The Devil Bat (1940)

Simply Perfect

A Disappointing Continuation

Although it has its amusing moments, in eneral the plot does not convince.

The film never slows down or bores, plunging from one harrowing sequence to the next.

By the 1940's Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi was mainly seen in poverty row movies, such was the rapid fall he suffered in Hollywood. These cheap B-movies were mainly pretty bad but Lugosi always put in engaging performances no matter the quality of the material. I would definitely have to say that The Devil Bat ranks as one of the better of this particular bracket of films. It has Lugosi as a chemist who has been cheated out of money by some business partners. He uses electricity to create giant bats who are trained to attack and kill those who wear a specific after-shave he has developed, needless to say, he starts handing out free samples of this to those ex-partners he wants punished.This one is quite entertaining it has to be said. It has the benefit of a pretty decent monster that we see flying around at dusk and then swooping down to kill its unfortunate victims. It may not seem like much but seriously, for a poverty row creature feature, this is well above average. Lugosi is as ever good value as well. The plot-line is silly yet engaging enough with some quite memorable moments. It's still overall fairly average in general terms if I am being totally honest but for a poverty row movie it's definitely on the higher end of the scale. Certainly worth watching.

I just watched The Devil Bat for the first time since I was a child. I remembered Bela Lugosi, the central plot device of murder by means of an aftershave that attracts killer bats, and the fact that everyone in the movie seems to listen to exactly the same radio station at exactly the same time. All those elements are still there, and though the last one only occurs once, it still seems like an amusingly silly way of conveying exposition. But much less prevalent than the cinema cliché of panning, zooming, and spinning newspapers, which appear here constantly. Perhaps that's more appropriate than normal, though, since two of our main characters are reporters.The Devil Bat has been one of the more enduring of Lugosi's cheap "poverty row" horror/mystery roles, no doubt because it remains highly entertaining and watchable despite, or perhaps because of the fact that everything that happens in in the realm of high silliness with horror trappings. Lugosi is a scientist (which here apparently means both a physician and a perfume chemist) who cashed out early after making a perfume formula for a successful company, and now thinks the company's fortune should be his. So his solution is to murder the family who runs the company in a very convoluted fashion. The concept is, well, batty. And from an acting standpoint, you can't say Lugosi makes this character "believable." Nobody could make someone doing this believable. But is is very entertainingly creepy, which is exactly his job.Because we know from the start what he is doing, this can't be a traditional mystery. But it's well-paced enough that we still follow the other characters as they inevitably move towards finding the solution we already know. And we don't blame them for not guessing such an unlikely scenario. Reporter Johnny is our hero. He's a little hard to take seriously as he spends most of the film wearing a tie with a huge question-mark pattern on it. Perhaps he is secretly The Doctor.He gets fired after his photographer "One-Shot" fakes a news photo of the devil bat. But he rather unbelievably wants to keep working on the story despite no longer technically being a reporter since he as no one to report to. When they find out more about the case their boss rather shockingly wants to hire them back, despite the fact that at least one of them provably fabricated his earlier journalism.But it's all part of the comic relief, which is still fun working alongside the unintentional comic non-relief. And though the film is clearly quite low-budgeted, its hows that more in its flimsy castle set (of course, all doctor-scientist-perfumers live in castles) than in its devil bats.There's very little objectively "good" about this movie, but it's everything a fun B movie should be.

Another good old fashioned Bela Lugosi horror film about a "mad" scientist. Lugosi is as wicked as ever in this horror classic.A simple plot: Bela Lugosi is Dr. Paul Carruthers - a bitter scientist with his eye out for revenge. He enlarges a bat and creates an aftershave lotion. The aftershave lotion attracts the "devil" bat to the person that wears it and kills them.This is a good late night film for lovers of vampires, bats, horror and classic film fans. I enjoyed this film as much as I have other of Lugosi's movies.8/10

With the October Horror Challenge on IMDb's Horror board nearing its conclusion,I decided that it would be a good time to transform my Bela Lugosi double bill (Invisible Ghost and White Zombie) of the challenge,into a triple feature!.The plot:Angry over the company that he has worked for becoming rich beyond their wildest dreams,but completely leaving him penniless, (due to signing away the rights to his inventions to the company decades ago)scientist Dr.Paul Carruthers decides to get his revenge on the company,by creating a murderous,monster bat.Being interested in targeting the people right at the top of the company,Curruthers invents a new "shaving lotion" that will secretly act as a scent for the bat.As the owner's of the company started to get killed by a mysteriously huge bat,two local newspaper reporters begin to wonder if the deaths may be connected to the company's new "shaving lotion" product…View on the film:Whilst the clear use of stock footage for the close ups of the bat,and the (very) visible use of wires does chip away at the fangs of the movie,director Jean Yarbroughis still able to give the film a bit of bite,thanks to shooting the effects scenes in a low light,which helps to give the many scenes featuring the bat a creepy eerie atmosphere.Despite Dr Paul Carruthers, (played by a charming Bela Lugosi) being clearly shown as mentally unstable,the fun screenplay by John T.Neville and George Bricker surprisingly shows a topical method behind Curruthers madness,with the big business that Curruthers works for being shown to be far from kind hearted.Along with their swipe at big businesses,Neville and Bricker also take a delightful attack at the low budget movie industry,with one of the main newspaper reporters being called "One-Shot" and the devil bat prop itself being used in a sly, fourth wall breaking,devilish manner.