After a doctor is bitten by a bat, he goes on a killing spree as a man-bat creature.The Bat People is a slow and sluggish film with very little thrills or excitement. The premise isn't a bad one but it's so poorly executed that you end up bored throughout the entire picture.The only redeeming factor is the decent make-up effects by a young Stan Winston. However even they are very few and far between.Most of the time you're treated to stock footage of bats and uninteresting characters.So, if you want some 70's schlock then look no further than The Bat People. It currently has a 2.3/10 on IMDb so that should indicate what you're getting into.

Cheap and badly made modern day vampire picture of sorts from American International pictures. A young couple is spelunking when the husband is bitten by a bat, then rather quickly turns into a man-bat with a need to murder and drink blood. Besides the man-bat attacks, there are also a fair amount of attacks by regular old bats, tapping into the nature-gone-wild film craze of the 1970s (i.e. "Food of the Gods," "Frogs," "Night of the Lepus," etc.). This film represents the inauspicious debut of renowned special effects make-up artist Stan Winston, but even his solid make-up and special effects work can't save this film. However, this film is one that can absolutely be enjoyed on a campy it's-so-bad-it's-good level of entertainment, so if that's your thing, you might check out this turkey.

Real life husband and wife team (Moss & McAndrew) are enjoying a delayed honeymoon on the ski slopes, when Dr Beck (Moss) is bitten by a rabid bat during a cave tour, transforming him into a murderous bat freak. Sleazy local sheriff (played by the reliable and underrated Pataki) suspects Dr Beck might be involved, but his efforts to catch him in the act are constantly thwarted. The metamorphosis scenes are pretty lacklustre to say the least; each time Moss' eyes roll back into his head, the grainy stock footage of bats appears amid psychedelic hallucinations, while he goes into convulsions on the floor.The doctor's lovely wife becomes completely deranged, impregnated with the bat freak chromosome after an intimate, 70's loop-style embrace. A spine-tingling score belies the tepid chills felt throughout the film, which struggles to build suspense and often seems like it's run out of road. Moss' conviction is admirable, but ultimately misguided, such is the over-the-top intensity with which he executes his characterization. McAndrew is a dark, brooding beauty, but with precious little to do except look neglected or supportive dependent on Moss' mood, and former 20th Century Fox studio player Paul Carr is also on hand to offer medical support.If perchance you're wondering what would a bat manimal look like, it's not dissimilar to one of John Chambers' primate creations from the Apes movies. Evidently, make-up man Stanley Winston was inspired by Chamber's creations, despite the fact these are bats, not apes. But that's a trivial detail.

I didn't think this was as absolutely horrible as some people apparently do. It passes as one of those cheesy horror movies you might waste time with in the middle of the night when you can't sleep, although admittedly it's no better quality than that. It's true that the acting isn't great - I thought Marianne McAndrew as Cathy Beck, for example, came across as completely passionless - but the main problem is that several aspects of the plot didn't really make sense to me. The Becks are on a trip described by John (Stewart Moss) as part work and partly the honeymoon they never had (now that's romantic!) The work part has something to do with touring caves, which in itself sounds strange (how does being part of a tour group through a cave relate to anyone's work?) but it gets stranger when we find out that he's a doctor doing research in the area of preventative medicine (huh? That connection completely lost me.) Bitten by a bat while he's in the cave, he begins to transform into what I guess was supposed to be a human-bat hybrid (although when we finally see him in makeup he looks a lot more like an ape-man of some sort) and a killing spree starts. Here's another problem. The first killing is a nurse in a hospital. At first, everyone thinks her death was an accident. The second murder is of a young girl, who is described as having her throat ripped out. The sheriff (Michael Pataki) then tells us that her death was similar to the nurse's (meaning throat ripped out? - How could anyone think that was an accident?) And what's with the sheriff? He seems pretty no-nonsense until the scene in Cathy's hotel room when he takes a swig of liquor and then almost rapes her, after which everything seems to go back to normal. It's saddled with an ending that left almost everything unresolved, and also with one of the most irritating theme songs I've ever heard in a movie. Even for all that, there was something here that kept me watching. Sometimes pure cheesiness can get you through an hour and a half. Pretty bad, yeah - but not as awful as some people say.