Bats (1999)

Genetically mutated bats escape and it's up to a bat expert and the local sheriff to stop them.

Director:

Louis Morneau

Writer:

John Logan

Stars:

Lou Diamond Phillips, Dina Meyer, Bob Gunton

Cast

Complete credited cast:
Lou Diamond Phillips	...	Sheriff Emmett Kimsey
Dina Meyer	...	Dr. Sheila Casper
Bob Gunton	...	Dr. Alexander McCabe
Leon	...	Jimmy Sands
Carlos Jacott	...	Dr. Tobe Hodge
David McConnell	...	Deputy Wesley Munn (as David Shawn McConell)
Marcia Dangerfield	...	Mayor Amanda Branson
Oscar Rowland	...	Dr. Swanbeck
Tim Whitaker	...	Quint
Juliana Johnson	...	Emma
James Sie	...	Sergeant James
Ned Bellamy	...	Major Reid
George Gerdes	...	Chaswick
Kurt Woodruff	...	Major #2
Joel Farar	...	Bartender

Storyline

Bats, the result of a government experiment gone wrong, have suddenly become intelligent, vicious, and omnivorous, and are attacking people near Gallup, Texas. Bat specialist Sheila Casper and her assistant Jimmy are brought in but can they stop the bats before the military comes in and, in their ignorance, makes things worse?

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Plot Keywords:

bat | experiment | mad scientist | sliced in two | closed mine | 

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Taglines:

Out of hell.

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Genres:

Horror | Sci-Fi | Thriller

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Motion Picture Rating (MPAA)

Rated R for some graphic, bloody bat attacks

Details

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Release Date:

22 October 1999 (USA)

Also Known As:

Murciélagos

Filming Locations:

American Fork, Utah, USA

Box Office

Budget:

$6,500,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$4,717,902 (USA) (22 October 1999)

Gross:

$10,149,779 (USA) (10 December 1999)

Company Credits

Production Co:

Destination Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

91 min

Sound Mix:

DTS-ES Dolby Digital EX

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

The local movie theatre is playing Nosferatu, the original vampire movie.

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Goofs

Laser and inkjet printers do not make the noise of a noisy dot matrix printer.

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Quotes

Jimmy Sands: Clip their wings? Man, could you just shoot their damn heads off? And don't miss.

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Connections

References Mutual of Omaha's Wild Kingdom (1963)

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Soundtracks

"Fury!"
Performed by Los Straitjackets

User Reviews

Meanwhile Back In The Bat Cave

Bats, a film that should have premiered on the Science Fiction channel on cable, somehow got a theatrical release. If it had been made fifty years earlier I can definitely see Boris Karloff or Bela Lugosi in the part that Bob Gunton plays as the mad scientist.

The scariest thing about Bats is not the creatures themselves although they are the ugliest looking things this side of the Black Scorpion. The scariest part of the film was Bob Gunton's portrayal of the mad scientist who created this race of killer omnivirous Bats. He's identified as working for the Center For Disease Control. I was watching this figuring out how this creep got government clearance.

Yet Gunton is the most enjoyable thing in this film. And you got to love the fact that he had all these government facilities to work with, he's not hidden away in some laboratory in an old castle the way Karloff and Lugosi used to be. He's bred this race of flying fox bats from Indonesia which are aggressive to begin with and they've taken up residence in a bat cavern in Lou Diamond Phillips's county where he's the sheriff.

After several suspicious deaths with mutilation, the cause is identified and zoologists Dina Meyer and Leon Robinson are brought in to clean out the bat cave. If you care about how and if they do it by all means watch the film and the hint is, think blob.

Bats will never go down as a great science fiction classic, but it does have a certain campiness to it. And Gunton is a hoot.