Vampire Bats (2005)

This Movie Can Only Be Described With One Word.

Best movie ever!

Great story, amazing characters, superb action, enthralling cinematography. Yes, this is something I am glad I spent money on.

Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

This made for TV film is about killer vampire bats but with an environmental twist.Some college students get drunk and drugged, end up being attacked supposedly by wild animals but the college biology professor Lucy Lawless reckons its mutated Vampire bats caused by toxic waste in the river.Lawless does her best with a lot of bland non entities. The CGI and special effects are below average and the action is boring with the bats being very selective as to who they attack.A poor and rather silly film.

I personally wouldn't go as far to say that Vampire Bats is a great movie. However I don't think it is a terrible movie either, I have seen far worse. There is a predictable story that is not particularly scary that felt half nature gone amok and half of a derivative Scooby Doo episode, a cheesy and overly-talky script that is full of ludicrous scientific motivations, clichéd characters and the final scene was unnecessary, feeling tacked on. However, it doesn't look too bad a movie, the locations are great and the editing is much better than the slipshod quality I was expecting. The music is decent, adding a bit of atmosphere, and there are a couple of scenes that did make me jump if never really terrifying me. The vampire bats are reasonable, they are used more effectively than other creatures in other movies with similar if not completely identical ideas, and while not realistic they are less hokey in design than I thought. The acting is uneven, with Lucy Lawless who is actually good the best of the lot. Dylan Neal is a non-entity sadly and Brett Butler comes very close to overdoing it. All in all, not a good movie but there are far worse movies out there. 5/10 Bethany Cox

1. Is this a horror movie about bats, or a preachy movie about pollution? 2. In the party scene, when the bats attack, Lucy and her close friends are not attacked, but many others are. 3. The bats are known to kill or to transmit rabies, but Lucy and her friends keep going to the bats without any protection (except a broom, sometimes). 4. Only one teacher's students are attacked. Are there any other teachers at this school? 5. What did Lucy use to catch the bats? This was never explained. It looked like some kind of huge sticky web, but where did it come from?6. In the big finale, Lucy outruns flying bats (and she isn't even running fast), then manages to close a metal door without ANY of the bats getting through. She's not burned by the steam, either. I guess her broom protected her. 7. The editing in this film was atrocious, and the script wasn't very well written. Too many unexplained events. 8. One plus: Lucy answers the phone and says, "This is she." That's the first time I've heard CORRECT grammar concerning the use of pronouns following the verb "to be" in a LONG time. Usually, a character would say, "This is her," or "That's me." 9. Admittedly, Lucy looks good, but the skimpy outfits mentioned by another reviewer can be seen in only one scene, when the college girl leaves her window open and moves around on her bed in her underwear. Strangely, she isn't killed by the bats, but develops rabies. She didn't even realize that she had been bitten. 10. The final scene (three months later) made NO sense. Why was it included at all?Sorry, but I wish I HAD missed most of this movie. I certainly can't see any reason to recommend it to anyone.Final fotnote, added on 8/19/06: When Lucy fills a sample vial by dipping it into the polluted runoff from a waste pipe, she doesn't even wear gloves. Is THAT the sign of an experienced scientist?

The main monster movie formula hasn't changed since the 1950s: The pet evil technology of the time (radiation, pollution, germ warfare, genetic engineering) in conjunction with the pet villain of the time (mad scientists, the CIA, right wing militias, evil industrialists) turn some natural creature into a dangerous mutated version of itself. Fighting it is made harder by clueless citizenry, corrupt politicians, and head-in-the-sand bureaucrats. Frequently the good guys are aided by a guilt-wracked insider. In the end, some sound or scent is often used to lure the creatures into one place where they can be destroyed.The variables are filled, in this entry, by pollution, evil industrialists, vampire bats, and music. Instead of an explosion, they are killed by steam. We don't see much of the insider, who is used mainly to throw the audience off as to which character is a crook.This movie isn't as silly or heavy-handed as many movies using this formula, plus the acting is better, but the fact remains that you've seen it dozens of times before. (Although the choices of evil technology and favorite villain always result in some reviewer gushing that it was "ripped from the headlines.")