Tuesday, September 8, 2020

The Devil Bat (1940)

A fantastic and cheesy horror film. Dr Carruthers (Bela Lugosi) works as the chief scientist for a cosmetics company. He is bitter that the Heath and Morton families have grown rich off his work. Therefore he plots a terrible revenge: he uses dark experiments to create a gigantic bat and a shaving lotion which turns the bat crazy and thirsting for blood...

The giant bat begins it's reign of terror, killing the sons of Heath whom Carruthers has tricked into using the lotion. City reporter Johnny Layton (Dave O'Brien) has come to discover what is going on...

A ridiculous story but highly entertaining. The film has a lot of camp and silliness but Lugosi seemed to enjoy the role and played it with plenty of enthusiasm. The only thing that really lets the film down is the rather ropey looking "giant bat" but with a B-movie's low budget it is acceptable.