There are horror movies that aspire to subtlety. The Shining. The Exorcist. Hereditary. Then there are horror movies like Bats (1999), which proudly announce: “Here are genetically engineered flying rodents eating Texans. Enjoy.” And honestly? I did enjoy it. Against all odds, Bats is one of those rare late-90s creature features that knows exactly how dumb it is and leans so hard into the absurdity that it actually becomes fun.
Lou Diamond Phillips: Sheriff, Bat-Squasher, Hero
At the heart of this guano-soaked spectacle is Lou Diamond Phillips as Sheriff Emmett Kimsey, a man who faces his town’s bat problem with the weary resignation of someone who already deals with meth labs, unpaid parking tickets, and rodeo disputes. Lou Diamond Phillips is one of those actors who can make anything sound credible, even lines like, “We’re dealing with bats… big, smart bats.”
His performance grounds the movie in a way it doesn’t deserve. When he’s onscreen, you start to believe that, yes, a small Texas sheriff could actually take on thousands of carnivorous winged mutants with nothing but grit, a shotgun, and a healthy disdain for scientific hubris.
Dina Meyer: Zoologist With Attitude
Dina Meyer plays Dr. Sheila Casper, a chiropterologist (bat scientist, for those who didn’t pay attention in biology) who gets roped into the chaos. Meyer gives Sheila an admirable amount of sass, whether she’s lecturing the CDC or wading through bat guano up to her waist. Unlike the usual “hysterical scientist” trope, Sheila actually has a plan—freeze the bats into submission like they’re oversized popsicles.
Meyer’s character is the smartest person in the room, which is refreshing in a genre where scientists are usually the first ones to trip, fall, and get eaten.
The Villain: A Mad Scientist With a Bat Complex
Every creature feature needs a mad scientist, and Bats delivers in the form of Dr. Alexander McCabe (Bob Gunton). McCabe has engineered the bats to be more intelligent, more aggressive, and—just for fun—omnivorous. That’s right, he made them capable of eating anything. His reasoning? He wanted to save bats from extinction. Because nothing screams conservation like turning nature’s pest control into nature’s pest apocalypse.
Gunton plays McCabe with all the smugness of a man who thinks his PhD excuses mass murder. Watching him insist he can control his winged monsters, only to be immediately devoured, is one of the film’s greatest joys. It’s cinematic karma at its finest.
The Bats: Flapping CGI Nightmares
Let’s talk about the real stars. The bats themselves are a mix of practical effects and late-90s CGI that hasn’t aged well but somehow adds to the charm. They’re rubbery, they’re clunky, and they swoop into town with the subtlety of a biker gang on spring break.
At one point, the bats coordinate to kill a tagged member of their own colony to prevent humans from tracking them. That’s right—these bats understand espionage. We’ve officially left the animal kingdom and entered Mission: Impossible with wings.
Bat Attack on Main Street
The highlight of the film is the big attack sequence, where the bats swarm into Gallup, Texas. The mayor warns everyone to stay indoors. Naturally, nobody listens—because horror movies thrive on Darwin Awards. Within minutes, chaos erupts. People are swatted off porches, cars flip, and the bats turn Main Street into a buffet line.
It’s gloriously campy, the kind of scene where you root for the bats as much as the humans. The editing is frantic, the music blares, and for a few minutes, the movie achieves genuine, ridiculous spectacle.
The Guano Set Piece
If you thought this movie couldn’t get grosser, think again. In the climax, our heroes enter the bats’ roost, an abandoned mine filled with waist-deep guano. Yes, bat poop. Lots of it. Rivers of it. Niagara Falls of it.
Lou Diamond Phillips and Dina Meyer slog through this fecal swamp while trying to set up a coolant system to freeze the bats. It’s disgusting, it’s absurd, and it’s exactly the kind of commitment to bad taste that makes this film memorable. Forget the bats—the real horror here is what’s on the soles of their boots.
The Ending: Victory by Car Tire
After setting off the coolant system, blowing up the mine, and collapsing the cave entrance, our heroes drive away, relieved. But in true horror fashion, one last bat claws its way out of the rubble. This creature, having survived explosives and sub-zero temperatures, is immediately squashed by a car tire.
It’s the perfect punchline. After all the buildup, the final bat is dispatched not by science, not by military might, but by basic traffic safety. Never has rubber on asphalt been so satisfying.
Why It Works
On paper, Bats should’ve been a disaster. Genetically engineered animals, small-town setting, military intervention—it’s a checklist of cliché creature-feature tropes. But unlike many of its contemporaries (Anaconda, Lake Placid), Bats embraces its absurdity with sincerity. It never winks at the camera. It takes itself just seriously enough that the audience can laugh with it, not at it.
Graeme Revell’s score gives the film an operatic sense of doom it doesn’t deserve, but it makes every bat swoop feel like the apocalypse. The pacing is tight—91 minutes of nonstop action and guano—and the dialogue is just cheesy enough to be quotable.
The Box Office Batting Average
The film doubled its $5.2 million budget, grossing $10.2 million. Not exactly blockbuster territory, but impressive for a movie whose entire pitch was “bats, but meaner.” Critics panned it, but let’s be honest—critics also panned Tremors in 1990, and look how that turned out. Sometimes cult status takes a while to incubate, like a rabies virus in a dark cave.
Final Verdict
Bats isn’t high art. It’s not subtle. It’s not even scary in the traditional sense. But it’s entertaining. It’s campy. It’s the kind of film you watch with friends, beer in hand, ready to yell, “Don’t go outside, you idiot!” at the screen.
Lou Diamond Phillips anchors it with surprising gravitas, Dina Meyer gives us a scientist worth rooting for, and the bats themselves are ridiculous enough to keep things fun. Throw in a mine full of guano and a finale that ends with roadkill, and you’ve got a creature feature that deserves more love than it gets.
So flap your wings proudly, Bats. You may have been panned in 1999, but in 2024, you’re exactly the kind of trashy treasure horror fans need.
