You might be surprised at the tension that pervades this enjoyably cheesy movie.
Bats (1999)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:40
Fresh:7
Rotten:33
Average Rating:3.4/10
Consensus: Neither scary nor creepy.
Runtime: 1 hr 31 mins
Genre: Horror/Suspense
Synopsis: An unruly gang of genetically altered bats threatens to take over a small western town. Now it's up to a bat expert (Dina Meyer) and the local sheriff (Lou Diamond Phillips from LA BAMBA) to stop... An unruly gang of genetically altered bats threatens to take over a small western town. Now it's up to a bat expert (Dina Meyer) and the local sheriff (Lou Diamond Phillips from LA BAMBA) to stop them, before they reduce the town to a pile of guano. The DVD version is the Unrated Director's Cut! [More]
Starring: Lou Diamond Phillips, Dina Meyer, Bob Gunton, Leon
Starring: Lou Diamond Phillips, Dina Meyer, Bob Gunton, Leon, Carlos Jacott
Director: Louis Morneau
Director: Louis Morneau
Screenwriter: John Logan
Reviews for Bats
Bats sticks to the ground rules of its genre and gets through a story at once predictable and preposterous with an ingratiating absence of pretension.
An unholy, humourless splicing of The Birds and The Swarm, with neither the true terror of the first or hokey charm of the latter.
The bat attacks are a series of violent camera pans rendering everything a blur; the continuity and computer-generated imagery is dire; and the dialogue stinks, as do the performances.
Now here we go, a resolutely B-movie thriller with delusions of grandeur.
It's no knockout, but it's fun and gets the job done in a nonmalicious way, which more of today's punishing filmmakers should emulate.
The film skillfully mixes in humor (thanks in great part to the straight-faced clichéd phrases and no-nonsense lines delivered by Leon) without undermining the tension.
Bats has the look and feel of a film which really belongs in the straight to video category but it has just enough cheap thrills for genre buffs to give it a look.
Well, let’s not judge Destination Films on the basis of just one film. If we did, it would be a studio set to flap its wings and fly off into oblivion really soon.
...uried in clichés and swarms of mutant-like bats who, at a distance, look like nothing more than inkblots with hidden agendas.
Low-rent horror garbage, and one of those rare theatrical outings that actually deserves to be relegated to the junk bin at video stores across the world.
Bats has nothing to do with baseball or Bela Lugosi. Too bad, because either would be a welcome distraction from this cheesy B-flick about genetically altered man-eating bats.
Director Louis Morneau tries to liven things up with some intentional humor, but it is so conventional it doesn't really go anywhere.
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