

The scariest thing about Bats is not the creatures themselves although they are the ugliest looking things this side of the Black Scorpion. The scariest part of the film was Bob Gunton's portrayal of the mad scientist who created this race of killer omnivirous Bats. He's identified as working for the Center For Disease Control. I was watching this figuring out how this creep got government clearance.

Yet Gunton is the most enjoyable thing in this film. And you got to love the fact that he had all these government facilities to work with, he's not hidden away in some laboratory in an old castle the way Karloff and Lugosi used to be. He's bred this race of flying fox bats from Indonesia which are aggressive to begin with and they've taken up residence in a bat cavern in Lou Diamond Phillips's county where he's the sheriff.

After several suspicious deaths with mutilation, the cause is identified and zoologists Dina Meyer and Leon Robinson are brought in to clean out the bat cave. If you care about how and if they do it by all means watch the film and the hint is, think blob.

Bats will never go down as a great science fiction classic, but it does have a certain campiness to it. And Gunton is a hoot.

As usual, I find myself on the opposing side of the critics. This movie has NO BUSINESS in the bottom 100 here at IMDb! It's FAR from a masterpiece, but it's also just as far from deserving that low a rating.

As is often the case, whenever you have a good monster/creature feature, lurking somewhere in the shadows is a mad scientist. Such is the case in this film. In fact, I found the mad scientist a tad too mad. I think that is the main contributor to the low ratings this movie receives here at IMDb. The "doctor's" performance went WAY over the top. Well, he's supposed to be insane, but he plays it like pure camp, and that's horribly out of place in this otherwise serious work concerning a lab experiment gone awry...or has it?

The animated/CGI bats are well done, and all performances besides the doctor are enjoyable and on target. Unfortunately, he was bad enough to have brought down the whole film.

This is fun, generates some good suspense, and isn't afraid to show you the nemesis. The story itself is quite competent to hold up, and does, IF you can ignore the wretched performance given by Bob Gunton. I must say that I do not believe it to be wholly his fault, as he has given some great performances in the past, and since. The fault must lie with the director, Louis Morneau, who has never done much of note.

I like this film and can enjoy it, in spite of the doctor, and do find myself watching it from time to time.

It rates a 6.8/10 from...

the Fiend :.

I think the Oscar race just got a little tighter when Bats was released into the market. This is clearly one of the best films that has come out this year. You can forget about the cynicism of American Beauty, the brilliance of Fight Club, the ingenuity of Three Kings and the mania that is Sixth Sense, Bats is set to go down as one of the greats up there with Jaws, Patton, Rocky, Annie Hall and Amadeus. I think future generations of Hollywood directors and writers are going to turn to BATS to see how it is done. John Carpenter's Halloween and Spielberg's Jaws used to be the bench mark when it came to horror, but this has put a whole new perspective into how to scare someone at the theater. When I left the theater my knuckles were a ghostly white from gripping the arm rests and when I looked on the ghastly faces of the hundreds of people leaving the theater, they all had the same expression. They were frightened. The show ended at about midnight and we were all anxious to get into our cars because we were afraid those cunning bats were waiting to get us, right outside the theater. Now that is good film making. Jaws made me afraid of the ocean, I think Bats is going to make me afraid of the night sky. I have never seen bats that look this real in a movie. Those fangs were so real looking that most of the budget must have gone into the production of those intricately designed bats. Fangs, eyes, and even their hissing sounds were realistic. What a fantastic film. If this isn't nominated at Oscar time for best picture and director, then I would say that something is up with the academy. I am still in awe and utter fear as I sit here and write this review of Bats. This is one of the scariest films that I have ever seen. WOW!!!

Okay, I just had to do it. I had to.

Bats is really one of the worst films to come out this year. But this is a film that is so easy to rip on that I thought it would be fun to do the exact opposite and just confuse the hell out of the readers for a minute or so. The only award this may be winning this year is the Raspberry awards. But you know what? Going into this film, I was expecting a really, really, really bad film. I only got a bad one, so that was unexpected and a nice surprise. I think I, like most other horror movie nuts enjoy a good "bad" horror flick at times. There is just something about cheese that is fun at times. And for that reason, Bats delivers. Everything you have heard about the film is true. It is all bad. The bats are laughable, the story is a joke and the writing is awful, even the commercials looked pretty bad. But there is one good thing going for it, and that is that it had a subtle homage to Jaws in it. The guy that first gets killed at the beginning is named "Quint" and when they do an autopsy on him, it wreaked of Hoopers little angry deposition in Jaws when he tells them that it wasn't a boating accident. And if you can pick up on little subtleties like that then the film is more fun. Really, this isn't all that bad, I mean it is bad, but there are really worse out there. Have you ever seen Truth Or Dare? I mean the movie where mental patients get a hold of a grenade and blow their own heads off? Well that is really bad, I mean really, really bad. And as I said, this is just bad. But I saw it in an empty theater during the day. Seriously, there was just me and a friend. And at AMC in Toronto, they have retractable arm rests so that you can put them back and use the seats as a couch, which is what we did. It was very comfortable and we enjoyed the movie quite a bit more that way.

Bats will probably be gone by the time this review gets to IMDb so you may not have a chance to see it at the theater, but if you are in a campy horror movie mood, then rent this when it comes out on video. You may enjoy it. I hope you didn't take my accolades too seriously at the beginning of the film, it was all in good fun. And remember, sometimes bad movies can be fun to see. You don't have to think, you don't really have to feel either. And you get to laugh at stupid people doing stupid things. Bats is a great example of that. If Bats is even ever mentioned in the same sentence as American Beauty come Oscar time, there will be a federal inquiry and Mr. Logan and the backers of this movie may go to a maximum state prison and his punishment would be to watch this movie every day of his sentence. Now that would be funny.

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.

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 .