Bats (2021)

Scott Jeffrey and Rebecca J Matthews make so many movies that it’s hard to keep up with watching all of them, let alone writing them up.  Plots, titles, as well as their fast turnout ethic are in the spirit of 1980s pulp horror novels, with movies like Rats Reborn, Cannibal Troll and Crocodile Vengeance all sounding like adaptations of the type of well thumbed horror paperbacks that you tend to find in second hand bookshops.  Despite that it has taken them until Bats to actually make a movie set in the 1980s.  Mercifully the period setting doesn’t appear to have gone to their heads.  Let’s face it, the world doesn’t need any more 1980s horror pastiches made by people who were probably doing the backstroke in their father’s balls during that decade.  So, it is pleasantly surprising that Bats doesn’t press down as hard as you’d expect on the 1980s nostalgia bandwagon.  The main evidence of Jeffrey and Matthews getting their 1980s groove on here being a mix-tape worthy soundtrack, a few fashion and make-up choices, a plot infused with a touch of Chernobyl era anxiety, and the luxury of a full set of opening credits- remember those? 

It’s the land before texting phones and laptops...aka The Eighties...and the King family return home to their village after years in exile.  A result of the place being declared uninhabitable, after some unspecified nuclear disaster.  Surely there won’t be any problem in returning to a village that was the subject of a nuclear disaster only a few years before, and who wouldn’t be lured back to a place with the oh-so welcoming name ‘Nosferatu Village’.  The bereavement theme running through recent Jeffrey productions like The Rise of the Mummy and Evil Genie extends to Bats as well.  The pre-horror ‘drama bits’ in the film evolving around J&M’s reigning queen of glum facial expressions Megan Purvis, whose character Jamie King is struggling with the sudden death of her boyfriend.  The move back to Nosferatu village also unlocks bad memories for her grandmother Georgie King (Kate Sandison) who is haunted by memories of the people who bought it when things went all Threads in Nosferatu Village.  There is lots of weeping in Bats, which might have been more aptly entitled ‘Night of the Blubbering’.  The cast of this film really could cry you a river.  Megan Purvis scales Harvey Keitel levels of screen wailing, while the actress playing her younger sister seems to be channelling an enraged monkey in a cage when it comes time for her to turn on the waterworks.  Bats also sports Nu-Brit Horror’s regular eccentricities when it comes to put-on American accents and age-blind casting.  Poor Kate Sandison doesn’t look old enough to play the mother of the leather jacket wearing dude, who likewise seems too young to be the father of two grown up girls.  Fortunately the scenes that allow the cast to flex their muscles on the bereavement storyline don’t overstay their welcome, and Bats quickly kicks into horror mode with the appearance of a part bat, part man creature.  A left over from the nuclear disaster, which has somehow remained undetected in the King’s attic all these years. 

The monster costume is hands down the best J&M have had in a long time, imagine the creature in The Blood Beast Terror but actually done right, and Bats benefits from a meaner, darker tone than we’ve come to expect from J&M of late.  This film has no qualms about killing off sympathetic characters without mercy, and while some of J&M’s recent films may have been fairly bloodless, here the pair splash out on some Kensington gore for the bat creature’s vampire like attacks on the King family members.  Purvis’ character is also the recipient of an Evil Dead-esque ‘baptism of blood’, the catalyst for her character going from an emotional wreck to blood splattered hero of the piece, who isn’t above losing a few body parts in order to stay alive.  The gore highlight here though comes when Batty McBatface lets out an almighty shriek, which causes one character’s head to burst open.  A pleasantly, unpleasant 1980s style practical effect. 

I will admit to also deriving amusement from the fact that characters here use a baseball bat to defend themselves from an actual bat –very appropriate- or failing that turn to the well known lethal instrument that is a rolling pin (shades of Carnivore: Werewolf of London going on there).  For a film that is played dead serious there are some ridiculous plot details on display here, I guarantee you’ll laugh your ass off at the revelation that someone has thoughtfully left a Samurai sword behind at a deserted church for the heroine to arm herself with....cheers for that vicar.  I have heard a rumour that the film’s shooting title was ‘Nosferatu Village’ (still used as a location name).  Making you wonder if J&M weren’t hoping to capitalise on news of a Nosferatu remake that was floating around a year or so ago...seemingly an influence on the bald headed, pointy eared, fang toothed look of Batty McBatface.  It feels like they were expecting Nosferatu to be a big thing in 2021.  Of course the Nosferatu remake has failed to come to fruition (the IMDB actually lists two remakes of Nosferatu as currently ‘in production’) presumably explaining why this film ended up forgoing that title in favour of ‘Bats: The Awakening’ and now plain old ‘Bats’.  J&M being able to knock out films so fast that, they now appear to be making imitations of movies that have yet to see the light of day.  Overall, I’d say that Bats is J&M’s most entertaining, successfully realized creature feature since ‘Don’t Speak’.  Oh, and Nosferatu Village....C’mon someone has to use that as a movie title one day.