Bats
USA 1999
Reviewed by Kim Newman
Synopsis
Our synopses give away the plot in full, including surprise twists.
Gallup, Texas, the present. A young couple are killed by a swarm of bats. Dr Tobe Hodge of the Center for Disease Control puts together a bat-fighting team comprising expert Dr Sheila Casper and her assistant Jimmy, military researcher Dr Alexander McCabe and Gallup's sheriff Emmett Kimsey. McCabe reveals that he has experimented with a pair of Asian flying foxes. Having escaped from his laboratory, these foxes are infecting other bats with a viral agent that makes them intelligent and vicious.
After Sheila and Kimsey survive an encounter with the bats, Jimmy works out that the new species could overrun the world. The bats mount a mass attack on the town, during which Hodge is killed. The military considers carpet-bombing the county, although Sheila believes this will be useless. She is given a short amount of time to put into action her own plan, which involves locating the bats' lair and using a freezing device to force them into hibernation. The bats attack again. The pair of flying foxes that infected the other bats kill McCabe, but not before the scientist has admitted he deliberately let them loose from his laboratory. The military bungle an attempt to deploy the freezing device in the bats' lair, an abandoned mine. Though an air strike is imminent, Sheila and Kimsey venture into the mine, turn on the freezer, kill one of the flying foxes and seal the lair. The bombing is called off, but the surviving flying fox makes it to the surface only to be run over by the departing bat-fighters.
Review
The south-western United States was last threatened by bats in Nightwing (1979), a minor revolt-of-nature horror movie adapted from a novel by Martin Cruz Smith. The model for this lively film, though, would seem to be Joe Dante's Piranha (1978), in which ravaging monsters were blamed on a military programme designed to mutate vermin into "perfect killing machines". Like the recent killer-crocodile film Lake Placid, Bats sticks to the ground rules of its genre - the opening sequence has a pair of young lovers torn apart by creatures that dart out of the sky - and gets through a story at once predictable and preposterous with an ingratiating absence of pretension.
Lacking the knowing edge which made Piranha and Lake Placid such enjoyable crossover successes, Bats will probably play best to horror devotees. A little-known cast cope with sketchy roles to the best of their ability. As star scientist Sheila, Dina Meyer has a well-crafted speech about how she overcame her childhood fear of bats by becoming an expert on the species. Lou Diamond Phillips is relaxed as a Texan lawman whose darkest secret is that he's a covert opera buff (he plays Lucia di Lammermoor - presumably there wasn't a copy of Die Fledermaus to hand - while the library is being equipped with an electric fence). Revitalising that stock horror cliché, the figure of the mad scientist, Bob Gunton lurks nicely - feigning guilt at first, then becoming increasingly strange - in a role that brings to mind the villainous character Bela Lugosi played in The Devil Bat (1941) who created an enlarged bat trained to kill when exposed to a particular scent.
Director Louis Morneau has a track record in ambitious titles, notably his time-travel thriller Retroactive, that have gone straight to video in the UK. Given a modest budgetary leg up, he makes good use of his desert locations, flashes of distorted bat point-of-view vision and tricksy editing devices that compensate for the sometimes creaky special effects. The bat attacks are mostly satisfactory: Sheila is at one point trapped in the ticket booth of a movie theatre (just as Tippi Hedren is confined to a phone booth in The Birds, 1963). Bats also recalls Gremlins - where a small town was attacked by similarly deadly furry creatures - during the scenes where Gallup's complacent residents discover their cherished guns are of little use to them when the bats descend. After a decade awash with CGI monsters, the rubbery look of the special effects that went into creating the lead bats almost gives rise to a twinge of nostalgia. Unfortunately, the bats don't quite deliver the fearsome charge the script requires of them, which means that subplots involving perilous mines and an imminent air strike are needed to heighten the tension. Full marks, though, for the film's closing moments which see the literal squashing of that horror cliché - the appearance of a lone suriving monster intent on launching one final shock attack - under the wheels of a departing vehicle.
Credits
- Director
- Louis Morneau
- Producers
- Brad Jenkel
- Louise Rosner
- Screenplay
- John Logan
- Director of Photography
- George Mooradian
- Editor
- Glenn Garland
- Production Designer
- Philip J.C. Duffin
- Music
- Graeme Revell
- ©Destination Film Distribution Company, Inc.
- Production Company
- Destination Films presents a Louis Morneau film
- Executive Producers
- Steve Stabler
- Brent Baum
- John Logan
- Dale Pollock
- Associate Producer
- Leif Larson
- Unit Production Manager
- Louise Rosner
- Location Manager
- Andy Langton
- Post-production Supervisor
- Lisa Rogers
- Assistant Directors
- Marco E. Black
- Ty Arnold
- Michael Hennessey
- Script Supervisor
- Delphine Slezak
- Casting
- Laura Schiff
- Local:
- Cate Praggastis
- Voice:
- Steve & Edie
- Camera Operators
- Michael Mickens
- Jason Hornbeck
- Visual Effects
- Netter Digital Entertainment, Inc
- Digital Effects
- POP Film
- Special Effects
- Co-ordinator:
- Eric Allard
- Foreman:
- Brent Bell
- Puppeteers
- Greg Nicotero
- James Hirahara
- Luke Khanlian
- Jake McKinnon
- Shannon Shea
- Marc Irvin
- Mark Maitre
- Timothy Ralston
- Additional Editing
- Bob Ducsay
- Associate Editor
- Meghan Noble
- Set Decorator
- Cynthia Epping
- Scenic Artists
- Rick Curtis
- Heather Olson
- Storyboard Artist
- Kevin Farrell
- Costume Designer
- Alexis Scott
- Costume Supervisor
- Glenn Ralston
- Key Make-up
- Gina Homan
- Special Make-up/ Animatronic Effects
- Kurtzman Nicotero & Berger EFX Group, Inc
- Key Hairstylist
- Erin B. Lyons
- Opticals/Titles
- Custom Film Effects
- Main Title Card Design
- Lumeni Productions
- Orchestrations
- David Russo
- Music Supervisors
- Carol Sue Baker
- Jonathan Hafter
- Music Editor
- Ashley Revell
- Music Mixer
- Mark Curry
- Soundtrack
- "If Love Is a Red Dress (Hang Me in Rags)" - Maria McKee; "People in Texas Like to Dance" - Johnny Carroll; "One Less Fool" - The Souvenirs; "Don't Let the Doorknob Hit Ya" - Chris Anderson; excerpts from Gaetano Donizetti's "Lucia Di Lammermoor" - Montserrat Caballé, Jose Carreras and the New Philharmonia Orchestra; "Fury!" - Los Straitjackets
- Sound Mixer
- Stephen A. Tibbo
- Re-recording Mixers
- Ken Teaney
- Marshall 'Spanky' Garlington
- Re-recording Engineer
- Michael A. Morongell
- Supervising Sound Editor
- Andrew DeCristofaro
- Dialogue Editors
- Paul Curtis
- Frederick Stahly
- John C. Stuver
- Jason Lezama
- Supervising Sound Effects Designer
- Harry Cohen
- Sound Effects Editors
- Chris Smith
- Mark Lanza
- Adam Gillick
- Jeff K. Brunello
- Andrew Holt
- Jeff Whitcher
- Eric Williams
- Steve Robinson
- Rebecca Hanck
- Ann Scibelli
- Tim Walston
- Bill Fox
- Elisabeth Flaum
- Matthew Morris
- ADR
- Supervisor:
- Michael Payne
- Recordists:
- Thor Benitez
- Chris Staszak
- Mixers:
- Eric Thompson
- Shawn Kennelly
- Matt Beville
- Editors:
- Paul Curtis
- Frederick Stahly
- John C. Stuver
- Jason Lezama
- Foley
- Artists:
- Sean Rowe
- Joan Rowe
- Vince Nicastro
- Recordists:
- Thor Benitez
- Chris Staszak
- Mixers:
- Eric Thompson
- Shawn Kennelly
- Matt Beville
- Editor:
- Nancy Nugent
- Stunt Co-ordinator
- Kurt Bryant
- Animal Trainer
- Hoover Animals
- Aerial Co-ordinator/ Helicopter Pilot
- Dan Rudert
- Cast
- Lou Diamond Phillips
- Emmett Kimsey
- Dina Meyer
- Dr Sheila Casper
- Leon
- Jimmy Sands
- Carlos Jacott
- Dr Tobe Hodge
- Bob Gunton
- Dr Alexander McCabe
- David Shawn McConnell
- Deputy Munn
- Marcia Dangerfield
- Mayor Branson
- Oscar Rowland
- Dr Swanbeck
- Tim Whitaker
- Quint
- Juliana Johnson
- Emma
- James Sie
- Sergeant James
- Ned Bellamy
- Major Reid
- George Gerdes
- Cheswick
- Kurt Woodruff
- second major
- Joel Farar
- bartender
- Certificate
- 15
- Distributor
- Columbia Tristar Films (UK)
- 8,181 feet
- 90 minutes 54 seconds
- Dolby Digital Surround-EX/DTS/SDDS
- Colour by
- Technicolor
- Anamorphic [Hawk]