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Reviews
Vampire Bats (2005)
How can anyone say this is a great film?
1. Is this a horror movie about bats, or a preachy movie about pollution?
2. In the party scene, when the bats attack, Lucy and her close friends are not attacked, but many others are.
3. The bats are known to kill or to transmit rabies, but Lucy and her friends keep going to the bats without any protection (except a broom, sometimes).
4. Only one teacher's students are attacked. Are there any other teachers at this school?
5. What did Lucy use to catch the bats? This was never explained. It looked like some kind of huge sticky web, but where did it come from?
6. In the big finale, Lucy outruns flying bats (and she isn't even running fast), then manages to close a metal door without ANY of the bats getting through. She's not burned by the steam, either. I guess her broom protected her.
7. The editing in this film was atrocious, and the script wasn't very well written. Too many unexplained events.
8. One plus: Lucy answers the phone and says, "This is she." That's the first time I've heard CORRECT grammar concerning the use of pronouns following the verb "to be" in a LONG time. Usually, a character would say, "This is her," or "That's me."
9. Admittedly, Lucy looks good, but the skimpy outfits mentioned by another reviewer can be seen in only one scene, when the college girl leaves her window open and moves around on her bed in her underwear. Strangely, she isn't killed by the bats, but develops rabies. She didn't even realize that she had been bitten.
10. The final scene (three months later) made NO sense. Why was it included at all?
Sorry, but I wish I HAD missed most of this movie. I certainly can't see any reason to recommend it to anyone.
Final fotnote, added on 8/19/06: When Lucy fills a sample vial by dipping it into the polluted runoff from a waste pipe, she doesn't even wear gloves. Is THAT the sign of an experienced scientist?
'Salem's Lot (2004)
Entertaining, but with some plot holes
I enjoyed MOST of this mini-series, including what I considered to be a good cast and some pretty good effects. Unfortunately, most TV movies suffer from a drawback that some people do not notice. I found the sound mix to be poor in this feature, so much so that I could not understand the dialogue in many scenes. Maybe it's just the quality of my aging TV, but I don't have this problem with MOST films I watch.
As for the story itself, there were just too many unanswered questions. Where did the opening scene take place? What actually happens to many of the characters? Most of all, WHY? There were lots of things going on that weren't really explained, and there were lots of things that probably SHOULD have been going on.
I have read the book (a LONG time ago, while camping out in New Hampshire.) That made it even more scary! I have also seen the earlier TV version, which I found to be worse than this version, although again the casting was decent. All in all, I'm glad I took the time to watch this one.
A Christmas Story (1983)
Where's the big ending?
This film rated about a 9 for me due to its many hilarious situations, but then, it seemed as if the writers ran out of ideas (or maybe money) and just dropped everything. The disappointing ending dropped my rating to a 7. STILL worth seeing, though.