Review of Bats (1999) by Gareth J — 19 Feb 2010

Ah the B-movie. If there we ever a thing in cinema that could be dubbed a guilty pleasure, its this.

The truth is that Bats could easily have been Arachniphobia, Snakes on a Plane or Eight Legged Freaks! and you wouldn't really notice much difference. This is mainly because they essentially all centre around the same core premise: animals with a slightly sinister reputation become mutated by a Promethean scientist and besiege an isolated small town, only to be eventually stopped by a scientist/feminist figure, a working class diamond in the rough and a comic relief who just so haoppens to be afraid of said creature.

Despite a fairly strong effort by Dina Meyer (who this time manages to go a whole movie without getting naked) and a totally believable performance by Leon, the film can not escape its deep genre-confined script and thus is never anything more than a by-the-numbers affair. Lou Diamond Philips in particular feels about as realistic as a Ken doll and at no point is the audience ever led to believe that he may not make it out alive (the premise which made Deep Blue Sea so refreshing could really have helped here).

As with most genre films, the special effects remain the biggest draw and the hideously vampiric bats do successfully satisfy in the creepiness department. Beyond that, Bats stands as nothing more than a time filler. Genre fans may want to watch it if they haven't already but newcomers are better advised to skip straight to Aranchniphobia, Evolution or the far superior Tremors.