Bats (2021) by Scott Jeffery and Becca Hirani

Director: Scott Jeffery, Becca Hirani (as Rebecca Matthews)

Year: 2021

Country: United Kingdom

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Creature Feature

Plot:

After hearing of a possible break-in, a family returns to their formerly abandoned childhood home to take stock of the incident and finds the area home to a race of giant humanoid bat mutations from a chemical spill in the past and must find a way to get away alive.

Review:

This here wasn’t that bad of a genre effort. One of the better features here is the strong setup that provides this one with a nice workaround for the genre. The initial setup involving the community being evacuated and abandoned years earlier and being allowed to return due to the news of the intrusion that happened initially signals that the time is okay to return, and once they do find that the intervening years have created a monstrous hybrid of man and bat. It works well enough here to bring them out to the remote area while also managing to offer up enough of a reason for the creatures’ existence that’s gone unnoticed until now, and when brought up alongside the personal issues of the girl mourning her boyfriend gives this a great starting point.

That provides a decent launching point into the creature attacks which are genuinely fun. The opening attack on the intruders looking to crash there gets things off to a fine start, while the initial attack on the family up in the attic provides some great moments with the creature's sudden appearance, the acid attack, and the chaos of trying to get away unscathed. With scenes showing the creatures being able to hunt in the dark through night-vision shots or creating such an ear-piercing scream as to blow a person’s head apart, they’re imposing enough without their appearance being shocking enough to give them some genuine fear which gives the final battle in the church some fun including the brutality of the attacks as well as the emotional relevance of the situation. These combine together to give this a lot to like.

There are a few issues that hold it back. One of the main drawbacks here is the slow start to things which serves as a means of ensuring the flimsy storyline can be padded out to feature length. While it’s perfectly adequate to get the sideplot involving her grief over her boyfriend’s death and withdrawal from the family, this all starts the film on a decidedly off-kilter tempo that the film never really recovers from with the drama overwhelming the action which creates some awkward moments where her grief tries to get in the way of everything. As well, there’s also the film’s incredibly confusing final battle which doesn’t have the usual thrills or catharsis usually featured here going for the psychological route it does where hr grief again becomes a major hurdle to get over which holds it down.

Overview: ***/5

Bringing enough likable elements to be watchable enough as it is, this is generally likable and worthwhile enough that it can overcome the few issues present which overcome the drawbacks present. Those who are fans of this style of indie creature feature or are fans of the creative crew will have a lot to like here while most others who don’t enjoy the style or approach taken here might want to heed caution.