The Devil Bat (1940)

Another poverty row starring vehicle for Lugosi, once again as a mad scientist with a bone to pick with folks, an ax to grind against those he considers responsible for committing a wrong only righted through the use of violence. This time it's a giant bat violent towards anyone wearing Lugosi's special kind of perfume. He cultivated that repulsion towards his perfume over time, keeping the bat contained in a chamber behind a trick door in a wall. A giant bat swooping down at the throats of the Heath brothers, while Reporter O'Brien and One Shot Photographer Kerr look to cash in on the story could either be seen as part of its charm or a laughable detriment. O'Brien locates some aftershave in a victim's bathroom, gets with the sheriff, as the plot to murder the family members of a company's heads, Heath and Morton, unravels while Lugosi continues his undiscovered bad deeds until connected to the giant bat. The screech of the bat, almost like some wailing banshee on the charge, sent by Lugosi after O'Brien, could also be considered quite amusing. Lugosi, in goggles, using an electric charge to increase size for his killer bat, kept in a secret lab cell, scheming and crowing about his lack of monetary reward as opposed to his Cosmetics Company bosses, extra accented oomph in delivery with some choice wicked mannerisms in his eyes and grin, could slide the part of the mad doctor on like comfortable loafers.  That's why these companies kept hiring him, getting a star who should have earned a lot more quite cheap. The plot is a series of bat attacks, Lugosi behind them, and the aftershave he created as a draw of the creature eventually his downfall. Quick 60 over and done with, Lugosi's  name tied to it to assure interest by any who might want to curiously pursue the lessers of his ouveur. 

The town of Heathville's local doctor(Bela Lugosi) who is quite mad, unleashes a bat raised in secret laboratory to strike selected victims with a special after shave he had created. What makes Lugosi's doctor more sinister is that he's beloved by Heathville's citizenship. What pushes Lugosi's demented state of anger is the firm for which has made a lot of money off of him, though this element in the story is truthfully unconvincing and merely an escape-goat for the setting up of bat-murders. He feels rejected by those who have profited from his genius. A newspaper reporter and his photographer come to Heathville on assignment to find answers to the mystery of the bat for a special story in their rag. The key to the doctor's downfall is inevitably what draws the bat to it's victims.

Ultra-low budget does perhaps limit this film and the story is just too bizarre to take at all serious, but there's a degree of joy in this film that makes it an entertaining watch. Lugosi's career didn't quite flourish like his contemporaries, and the evidence is right here in this low-grade B-film. The swooping bat and it's screeching cry as it dives for it's neck-feast is a hoot and Lugosi, bless his soul, gives what he can to a meaningless film with only it's hokey quality to advance it's recommendation.

Definitely for lovers of junk-cinema.

This is one of my earliest reviews, very short form and without much meat on the bones, quite lean, user comments from 2006. The dressed sets in the film show the limitations of this film's budget, especially Lugosi's lab, not particularly distinctive and quite drab. The irony of the aftershave and the scientist suffering its effects himself does follow formula. It was only fair.