In the small fictional Texas town of Gallup, people start dying. The reason for all those deaths? Bats! And no, it’s not because they’re spreading viruses or diseases, they go for the quick solution and simply maul people to death. The Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) calls in the experts to get some answers: Dr. Sheila Casper and her assistant Jimmy Sands are called in, both being Chiropterologists (scientists who specializes in the study of bats). And, lo and behold: it’s revealed that these bats have of course been genetically modified. What a surprise. All orchestrated by a crazy scientist, Dr. Alexander McCabe, who wanted them to become more intelligent and more omnivorous to avoid extinction. It might have been done with good intentions, but it seems the result is putting all other species into danger of extinction instead, including humans…
In order to de-escalate the situation, they need to find the bat roost so they can put these little beasts down. They’re only active at night, so they do have some time to work out a plan. This, of course, proves to be more challenging than first anticipated since the bats have become highly intelligent. To make matters even worse, the National Guard arrives and evacuates the entire town, planning to destroy the entire place to get rid of the bats. Sheila pleads to let them at least give it a try first, and she and her team gets a time-limit of 48 hours to locate the bats before the whole places goes kaboom. Clock’s a tickin’…
Bats is a creature feature horror film from 1999, written by John Logan and directed by Louis Morneau. It grossed $10 million against a budget of $5.2 million, and got pretty much slaughtered by critics. Like so many B-movies, especially creature feature ones, they aren’t considered “good“ movies but still offers a solid amount of entertainment value. We didn’t really have much expectations when putting this movie on, but definitely had a good time with it!
The effects for the bats are somewhat limited, and I’m fairly certain that’s the reason behind the usage of shaky camera during some of the attacks scenes. It’s often Hobgoblins-style where the actors just hold a puppet and tries for dear life to make it at least somewhat convincing that this thing is alive and trying to kill them. Not that these movies can be compared in any way other than that, of course. There are some pretty neat practical effects here and there, and the bat creatures and the puppetry are actually pretty cool. There’s a little bit of gore, although not much, and some fun locations including a cave where things really go, well…batshit crazy in more ways than one.
So overall, Bats is a nice little B-Movie that you can have some fun with if you expect nothing more than a late 90’s creature flick with all the boxes ticked: scientist girlboss, brave local sheriff, cool sidekick making witty remarks here and there, meddling military, and untrustworthy people from the government. And creatures out for blood and causing lots of kill counts, of course. It’s some nice, silly fun for a typical popcorn evening!
Director: Louis Morneau
Writer: John Logan
Country & year: USA, 1999
Actors: Lou Diamond Phillips, Dina Meyer, Bob Gunton, Leon, Carlos Jacott, David McConnell, Marcia Dangerfield, Oscar Rowland, Tim Whitaker, Juliana Johnson
IMDb: https://www.imdb.com/title/tt0200469/
