Bats

Bats

When a movie like "Bats" comes around you can get a general idea of what the movie is going to be about just based on the title. With progressively increasing budgets limiting the capacity of the movie, filmmakers are left with a catastrophic product. This is a completely mediocre, unexciting, and unoriginal example of the normally-harmless-animals-eating-people genre. It is a miracle that this movie was made, let alone released to theaters. It wasn't such a shock to find out that this film was a disaster at the box office.

Unfortunately, mediocrity permeates every aspect of this film. The entire movie is filled with typical slasher scenes that we have seen over a hundred times in other horror films. It has the usual horror plot with uninteresting dialog, along with stereotypical characters. The first scene of the movie shows two young lovers driving out to and parking in a secluded area. After a while the man notices something weird happening outside his car. Instead of doing what a real person would do, the man decides to get out of his vehicle and investigate. Naturally, he finds nothing and returns to his car. Predictably, the car is swarmed and the characters are killed. And who created these killer bats? None other than a mad scientist who is out to create the perfect killing machine by using one of nature's own creatures. The bats are a product of an experimental virus that has made them stronger and smarter than the everyday bat. To make matters worse they escape from the lab and quickly begin breeding. If they are not stopped soon they will migrate all across North America and ultimately the entire world, killing anyone and anything that gets in their way. Of course the heroes rapidly step in to save the town and the world. As usual the heroes succeed where all others have failed. So, as you can see, there is nothing original about the plot or the characterization. It is merely a collection of clichÐ"©s.

As many of the scene go by we are introduced to the film's central flaw. The special effects used in this movie are quite primitive by today's standards. The only thing that was good about the special effects was the bat's shriek, but it does not compensate for the bad camerawork. Many of the actual attack scenes are terribly shot because the director seems to believe that keeping the camera in motion will compensate for the lack of expensive special effects. The editing seems to reveal an all-consuming fear that if the camera stops moving the audience will become bored and leave the theater. Jumping from shot to shot does not let you see what is going on properly and becomes irritating because it is used throughout the entire film. This is not a useful tactic in this case because the images are disorienting and many of the images are blurry and distorted, ultimately leaving the audience members confused and uninterested.

The bats themselves are a combination of CGI effects and foam puppets. After a few attack scenes we