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The Devil Bat

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5.3/10 • 81

1940-12-131h 8m

HorrorScience FictionCrime

He's Trained His Brood of Blood-Hungry Bats to Kill on Command!

Dr. Paul Carruthers is frustrated because he thinks his employers, Mary Heath and Henry Morton, have cheated him out of the company's profits. He decides to get revenge by altering bats to grow twice their normal size and training them to attack when they smell a perfume of his own making. He mixes the perfume into a lotion, which he offers as a gift to Mary and Henry. When they turn up dead, a newspaper reporter decides to investigate.

Directors
Jean Yarbrough
Editors
Holbrook N. Todd

Top Billed Cast

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  1. Bela Lugosi

    Bela Lugosi

    Dr. Paul Carruthers

  2. Suzanne Kaaren

    Suzanne Kaaren

    Mary Heath

  3. Dave O'Brien

    Dave O'Brien

    Johnny Layton

  4. Guy Usher

    Guy Usher

    Henry Morton

  5. Yolande Donlan

    Yolande Donlan

    Maxine

  6. Donald Kerr

    Donald Kerr

    'One-Shot' McGuire

  7. Edmund Mortimer

    Edmund Mortimer

    Martin Heath

  8. Gene O'Donnell

    Gene O'Donnell

    Don Morton

  9. Alan Baldwin

    Alan Baldwin

    Tommy Heath

Reviews2

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John Chard Avatar

John Chard

Nov 4, 2013

6/10

Imbecile, Bombastic, Ignoramus. The Devil Bat is directed by Jean Yarbrough and written by George Bricker and John T. Neville. It stars Bela Lugosi, Suzanne Kaaren, Dave O’Brien, Donald Kerr and Gary Usher. The Heathville Horror! Straight out of Poverty Row is this PRC production that’s as bonkers as it is fun. Plot sees Lugosi as a fed up cosmetic chemist who decides that the company he provides his inventions for have not done right by him financially. So in his secret laboratory at home he breeds big killer bats, bats that he rears to kill anyone wearing the scent of aftershave lotion that he has handed out to the targets of his ire. As the bodies begin to mount up and the press whip up a devil bat on the loose storm, journalists Henry Layden (O’Brien) and “One Shot McGuire” close in on the source of the town’s terror. The low budget is often evident, be it props and sets that shouldn’t move etc, but at just over an hour in length this gets in and does its job with a sort of carefree abandon that is to be admired. Lugosi is having fun shifting from borderline mania to crafty dastard with a sense of humour, and of course there are big scary bats that shriek before homing in for the girl. Result! The flaws are obvious throughout, not least that Lugosi ends up playing second fiddle to the journalists’ blend of bravado and buffoonery, but as time fillers go, and as Lugosi’s Poverty Row Horrors go, this is impossible to dislike and not have a good time with. 6/10

Media

  • The Devil Bat poster
  • The Devil Bat poster
  • The Devil Bat poster
  • The Devil Bat poster
  • The Devil Bat poster
  • The Devil Bat poster

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Status
Released
Original Language
English
Budget
--
Revenue
--
Keywords
batmad scientistrevengemurderreporter