Mike: Hey, Max, do you want to watch a B-Movie tonight?
Max: Sure that sounds cool! What did you want to watch, something like "Frogs"?
Mike: Hey! Frogs is an awesome movie. I was thinking something along the lines of The Bat People. You interested?
Max: Sure. I mean I haven't heard of it, but it can't be worse than Frogs!
Mike: Stop hatin' on--you know--just roll the damn film!
Mike: The Bat People... You know, I tried to come up with something witty for an introduction to this film, something about love and a reimagining of the Universal Picture's Wolfman story, but I can't. The Bat People (should be titled "The Bat Person.") is a failure of a horror film that tries to be trippy and suspenseful, but only induces the viewer into the same painful headache our lead character, Johnny, seems to fall under after being bitten by a bat in a cave. But, I'm jumping ahead here. Before Johnny even makes it to the cave he seems to hear things, and have strange nightmares that involve bats, as if he has ALWAYS been connected to them from the very beginning. He and his wife, Cathy, are on a second honeymoon and decide to join a cave tour group. While they’re in the caves Cathy’s “primal urges” become ignited (being in caves gets this girl excited? Count me in!), and she leads Johnny in the opposite direction of the tour group, through the winding cave system, until she falls into this pit of maggots and worms. It’s here that Johnny is bitten by a bat, and his misfortunes begin.
Max: Yeah, I really thought everything in the first ten to fifteen minutes or so was rather entertaining...but just about the time that Johnny goes for his first anti-rabies appointment, the whole film starts to drag like a long string of turd. Like a typical B-snoozer, this movie makes a contract promising "Bat People", then delivers little more than a very dysfunctional vacation. The repetition of the name Johnny is also super irritating. I think if we had taken a drink for every time Karen helplessly screams "Johnny!" we would both be really shitfaced by now.
Mike: I think we should have a second viewing of this film, and any other that we think we would enjoy more or have more fun with while drunk, and follow up that viewing with an inebriated review. I'm not sure if drugs or booze would have made Cathy's insistent calling of Johnny's name any more enjoyable or less annoying. I mean, it's like watching the movie The Room and everyone addressing everyone, "Oh, hi, Johnny." "Oh, hi, Cathy." I get that the director wanted to make this a psychedelic film with all of the twisting camera shots and weird zooms, but the film just doesn't deliver on much of anything. Well, there were the Sergeant and Hobo that made me smile.
Max: That’s true, you raise a good point. The minor characters were certainly entertaining (which I often find is the case in throw-away movies like this). I particularly liked the Sheriff, who does a lot of "wondering" in his really bad drawl of an accent. He smokes a cigarette with a long cigarette holder and has a lot of goofy one liners…but honestly...even the hilariously bad dialogue in this movie can't save it, because there is just nothing at all happening. Take that car chase scene, for example. The sheriff probably chases Johnny in his car for the better part of five minutes at least, wouldn't you say? He's still got the cigarette holder in his mouth while he radios for back-up which is funny, but then again, what is the real purpose of this enormous chase scene? So much of the "action" in this flick is pure filler.
Mike: The best one-liner came from the Hobo, who Johnny meets in an empty barn after escaping from the very hospital he checked himself into. The hobo says, "I drink from the bottom of the bottle," when he shares his long tirade of a soliloquy, and I feel like this film does just that; except, at the bottom of the bottle is the backwash and spit from anyone else who has taken a swig. I know that's not what the line means, and I think, in the right context and in the right film, it could be a very good line. The chase scene...quite pointless, but it was a lot of fun. I love that Johnny steals an old ambulance (reminds me of Echo 1 from Ghost Busters), and somehow manages to out-race the sheriff in his Chevy Chevelle.
Max: I remember you commenting via text that Johnny crashed the Echo 1, that was funny.
Mike: Ha-ha-ha-ha. Yeah, I was sad to see the old girl go down like that.
Max: I was sad to waste two hours of my life on this fucking movie.
Mike: Was it two hours long?
Max: I'm not sure let's check IMDB.
Max: Let’s see, according to IMDB (where it has a 2.1 rating folks), The Bat People is 95 minutes.
Mike: So, there are people out there willing to give this a 2.1? What were they comparing this film to? I would say that I'd like to know, but really, I don't want to.
Max: I think they were comparing it to Rattlers, a movie about killer snakes where the snakes don't kill anyone. Rattlers is actually worse than this movie. Maybe one of the only titles I can think of off-hand.
Max: Or Frogs!!!
Max: Same deal as Rattlers.
Max: Some friends and I did a viewing of Frogs and it did not deliver on said Frogs, whatsoever!!!
Mike: But, I liked Frogs, and they ACTUALLY killed people...unlike Rattlers. The Bat People is NOTHING like Frogs. Don't be hatin' on Frogs, less ye be wanting hell fire rained upon yo' head.
Max: There are some aspects of Frogs that I enjoyed, but you are wrong, Mike. The Frogs in that movie don't kill anyone! It's all other reptiles that do the killing, so the title, like Rattlers and Bat People, is misleading! I will admit, Frogs is not necessarily worse than The Bat People, but you can go ahead and rain your fire because there is no way I'm not hatin’ on that piece of shit.
Mike: The Frogs TOTALLY kill the old guy at the end of the film. He's locked up in his mansion; his family has gone to the lake to get on a boat... Wait, are we writing a review of Frogs or of Bat People?
Max: Okay yes, the frogs do totally kill the old guy, which somewhat redeems a lot of the crap we are otherwise subjected to throughout the film. And by crap, I mean murders not committed by killer frogs. To tie this back here, I think that these movies relate to your point about backwash, Mike. For instance, by the time we get to the end of the Bat People, Johnny has returned to the caves. Do you know WHY that is? I couldn't really bare to follow the movie at this point. Anyway in the caves he finally transforms into a "bat person", but like flat beer at the bottom of a bottle, it's too little, too late.
Mike: I don't think flat beer is ever too little too late. It's more like, "Ew, gross, I can't believe there's so much of it." Who really wants to drink that little bit of backwash no matter how much is in there? Not me. However, Johnny returns to the caves because...ummm...that's where bats naturally live? I'm not sure. When he returns to the caves we FINALLY get to see his bat make-up in its entirety, which looks more like a bat version of the original Universal Picture's Wolfman get-up. I mean, I guess it would have looked cool if this movie had been made in the 1950's when atomic man-monster movies were being made and shot in black and white, but for a 70's film the creature make-up looked bad. Hell, I prefer the rubber bear suit in Prophecy (the original film, and not the Christopher Walken one everyone seems to chime about whenever I mention this title), to the crap-tastic make-up job done in Bat People. I will give the film this much: the Bat-Person killed everyone...except for the sheriff (whom everyone calls him "sergeant") when he gets bitten alive by a swarm of bats. Now, the ending is a complete mystery to me, and maybe you can help clear things up, Max. At the beginning of the film Johnny hears the bats before he gets bitten, and once he has received the fatal bat bite he hears them all the time. Cathy ends up having sex with her husband Johnny, and suddenly can hear the bats too. So why does the sheriff blow his brains out in the car?
Max: I'm not sure I even understand the question. What?
Mike: Exactly.
Mike: That's how the movie ends, and I don't know why?
Mike: She walks to the caves and they play that weird creepy/happy/sad song from the beginning of the film (the song about coming home). It seemed that she was controlling the bats with her mind, or that is what I thought. It looked cool when they were splattering all over his windshield, but then it got weird. Did he not want them to eat him alive or was it that he feared that he'd become a Bat Person too? I guess we now know why this movie is called Bat People, because in the end there are at least two of them...though, the entire film follows one guy you're not even sure if he really is a bat person or just whacked out on meds.
Max: That is so true. Johnny for the most part, just behaves like your neighborhood speed freak. And while that's certainly very funny, it's not necessarily any indication that he is, in fact, a bat person.
Mike: I guess they try to get us to think Johnny is tripping, because all of the supporting characters seem to think he is. We watch his hands transform into monster-bat hands, I think, twice, maybe just once. Not enough to make us think he really IS a bat person, that's for sure.
Max: Yeah the bat hands I actually thought looked kind of alright. Yet, the final reveal of his bat face was underwhelming as we've said. Maybe it would have been better to leave it kind of ambiguous? Of course "better" in the case of a movie like this is kind of relative isn't it? Ha!
Mike: Ha-ha-ha. Yeah, Right.
Max: Well, with that in mind folks, it's time to weigh in with our bloody nubs of fate. From my end of the balcony, I am going to have to give this movie two Bloody Nubs down. Unless you're like me and you truly enjoy wasting your life in front of the TV watching endless horror crap like this, there is really no reason to ever see it. This movie is a pile of hot garbage. View at your own risk.
Max: And yes, I'm often the "nice" one. This is the first time I've given nubs down to anything.
Mike: It's not the only time I've seen your nubs down, Max. Remember that time I caught you in the theater watching that stag film when you thought I was out? The look on your face was priceless, but the look of disgusted horror I had across my face then is the same I have now while watching this steaming load of turd. I give The Bat People two Bloody Nubs down, because I find my will to go on has drained...much like when I caught you with your You-know-whats around your You-know-where.
Max: Thanks…thanks for mentioning the stag film.
**Insert Trailer for Movie Here**
Mike: We're sorry that we can't show you a cool vintage trailer for this film, but no one has posted one on YouTube. It's THAT bad...
No comments:
Post a Comment