THE DEVIL BAT (1940)
Reviewed by Jerry Saravia
Of all of Bela Lugosi's films, one of his oddest and least interesting is 1940's "The Devil Bat," a movie that coasts on singular ambitions such as Lugosi as the typical mad doctor and an experiment involving mutated mammals. Nothing new to chew on, nothing remotely fun about this film either, even with a low-budget and hammy actors.
Lugosi is always at his snarling best as a mad doctor, and here he eschews close-ups of his penetrating eyes for more restraint. But he is not chilling to watch and the singular idea of a mad doctor who uses a bat to attack people with a distinctive aftershave scent is nothing more than silly and laughable. The bat chases people clearly during the day, even though it is supposed to be nighttime (a little Ed Wood-ism there though many films of this period and earlier were shot day for night); Lugosi's character, Dr. Paul Carruthers, is short-shrifted in favor of a bumbling photographer and a very straight reporter, both of whom sit on a bench waiting for an eternity for the mutated bat, and that is it folks.
Outside of Lugosi's delicious delivery of the line "Goood...bye" and the various secret rooms of his house, there is not much more to say about "The Devil Bat" except it is something most Bela Lugosi pictures are not: dull.
