Director: Jean Yarbrough
Year: 1940
Country: USA
Alternate Titles: N/A
Genre: Mad Doctor
Plot:
After a group of murders in a small village, the residents find them to be the result of a mad scientist's experiments in training an army of vampire bats to kill those who have wronged him in the past and they must race to stop him before they carry out all of their orders.
Review:
This one here isn't that bad and does have its good points. One of the biggest factors here is that it manages to offer up a really great atmosphere to it with a nice amount of scenes that really look quite impressive. This is mainly from the scenes in the laboratory to the shots from the village, this leaves a lot of really great scenes which are quite impressive showcasing the usual idea of mad science at that particular time filled with beakers, medical tubes, and flasks filled with liquids. The bat attacks are overall pretty decent and can be quite fun, as the sight of watching the obviously fake creatures involved have a sense of dread that allows for some nice multiple attack scenes as these are actually shown latching onto victims like in the first couple out in the courtyard, a later sequence where it comes out of the forest to attack a lone victim and the experimentation attempting to find the creature out in the park is quite nice. There's also the fact that the finale here is really quite fun, featuring the great idea that there's actually a second one out there which brings about some rather fun and enjoyable action as there are the big final attacks on the countryside estates in the middle of the night as well as the aborted attempt which leads into the big reveal at the end which is really impressive.
These are the film's good points, even though the flaws here aren't that bad. The biggest one is that the film doesn't really have anything especially noteworthy. Nothing really sticks out as to what happened in the film. This one really lacks the ability to have a spectacular or memorable scene, and this is a real problem. Without something to really be looking for, it simply goes over the viewer and feels as though nothing noteworthy occurred. This passes over quite easily because of that, and it does have some really dull moments toward the end where they spend a long time doing nothing of real value as it's simply just talking about what should be done to deal with the creatures. This provides nothing of real interest or excitement and does take a lot longer than usual to get through, as the conversation doesn't end. These are the film's flaws.
Overview: **.5/5
Solid enough, but doesn't really deliver much of an impact beyond a few key elements, there's enough to raise this one above a majority of the Poverty Row Mad Scientist films of the time. Pretty much look into this one if you're a fan of that style, enjoy Classic-Era genre fare in general, or are fans of the creative crew while those who aren't interested in those factors should heed caution.
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