Vampire Bats is a sequel to the equally awful telefilm Locusts which pits Dr. Maggy Reardon (Lucy "Xena, Warrior Princess" Lawless) against completely ridiculous grasshoppers out to strip the whole world of its food supply plus cleaning the flesh off everyone's bones, which might've been cool in a moronic sort of way if we ever saw it actually happen.

This time it's hordes of vampire bats instead of hordes of grasshoppers. Maybe the good doctor will have a third film to complete the trilogy in which she will be pitted against hordes of killer shrews or rabbits or cockroaches.

Vampire Bats is set in a Louisiana bayou, where bigger meaner murderous mutant vampire bats have arisen. The most fun that can be had with this film is to figure out which scenes really were shot near New Orleans, & which scenes were done in a hurry-scurry in Nova Scotia after Hurricane Katrina destroyed the Louisiana setting.

The bats like human prey, but because this film was made for CBS television, it doesn't dare show anything the least bit bloody.

Thus there is a long opening sequence with standard-issue drunken "hooray, let's watch 'em die" teenagers without individual character deliniation, who are deaf to the menacing soundtrack. With plenty of getting lost in the woods & threatening music & lots of indistinguishable characters, what happens in the climax? One, count 'em one teenagers hearss the sound of wings, turns around in terror only to fall in a mudpuddle, then quick fade to black before anything happens. Big build concluding in nothing, then after the ads we're introduced to Lucy Laweless's character who mentions what must've happened during the ads.

When we finally do get to see a bat puppet-on-a-stick, it's no more convincing than a toy bought at Toys R Us for Halloween.

It's way too stupid to succeed as a drama, & without bloody FX or scary bats, it's not effective as exploitation either. So it's fundamentally nothing. The image of Xena in modern garb, running away from badly animated CGI bats, through a tunnel she entered fully knowing she'd encounter deadly bats, yet goes armed with only a kitchen broom -- that's about as logical & exciting as this one ever gets.

copyright © by Paghat the Ratgirl