This was a movie that had one too many bad-things.
We start with a group of strangers (reminding one of TZ's "five characters in search of an exit," in all the right ways) tossed into a it's-the-end-of-the-world survival pod. Add in one maintenance man (the always reliable Richard Jaekel), and one... well, traitor (Bradford Dillman in strangely fitting glasses, for some reason). And pretty much everybody falls to pieces with the knowledge of what's happened to everyone they know.
That's a great story. Add in the possibility that this is some sort of macabre psychological experiment, but that no matter what, nobody can leave.
That's a greater story. Add in... vampire bats?!? Suddenly a human story is converted into a piranhas-are-out-to-get-me scream-fest. And suddenly ridiculous. Now we're just waiting for someone to be killed, screaming, by swarms of vampire bats, while some try to find a way out, and are killed, screaming.
This could have been a fantastic movie (along the lines of another 'survivor' tv-movie, the superb "Sole Survivor" (1970), or the equally superb "Groundstar Conspiracy" (1972)), but somebody decided "there needs to be an immediate danger", and that it should be vampire bats. Too bad.
We start with a group of strangers (reminding one of TZ's "five characters in search of an exit," in all the right ways) tossed into a it's-the-end-of-the-world survival pod. Add in one maintenance man (the always reliable Richard Jaekel), and one... well, traitor (Bradford Dillman in strangely fitting glasses, for some reason). And pretty much everybody falls to pieces with the knowledge of what's happened to everyone they know.
That's a great story. Add in the possibility that this is some sort of macabre psychological experiment, but that no matter what, nobody can leave.
That's a greater story. Add in... vampire bats?!? Suddenly a human story is converted into a piranhas-are-out-to-get-me scream-fest. And suddenly ridiculous. Now we're just waiting for someone to be killed, screaming, by swarms of vampire bats, while some try to find a way out, and are killed, screaming.
This could have been a fantastic movie (along the lines of another 'survivor' tv-movie, the superb "Sole Survivor" (1970), or the equally superb "Groundstar Conspiracy" (1972)), but somebody decided "there needs to be an immediate danger", and that it should be vampire bats. Too bad.