Reviews & Ratings for
Devil Bat's Daughter More at IMDbPro »

5 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
poverty-row horror without much horror, 12 October 2000

Author: eegah-3 (eegah@hotmail.com) from Minneapolis, MN

Do not watch this movie expecting to see any monsters or vampires because all you'll get are some bats. Actually this film is more of an identity crisis drama and murder mystery rather than a horror movie. The best parts are the dream sequences which are reminiscent of surrealist experimental films (has David Lynch seen this?) and also LSD sequences from 60s films like HALLUCINATION GENERATION or BLONDE ON A BUM TRIP.

3 out of 3 people found the following review useful:
Not-So-Sinister Semi Sequel to the 1940 Original, 26 July 2003
Author: daytimer59 from Baltimore, Maryland

The title seems to suggest that "Devil Bat's Daughter" is a sequel of sorts to the original "Devil Bat" (1940). However, there are too many inconsistencies to establish the continuity needed for a sequel. "Devil Bat" fans will notice right off the bat (couldn't resist) that in the six years after the first movie was made, the locale changed from Heathville (apparently somewhere in Illinois and near Chicago) to Wardsley, New York, outside New York City. The characters are all of course different, and so is the home of the mad doctor, Paul Carruthers, which now has a basement. The 1946 film also goes lightly over the facts concerning the doc's predictable demise, noting that he was found dead, the apparent victim of one of his large bats. However, in the first film he is plainly killed by the devil bat in view of the sheriff, the heroine and the star reporter. Actually "Devil Bat's Daughter" is little more than a rather obvious vehicle for a 1941 Miss America named Rosemary La Planche. The film lacks any of the mystery of the first, and simply winds its way to the predictable end.

4 out of 5 people found the following review useful:
Not Bad, 25 May 2005

Author: email2amh from United States

Okay, unless you're a fan of mystery and horror films, you likely find all the stuff from the 1930's and 1940's intolerable, but what's the point of putting that in a review? I AM a fan, and I liked this sequel (of sorts) to The Devil Bat. It has classic 1940's styling and 1941's Miss America in the lead role. I thought the flashbacks to the first film were handled well, and the storyline is plausible. The whodunit aspects and ending are relatively predictable, but not unsatisfying. Miss LaPlanche and Mr. Leary starred in the same year in The Strangler of the Swamp, which I liked a little more. I also liked the use of the newspaper's vampire headlines which provided a link to Bela Lugosi and a theme of the previous film.

2 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Dull Sequel To A Very Enjoyable Original, 18 October 2000
Author: mord39 from New York

MORD39 RATING: * out of ****

The original DEVIL BAT was arguably one of the most enjoyable low budgeted Poverty Row horrors of all. This unnecessary sequel is pretty awful, and not a film required to be seen by even the most diehard fan of 30's and 40's horror.

For starters, this follow-up asks us to believe that the demented Bela Lugosi character from the first film was actually innocent of all those bizarre murders! Now in the followup we have his daughter having nightmares over the whole thing.

This is a poorly acted "whodunit" attempt, but you'll figure out who the culprit is long before your eyelids surrender to the gentle calling of the Sandman. Pleasant dreams!

1 out of 1 people found the following review useful:
DEVIL BAT'S DAUGHTER (Frank Wisbar, 1946) **, 17 October 2011

Author: MARIO GAUCI (marrod@melita.com) from Naxxar, Malta

This is a maligned vintage horror effort with a plot that is oddly similar to those of two equally disreputable titles i.e. the same year's SHE-WOLF OF London and Edgar G. Ulmer's DAUGHTER OF DR. JEKYLL (1957) – that is to say, a young woman is made out to be a monster (here, a murderess) because her family is apparently cursed (in this case, her father was supposedly behind a killing-spree perpetrated by a vampire bat) but it all proves to be a conspiracy to disinherit the girl. While the afore-mentioned two films could get away with it by being variations on well-worn themes, this was actually a direct sequel to a hardly-classic movie which it then goes on to completely contradict, by making the villain of the original (played in THE DEVIL BAT {1941} by none other than Bela Lugosi) a benign Professor! That said, taken on its own merits, the film provides mild narrative interest (the script is by genre stalwart Griffin Jay – this was actually his last work) and adequate mood (accentuated by distorted footage from the original to serve as the heroine's hallucinations!) and which, though admittedly let down by generally bland performers, ought to make it nonetheless palatable for hardened buffs. For what it is worth, this PRC effort shares its female lead (Rosemary La Planche) and director with a superior outing from the same stable, STRANGLER OF THE SWAMP, which came out earlier that year.

Sequel to a Bela Lugosi "classic" is a good if unremarkable horror mystery, 3 June 2009

Author: dbborroughs from Glen Cove, New York

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

Sequel to the Bela Lugosi film the Devil Bat has the daughter of the Lugosi character showing up in the town in order to find out what happened to her missing father.When we first see her she's catatonic from some event. She's eventually brought around by the local shrink who helps her to come to terms with what happened. She also works with a handsome young man to unravel actually what really did happen previously since it seems Bela wasn't a bad guy after all. Creaky familiar feeling horror mystery film is an okay film designed to build on the previous film. High art its night, but its the sort of black and white film that one used to find with regularity on the Late Late Late Show, when such a thing meant movies not stand up comedy. Worth a look for those familiar with the earlier film or those in an undemanding mood and a desire for a black and white horror film.

3 out of 6 people found the following review useful:
Lousy sequel to a lousier original, 28 January 2000
Author: BrianG from California

German director Frank Wisbar was a rising star in his own country before he was forced to flee the Nazis and emigrated to the U.S. Whatever talent he had apparently disappeared on the way over here. Most of the films he made in the U.S. were cheapo horror junk for PRC Pictures, which was pretty much at the bottom end of the Hollywood food chain. The only good thing that can be said for this picture is that it's not as lousy as the film it is a sequel to, 1940's "The Devil Bat"--and, since that was one of the absolute worst films ever made, is not saying much. The story is about a woman (former Miss America Rosemary LaPlanche, who is basically the only good thing in the movie) who believes herself to be possessed by the spirit of her dead father. The film is treated more like a mystery than as a horror film, but what "mystery" there is is painfully obvious. The film didn't do much for the career of Rosemary La Planche, Frank Wisbar or anybody else who had anything to do with it, and for good reason--it stinks.

0 out of 2 people found the following review useful:
Despite an exciting title, this is an awfully dull film..., 22 January 2011

Author: planktonrules from Bradenton, Florida

*** This review may contain spoilers ***

I guess I should have known better. After all, this movie was made by PRC--an incredibly terrible tiny studio that made a long string of sub-par films. But, when I saw the title and read the description, I sure thought it would be exciting. Well, it wasn't! The film, despite its title, has nothing to do with the movie "The Devil Bat". Instead, it's about a neurotic woman and her evil psychiatrist. It begins with a woman discovered wandering aimlessly. She's brought to the hospital and soon admitted because she is catatonic. Eventually, she slowly begins to come to and, oddly, the psychiatrist's wife invites her to come live with them while he treats her (don't even get me started about the ethical problems with this). The woman is apparently the daughter of a man termed 'the Devil Bat', as people thought he was a vampire. She is obsessed with this as well as a compulsion and strange dreams to kill.

Unfortunately, the actual killer is VERY obvious throughout the film. Despite the neurotic lady being accused of killing her dog and then the psychiatrist's wife, it's 100% obvious who the real killer is. There is absolutely no sense of suspense. And, to make things worse, the lady (Rosemary La Planche) was a dreadful actress who had a hard time delivering her lines. As a result, the film is neither exciting nor worth seeing because it is so dreadfully bland and poorly constructed. So, despite the great title, it's a pretty dull film.

By the way, this video was released on DVD by Image Entertainment. It was of an extremely terrible quality--with poor sound and a very poor picture. It BADLY needs restoration.

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