Instead, you get a movie that's enjoyable enough, but leaves you feeling like it could have been much, much more.

The movie is wonderful and true, an act of love in all its contradictions and complexity

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

The thing I enjoyed most about the film is the fact that it doesn't shy away from being a super-sized-cliche;

By the 1940's Hungarian actor Bela Lugosi was mainly seen in poverty row movies, such was the rapid fall he suffered in Hollywood. These cheap B-movies were mainly pretty bad but Lugosi always put in engaging performances no matter the quality of the material. I would definitely have to say that The Devil Bat ranks as one of the better of this particular bracket of films. It has Lugosi as a chemist who has been cheated out of money by some business partners. He uses electricity to create giant bats who are trained to attack and kill those who wear a specific after-shave he has developed, needless to say, he starts handing out free samples of this to those ex-partners he wants punished.This one is quite entertaining it has to be said. It has the benefit of a pretty decent monster that we see flying around at dusk and then swooping down to kill its unfortunate victims. It may not seem like much but seriously, for a poverty row creature feature, this is well above average. Lugosi is as ever good value as well. The plot-line is silly yet engaging enough with some quite memorable moments. It's still overall fairly average in general terms if I am being totally honest but for a poverty row movie it's definitely on the higher end of the scale. Certainly worth watching.

The Devil Bat (1940) *** (out of 4)Bela Lugosi plays a scientist who decides to get even against those he feels doubled crossed him. He creates a special cologne like substance that he gives to those he wants to target and then he unleashes a large bat that then attacks them. A newspaper man comes to cover the story and tries to find out who is behind the mysterious killings.Even after delivering a terrific performance in SON OF FRANKENSTEIN, the following year Lugosi was back at the budget companies where he made this film for PRC. THE DEVIL BAT certainly isn't a masterpiece by any stretch of the imagination but if you're a fan of Lugosi or B movies then there's certainly enough here to keep you entertained.I've always enjoyed watching these B movies from Lugosi because you could never tell from his performance that he was appearing in cheap material. In other words, no matter if he was at Universal or someplace like PRC, the actor still gave it his all and delivered a fun performance. He certainly goes over-the-top with his high energy but this just brings life to the picture and I really loved his approach here. I especially loved the way he would say goodbye to all of the victims. Outside of Lugosi's performance, the supporting cast is also good. Dave O'Brien and Guy Usher are entertaining as the reporter and his photographer. More fun comes from the bat attacks themselves. While it's obvious how they were done, the effects are still good enough to see why this film became a pretty good hit back when it was released. At just 68 minutes the movie certainly flies by and it contains a nice mix of horror and comic relief. THE DEVIL BAT isn't Oscar material but it's a fun little film.

In The Devil Bat, Bela Lugosi plays a kindly old doctor who's conducting some nasty experiments, raising huge bats and turning them into killers with a scent.Turns out old Doc Lugosi was done out of millions by a pair of partners who made their fortune with the profits from his experiments. But he's going to get them because he's developed a special aftershave which if you put it on might not help you with the ladies, but those bats will tear you to pieces because the stuff drives them wild. Of course there's also a perfume developed for the women.Reporter Dave O'Brien who was also busy doing B westerns for PRC took time off to be the hero in this cheesy epic. He cracks the case and wins the girl who now is the only heir to the company. That worked out nice for O'Brien.Poor Bela, he had a knack for picking these things. This one's a couple of steps from Ed Wood.

In my review of 1935's "The Raven", I commented on Bela Lugosi's character who is an absolute egotist and utilizes his God-given gifts to take revenge. Here, he's another mad doctor, yet unlike the jealousy of his character there, his motivation is revenge for what he feels as being taken for granted in business. Given a check for $5000 for his invention which made rich man richer, he feels he is like a dog being thrown scraps, and invents a shaving lotion that attracts the man-biting titled animal who hates the scent and is enticed to kill. Having aged much since his star-making days of "Dracula" and the Karloff pairings of the mid 1930's, Lugosi is a bit hammier and as a result is now given material of a shoddier nature that stands the test of time in film history as being fun programmers with silly stories and weak co-stars where Lugosi dominates every moment he is on screen.The actual "Devil Bat" is a silly looking creature, carried around by Lugosi upside down on a hangar and put into a vault where electric shock waves are meant to enlarge it so it will increase from the size of a sparrow to being even larger than a grown man's head. Close-ups of these bats aren't all that frightening, and inside the electric vault, Lugosi appears more to be cooking it than training it for his nefarious deeds. But in an era where "PRC" meant "Pretty Rotten Cinema", this one is actually a lot of fun. No awards, certainly, but a film that is daffy entertainment certain to create a lot of unintentional laughs.