empathielabs/imbd_dataset_v0 huggingface dataset:
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I watched this film last night with anticipation, but really wasn't very impressed.
With the exception of 'Combo', I thought the acting was poor and the narrative was limited. It came across like a 'made for TV' drama.
I felt that the film was very contrived. The whole set up of hammering in the context at the start (yes, we get that this is 80s Britain - you can stop now) was tiresome, and gave a very one-sided view of what life was like in 80s Britain - poverty, war juxtaposed with royalty, Margaret Thatcher, yet nothing in between? There were actually middle-classes who existed back then - just ordinary working people, with a decent wage and a mortgage. The Falklands clips also seemed to be added randomly towards the end, for 'dramatic effect', I presume.
The sequence of events felt a tad disjointed, as the characters moved one one action to the next without us seeing how their mindset could've changed so quickly.
The relationship between 'Shaun' and 'Smell' was toe-curling. I couldn't even look during the snogging scene. I find it very hard to believe that she would've been attracted to a boy who was not only so much younger, but also looked so much younger. I know there were only four years between them, but four years is nothing once you reach your twenties, yet it's a huge difference in your teens! In my experience, that kind of teen age difference only occurs when the girl is the younger one, since girls mature so much quicker, and are more on the wavelength of boys a few years older. Sorry, but I didn't buy it - an unnecessary plot point created for shock value.
The ending was somewhat abrupt and, again, contrived. If the flag throwing incident was supposed to be iconic, then it fell somewhat short in my eyes.
It bugs me that British films only concern themselves with either the upper classes or the poverty-stricken. Don't get me wrong, I love Trainspotting, and Four Weddings has its charms, but can't we Brits come up with anything different? Why are our films always so hung up on the class system? I was born in 1973, so wasn't much different in age to 'Shaun' would've been in 1983. I grew up in a single parent family on a fairly down-trodden council estate in a city in England. However, my childhood experiences were vastly different to those portrayed in the film - I don't even remember racism being an issue (although i'm not saying it didn't exist). 'This is England'? Not in my experience.
The bottom line is that I felt this film lacked substance, and I was completely bored and unimpressed throughout.


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The mood of this movie is pretty good and it captures the feel of the 80's well with some good performances.
However.....
The script is run of the mill with the exception of a couple of comedic moments and comes off as being weird where I expect it was intended to be edgy. The characters are totally over dramatized and unbelievable and full of right wing clichés that the script writer probably saw watching a panorama documentary on the national front. The biggest problem is this movie has no real story. It ticks all the right "arty" boxes but nothing actually happens and at the end you are left wondering what the point was.
Very disappointing


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The title of this obscure and (almost righteously) forgotten 80's slasher inevitably reminds me of The Cure's mega-smash-monster hit song with the same title, hence a piece of the lyrics in the title-section of this user comment. Also, I didn't have anything else to say that was useful, anyway. But hey, "The Forest" isn't totally hopeless and not even *that* bad, actually. If nothing else, at least it obeys the, admittedly unwritten, first rule of 80's slasher: kill someone within the first 10 minutes of playtime. Sure you've heard about the basic premise of this film a dozen times before, but don't let that discourage you from watching it, as "The Forest" has a couple of things more to offer than just an appealingly sinister cover image. It's actually a bit of an atypical 80's slasher! The main characters aren't ordinary brainless teenagers and the script has solid ambitions towards supernaturalism. The concept isn't always successful, let alone plausible, but it's more than interesting enough to hold your attention and there are even are a couple of surprisingly strong moments of tension and plot twists to enjoy. Two married couples decide to go camping in the most isolated woods of California, but due to a stupid bet the wives travel separately from their husbands. Barely set up for the night, they receive uncanny visits from a mother looking for her two children, the children themselves and finally the father who's out hunting for human flesh. The demented family may be real or imaginary, but the women are definitely in danger and by the time their husbands arrive, they have already vanished. The men too encounter the family, and they find out more about the slightly dysfunction background. "The Forest" is a weird and unusual film, to say the least. It's not exactly a masterpiece of plotting, but the thoroughly strange atmosphere will certainly appeal to open-minded fans of 80's horror. The murders are fairly gruesome and will-filmed, including a slit throat and a painful saw-massacre, and the filming locations are stunningly beautiful. The more you contemplate about the story and its abrupt twists, the less it makes any sense, so my advice would just be to enjoy this odd viewing experience for as long as it lasts and not a minute longer. The acting performances are just above average, the music is okay and at least director Donald Jones (also responsible for the 70's exploitation-sickie "Schoolgirls in Chains") tried to be a little more creative that the majority of 80's horror films. Too bad it ultimately fails.


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One of the most boring slashers ever.. If you can even call it that. I wouldn't watch this if it even ended up being some kind of porno movie, which it completely resembles. The fact that you're watching a small group of middle-aged people in the woods is really unbearable. They made these kinds of movies for teens, so who were they really aiming for when they made this sleep-fest? My favorite part of this movie is the cover art and it's the only reason I chose to seek out this movie, which happened to be part of a Suspense Classics 50 Movie Pack.. and after seeing the other movies in this 50 pack, you'll realize that it belongs nowhere else. So if you're in the mood for a decent slasher in the woods, I recommend Just Before Dawn and The Final Terror.


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A cannibalistic backwoods killer is on the prowl and two bickering couples might be his next source of protein in this bargain basement Friday the 13th-clone cheapie. There s literally nothing of interest to see in this one, the killings are surprisingly sparse and when they do happen, completely amateurish. It also adds ghosts into the mix for no reason what so ever. I felt drained after watching it as if my brain was liquefying and draining out my nose. And it remains without a doubt Donald Jones' worst movie. If you're thinking of renting it because of Code Red's snazzy new DVD re-release Don't bother
My Grade: F


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A friend and I went through a phase some (alot of) years ago of selecting the crappest horror films in the video shop for an evening's entertainment. For some reason, I ended up buying this one (probably v. v. cheap).
The cheap synth soundtrack is a classic of its time and genre. There's also a few very amusing scenes. Among them is a scene where a man's being attacked and defends himself with a number of unlikely objects, it made me laugh at the time (doesn't seem quite so funny in retrospect but there you go).
Apart from that it's total crap, mind you. But probably worth a watch if you like films like "Chopping Mall". Yes, I've seen that too.


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The Forest isn't just your everyday standard slasher/backwoods cannibal fare, it also has an interesting mix of supernatural elements as well. The story is about two couples that hike into the forest on a camping trip. A cave dwelling, cannibalistic woodsmen and the ghosts of his dead wife and two children soon terrorize them. There is something you don't see every slasher. Director Don Jones gets an "A" for effort although the film itself falls flat on just about every level, the acting is just simply average except for Jeanette Kelly who plays the dead wife of the woodsman (Michael Brody aka Gary Kent).
The film opens with some beautiful shots of a couple hiking through a valley and into a forest. They realize too late that someone is stalking them. They are both dispatched in typical slasher fare. Our killer uses a trusty hunting knife throughout the entire film, except during a flashback when he implements a handsaw, pitchfork and rusty saw blade to dispatch his cheating wife's lover.
The Forest has a good story line but the movie just doesn't work along with it I found it pretty boring with simply crappy acting. 4/10


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I sought out a copy of The Forest because I was watching a VH1 special, I think "Where Are They Now", and saw the video box flash across the screen during a segment on the actor Corky Pigeon. He played the male child ghost in this B horror horrible, but I remember him from his character Freddy on the Silver Spoons television show. This flick's a major letdown. There's nothing here. It actually took me four months to watch it from start to finish. I kept stopping it in boredom, setting it aside and forgetting about it, then stumbling on it and trying once again to get through it. Obviously, the angle of this film that was intended to set it apart from its counterparts was the supernatural element, the apparitions. And obviously, here, that doesn't work. I can't stand the male leads. I kept expecting them to look down at their palms during the longer dialogue scenes in order to read cheat lines. The situation at the beginning where the couples decide to go camping separately is awkward and plain dumb. I guess the only positive thing to say about this one is the scene where the guy falls and breaks his leg, you can see the bone sticking out of his flesh. It's fairly good gore makeup there. Man, I'm really reaching for a positive now, huh. The only other no-budget horror film on a level as bad as this one would be Home Sweet Home.


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It's a ghost story. It's a cannibalism story. It's a revenge story. It's a very poorly done film with a lot of violence. I suppose it follows cheaply along the lines of every slasher movie you've ever seen. It has the usual isolated place, the cocky campers, heading off to the wilderness. Granted, there are some pretty intense scenes. It's just so dull. Bad editing and the whole works. There are ghost children who sound like they are talking into a wastebasket. I'm not really sure what rules the ghosts and the psycho with the seed cap are playing by. It also has the gross out scene where a man eats a piece of meat which is actually what's left of his wife. A friend of mine once asked me why it is necessary to show this kind of gratuitous, sick violence. I fear that it's just another step in our desensitized evolution. Three is no cleverness here, no tongue in cheek, only a sad waste of time. Lots of blood; little plot.


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I saw this movie at an actual movie theater (probably the $2.00 one) with my cousin and uncle. We were around 11 and 12, I guess, and really into scary movies. I remember being so excited to see it because my cool uncle let us pick the movie (and we probably never got to do that again!) and sooo disappointed afterwards!! Just boring and not scary. The only redeeming thing I can remember was Corky Pigeon from Silver Spoons, and that wasn't all that great, just someone I recognized. I've seen bad movies before and this one has always stuck out in my mind as the worst. This was from what I can recall, one of the most boring, non-scary, waste of our collective $6, and a waste of film. I have read some of the reviews that say it is worth a watch and I say, "Too each his own", but I wouldn't even bother. Not even so bad it's good.


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I agree with everything people said on this one but I must add that the soundtrack is probably the WORST one I have ever heard my entire life! There are actual vocals during times when you are supposed to be listening to the actors talk! And the vocals are like a broadway version of Danzig singing, "The darkness of the forest! Oh the darkness of the dark, dark forest!" or something else so unthreatening. The singer has a terrible vibrato and has been recorded with a treble-y microphone over some synthed-up string section and fake drum beats. It's horrible!!
Yes, the male leads are awful. So are the female ones. This is one bad case of gender stereotyping - it's so bad! Everything they say revolves around being a male or a female, just playing up the stereotypes to the max. Makes me sick. Soooo boring!!!
The children were so echoey in their lines, you couldn't understand them. And why do female ghost children always wear cute little bows in their hair, pretty blue dresses and long hair? And ghost boys always wear clean cut slacks with cute little shiny blond hair? Not scary - STUPID.
Daddy's face was way too blemish free and clean to be that of a man living in a cave. Nice beard and bangs, pa. Did you perfectly cut those with a knife yourself or did you stroll into town and go to the salon?
Stupid movie.


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Your attitude going into Prom Night II will determine how much joy you take away from the film. If you're expecting a horror masterpiece, look elsewhere. If you like campy movies that are rather fun to watch unfold, you'll like this. Lisa Schrage has the time of her life playing an over the top Mary Lou and Wendy Loyd channels Schrage's rage perfectly during her time "possessed".
Not classic cinema but a fun way to kill a couple of hours with a wicked ending.



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Mary Lou is a slut whose spirit seeks revenge on those who let her come to her fiery doom back in 1957.
Well, the movie mainly takes place in 1986. The movie falls into the 80's trap of weird/stupid special effects, including some weird demented looking rocking horse.
Anyway, Mary Lou's spirit does bad things to people and tries to take over one person's body. Whether or not she succeeds, you'll have to watch to find out.
Anyway, the movie is largely boring and based around a bunch of worthless characters. This also isn't really a sequel, the only thing in common with the first is the name of the high school. It has the avg. horror flick fall backs, gore, pointless nudity, knocks against the catholic church. Basic stuff, boring movie.
The acting is decent enough to give it a 3 out of 10. You can waste your time doing something else.


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and not in a fun-to-watch way. it's just bad. it's shocking that people have posted positive things about it here. the story sucks, the acting is bad, it's not scary, the special effects aren't special--oh no! the blackboard has hands coming out of it! oh gee--the mirror turned into water! the hair, clothes and makeup in the '50s scenes aren't accurate, and they got a middle-aged man with a receding hairline to play the high-school version of himself. this is like later-on nightmare on elm street stuff. i enjoy sitting down to watch a cheesy horror movie as much as anyone else, but there are better bad ones out there to choose from.


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This is only related to the first movie by the name. The plot has nothing to do with the first and the whole movie stinks!!! I have no idea what they were thinking but this movie is so bad. Avoid this at all costs, the first movie in the series is acceptable as a slasher flick and so is the fourth but this one and the 3rd are rubbish!!


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What is the point of creating sequels that have absolutely no relevance to the original film? No point. This is why the Prom Night sequels are so embarrassingly bad.
The original film entailed a group of children hiding a dark secret that eventually get them all killed, bar one, in a brutal act of revenge. Can someone please explain to me what a dead prom queen-to-be rising from the grave to steel the crown has to do with the first movie then? Prom Night 2 had continuous plot holes that left the audience constantly wondering how did that happen and why should that happen? But in the end, i guess you could call it one of those movies that is so bad, you end up laughing yourself through it.


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Prom Night 2 is an OK horror movie but prom night is way better and this movies about how the prom Queen Mary Lou in 1957 gets killed by her boyfriend and comes back 30 years later for revenge.The best actor in this movie is Micheal Ironside and the movie stars other OK actors and actress like Justin Louis (I),Wendy Lyon,Lisa Schrage and Richard Monette(I).And there are some good gore scenes like when Mary Lou kills the girl that is trying to hide in her locker by crushing the lockers together and how one of the students are on the computer and Mary Lou electrocutes him to death.Over all this is an OK/good horror movie and my rating is 4 out of 10.


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I actually prefer Robin Williams in his more serious roles (e.g. Good Will Hunting, The Fisher King, The World According to Garp). These are my favorite Robin Williams movies. But Seize the Day, although well-acted, is one of the worst movies I've ever seen and certainly the worst Robin Williams movie (even worse than Death to Smoochy, Club Paradise, and Alladin on Ice).
Every good story is going to have its ups and downs. This movie, however, is one giant down. I don't need a feel-good Hollywood cheese-fest, but I've got to have something other than 90 minutes of complete and utter hopelessness. This movie reminds me of "Love Liza" (which is actually worse) because it seems that the only point of the movie is to see how far one person can fall. The answer? Who cares.


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The long list of "big" names in this flick (including the ubiquitous John Mills) didn't bowl me over to the extent that I couldn't judge the film on its actual merits. It is FULL of stereotypes, caricatures, and standard, set scenes, from the humble air-ace hero to the loud-mouthed yank flyer. The music track was such that at one point, about an hour before the end, I thought the film was over: loud, rising crescendo, grand flourish and finish then silence, but then the movie continued! I found no real storyline, haphazard writing, but smartly-pressed uniforms and the pretty Jean Simmons (pre-nose job) with a rousing little ditty. I cannot say that this picture has any of the ingredients which make a film great. I found it maudlin, mawkish and minor.


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THE TOY BOX (1971) BOMB
Sure, I like looking at nude women. While I prefer hardcore porn flicks, I'll take softcore exploitation grindhouse junk like this too under the right circumstances. Well, these aren't the right circumstances. These aren't ANY circumstances. There's supposed to be a horrific subplot lurking in here somewhere, but I'll be damned if I can untangle it. This is another of those amateurish steaming piles of badly made manure that bores you to tears rather than stimulates you, despite all the simulated sex going on all over the place. Bah -- if I want to see good sex scenes, I'll watch the real stuff.


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"Don't Drink the Water" is an unbelievably bad film. It's based on a 1966 Broadway play by Woody Allen. It stars Jackie Gleason, the comic genius behind "The Honeymooners". The director, Howard Morris, has appeared in several Mel Brooks comedies (Life Stinks, High Anxiety, Silent Movie)and has made a mark in animation (characters he has voiced include Gopher from "Pooh", Jughead (Archie)and Beetle Bailey) What went wrong?
I think the problem is that the premise is played out too seriously to work effectively. Allen's original play was tongue-in-cheek, which is why it worked on Broadway and in Allen's 1994 remake. The screenplay by R.S. Allen and Harvey Bullock beats the premise to death and makes too many changes from the original play. Making Gleason's wife an airhead in this version when she was a headstrong woman in the original is just one example of why this doesn't work.
The acting isn't much better. Gleason does the best he can with the material, but he can't save this. Gleason was a comic genius , but also a fine actor as he demonstrated in "The Hustler" and "Soldier in the Rain". His abrasive personality could have worked here, but the lousy script doesn't even give him a chance. Too bad. Estelle Parsons' airhead wife will drive you nuts after 20 minutes. See how soon it'll take for YOU to want to strangle her. That is also a shame because she is also a fine actress, having turned in two exceptional performances in "Bonnie and Clyde" and "Rachel, Rachel" None of the other actors do particularly well either.
Woody Allen hated this film so much that he remade the film in 1994 with himself and Julie Kavner (Marge Simpson) in the leads. They manage to hit all the right notes and the film itself is a comic masterpiece. It's finally on video after a long battle over rights. Do go out and find that version. All the 1969 original is good for is clearing out unwanted guests who overstay their welcome.
1/2* out of 4 stars


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Leslie Sands' stilted play "Deadlock" becomes a poor-choice vehicle for Bette Davis and Gary Merrill, just after their joint-success in "All About Eve". After killing her spouse, a scheming woman is visited by her husband's best friend, who passes himself off as her husband once others begin stopping by the house. Irving Rapper, one of Bette's best directors from her peak years, is sadly unable to elevate this ridiculous material, in which Davis is curiously aloof and restrained until the outrageous finale (where she thankfully pulls out all the stops). Production and supporting cast strictly second-rate; only for Bette Davis completists. *1/2 from ****


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If you want an undemanding and reasonably amusing hour or so, then it's OK to watch this. It's not all that bad, really. Yeah, it's got more lapses in logic than I care to describe here and might tax the patience of people - like myself, I have to admit - who are inclined to throw things at the TV on occasion, but it's funny at least. Just because it's not always INTENTIONALLY funny, there's no need to let that get you down.
However, if you've read the book - or any of the other books by Brookmyre - then you'd probably best avoid it. I've read them all and when I first watched this film, I despised it. I've trashed it in detail and at great length on another site, in fact. The TV plot bears practically no relevance at all to that of the book and served only to outrage and infuriate many faithful (and admittedly rabid) Brookmyre fans.
Best bit of advice..? Watch this, then read the book and only THEN make your comparisons and submit your judgement.


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What an absolute pile of pants. Having read Chris Brookmyre's books religiously since I came across "Quite Ugly...", I was delighted to find out that this drama had been commissioned.
I obviously had too much faith.
Nesbitt is probably the best thing in this show - and even he doesn't quite fit. How anyone can read the book, and then adapt it to this piece of dross is beyond me.
Entire characters are changed, situations are dropped, and to see Parlablane's dramatic break-in reduced to Nesbitt doing a quick chin up and sliding open a bay window... it brought tears to my eyes.
I dread to think what's going to happen with "Country Of The Blind" if this is the benchmark...
Please, just avoid it...


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Did I miss something here? This "adaptation" has everything that Brookmyres first novel had. Everything apart from the story, the laughs, the black humour, the political intrigue, the characterisations, the plot, and some semblance of sense.
Spoilers;
Godamnawful, from beginning to end. They made a mockery of the plot, they had a romance between Parablane and a cop, and what was that all about, Dr Slaughter was portrayed as a bystander, and who the hell was Annette Crosby supposed to be?
It looked like they had made a three hour adaptation, then chopped it down to 90 minutes. (Even though the 90 minutes seemed to last forever.) Please, please, do not do this to any other of Brookmyres books, (especially "Country of the blind.)


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This movie was a confusing piece of garbage. You never knew what was going on. The characters were poorly written and for the most part they were totally unsympathetic except for Gus (played masterfully by George Eads). I hate this movie but compared to others (Dark Harvest, Dracula's Curse) it should have won an academy award. It was particularly sad to see a talented actor like George Eads in such a disgraceful and tacky film. Lifetime you have sunken to whole new low. Someone needs to make sure that this director never works in movies again. Also was this supposed to be a horror film because it was a lot more funny than scary. For shame Lifetime, For shame.


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1st watched 11/7/2002 - 2 out of 10(Dir-John Bianco): Pretty lame gangster movie about a Godfather-like family in Brooklyn who like to say four-letter words a lot and kill people. The only thing of interest here was their attempt to show the feds being a lot like the gang. This is the only attempt at good film-making. The rest of the movie was predictable, and cheaply-made. The quality of the photography on some of the scenes inside bars and floozy joints almost made you think there was a problem with your DVD player because of the bad contrasts and some of the actors were hard to hear at times because of the bad sound. The acting was pretty-much characatures of all your favorite gangsters from better movies with corny names like Vinnie `Knuckles' and Jimmie `Tattoos', and the plot pretty much followed those patterns as well. So, go see a better gangster movie before you put your money out for this one.


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This film is so bad I can't believe it was actually shot. People who voted 10 or 9, 8 and even 7, are you insane? Did we really watch the same movie? Or the same sh** should I say. Everything is bad in this film. The story (is there a story?) is going nowhere, completely incoherent, the acting (some dialogs are simply just ridiculous), the music score (what the **** is that?), the editing, and especially the artistic direction, a pure disaster. Reminds me the old Macist movies... To give you an example of the amateurism of the production, the mermaid's costume is a sleeping bag with spangles sticked on it. I'm not joking, that's exactly what it is.
Another example of the enormous mistakes we find here: you see in a scene an extra, a fat woman of about 200 pounds, who's talking on her cell phone. The next shot, which is in a complete different location, you can see this same woman, still talking on her cell phone (!) Yes, it goes that far.
A big, huge, waste of money. Useless.


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I just saw this at the 2006 Vancouver international film festival. The synopsis in the festival guide sounded pretty good so we decided to check this one out. I'm sorry to say I was very disappointed.
Besides being poorly written, it was boring. I won't take away from the actors as there is not much they could do with this bad script.
First bite was cliché without being ironic, over the top seriousness without being funny. The movie would have been better had Hunt Hoe went with a campy horror feel. Instead he took himself to seriously and this resulted with a boring film. I can't recommend this film. It felt too long and all in all just plain weak.


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I had the distinct displeasure of seeing this movie at the 2006 Vancouver International Film Festival. I have been attending this festival for over 5 years, and I have certainly seen some poor movies on occasion. However, 'First Bite' has reached a brand new low in film. In spite of being shot in beautiful locations, with the occasional, exquisite close up of fabulous food, the movie contorts an excessive number of plot twists and stilted characters until I was practically begging for it to end.
The lead actor, David La Haye, completely failed to show any character development throughout the movie, portraying a pompous chef from beginning to end. Additional sub-plots, such as eating disorders, were developed so poorly and completely did not fit within any context that the movie had shown up to that point.
A theme of mysticism was used as a poor attempt to conceal a movie that achieves nothing, goes nowhere, and completely disappoints.


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After being bitten by a bat in a cave,a doctor named John Beck undergoes an accelerating transformation into a man-bat creature.His wife assures him that there's nothing wrong with him,it's all just due to rabies or the anti-rabies drugs he's taking.The local cop thinks that John is responsible for several gruesome murders."The Bat People" by Jerry Jameson is one hell of a horrible film.The script is deadly dull and there is no gore nor nudity.This pointless piece of crap is so mind-numbingly boring that you'll scratch your head in a total disbelief after suffering through it.Even the design of a man-bat creature by a young Stan Winston is completely pathetic and unmemorable.Avoid this stinker like the plague.2 out of 10.


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Watching It Lives By Night makes you wonder, just who in the world greenlit this crap. A newlywed couple go spelunking on their honeymoon, get attacked by bats and the husband starts to run around in his pajamas attacking various people. And where exactly are they? They're in the desert, then they're skiing, then they're in a small town that looks like it has mountains nearby. The town is run by a sheriff who likes to watch and has a personal vendetta against whiny doctor boy. The ski hospital is run by a really groovy guy with a nice thick mustache and the wife looks like Mary Tyler Moore or Marilyn Quayle. There's no dramatic tension and the ending will leave you filled with anger. Special effects and makeup guru Stan Winston did the effects for this movie. I guess you have to start somewhere.


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I saw this movie on mystery science theater when it was called "It lives by night". That title is much less misleading than "Batpeople". In fact it would more accurately be called Batperson. This movie is about a doctor who studies bats I am thinking because he wants to make a better cure for rabies. This is not really clear. What is clear is that he and his wife take a tour of a cave and he gets bitten by a bat. Why a scientist needs to take a tour to study bats is beyond me. Shouldn't he be able to go in by himself. Well after being bitten he and his wife go on their honeymoon where he starts having fits. They go to the worst doctor ever. The guy stays in the hospital and kills a nurse. In the end the guy kills 3-4 people and his wife stands by him and you are supposed to be rooting for him instead of the sheriff investigating the murders.


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Or maybe that's what it feels like. Anyway, "The Bat People" is about as flat as a rug, bland as a sack of flour and as exciting as a rock...and as intelligent as all three combined.
Okay, plot in a nutshell (fitting vessel, that...): a doctor (Moss) gets bitten by a bat while checking out a cave with his wife (McAndrew) and subsequently turns into a bat - well, not exactly a bat but a bat-like creature that looks more like a werewolf who kills his victims in a first-person camera viewpoint....
But then there's the business of the sheriff (Pataki), who is about the WORST kind of sheriff: the hick kind. He hassles people, he leers at married women, he steals handkerchiefs from haberdasheries (the FIEND!), he smokes with one of those cigarette holders in his mouth and talks at the same time, making him look and sound like Buford T. Justice in "Smokey and the Bandit" and (this is the worst part)... HE'S THE MOST LIKEABLE CHARACTER IN THE WHOLE FILM!
The whole film, though, is just TV movie-of-the-week-like crapola (guano, in this case). It's an AIP, for crying out loud! What did you expect, Oscar caliber stuff?
And what else can you say about a film that not even MST3K can save?
How about...no stars for "The Bat People", full version OR MST3K version!
By the way, if there's ever a sequel for this movie, I'm burying my TV.


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"The Bat People" is a proud resident of the IMDb Bottom 100. Every once and a while the movie suddenly vanishes from the infamous list, depending on whether there are new movies with Paris Hilton in the lead or documentaries about American Idol stars, but it always reliably returns sooner or later. And why? Because, unlike the majority of crap in that list, "The Bat People" is a legitimate bad film and it deserves to be on there regardless of any media influences or internet buzz! This nearly isn't the worst film ever made, since the basic concept definitely has a certain charm and ingenuity, but it's still indescribably difficult to sit through the whole thing. The script is incredibly boring, with absolutely unnecessary padding footage and gigantic gaps in continuity, and yet the main characters still remain total strangers throughout the entire film. Other than a sensible screenplay, the film also lacks spectacular killing sequences and the make-up effects  although courtesy of a young Stan Winston  are ludicrously inept and remain largely unseen until the end of the film. The film's title is inaccurate, as "people" refers to a number in plural whereas the story actually just revolves on one Bat Person. Much more than Bruce Wayne, the real Batman plays in this movie and he as well has a genuine Bat-cave and a Bat-mobile (a stolen ambulance)! The plot introduces a young couple on their honeymoon-weekend exploring caves. They wander off from a guided tour group and he gets bitten by a bat whilst trying to protect his wife from the animal's vicious attack. Worried that he might be infected with rabies, he undergoes an intense treatment at the local hospital, but still this doesn't prevent him from slowly transforming into a bloodthirsty bat creature. He kills random people at night and toys around with the suspicious police sergeant whilst his loving wife is still vastly convinced the awkward behavior is exclusively due to allergic reactions to the rabies treatment. Sure, honey! The script never explains why a bat would attack people and how come John always changes back into a normal human being at the dawn of a new day instead of gradually turning into a permanent state of bat-guano. So basically, "The Bat People" is a variation on the good old werewolf-theme, but obviously not a very interesting one. The concept showed a lot of potential, but somehow the sub plots center on whiny drunks and perverted Sheriffs instead of on ghastly monsters. Some of the settings and exterior filming locations look impressive, the misfit song playing during the credits is strangely catchy, there's a nice bit of gore during the climax (finally!) and main actress Marianne McAndrew is ravishing to look at (though not to listen to). This truly bad and boring film's current listing in the bottom 100 is spot number 80, and personally I hope it sticks somewhere in that region. The list simply wouldn't feel and traditional without "The Bat People".


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Stewart Moss stars as a scientist who is on a working trip with his wife, and one gets the feeling that he was picked for this role for his ability to roll his eyes back in his head...imagine the auditions for this.."can you...no, that's not quite it, thank you, next!". Anyway, he's bitten by a bat, and then, he's either changing into some kind of bat creature and killing people or....he's not. For no one else sees his strange transformations, but he himself seems to think that he's changing because his wedding ring pops off when his hands turn into claws, etc. To its credit the movie does kind of hold back on whether he's just nuts or whether he's actually transforming into something until almost the very end. This has some good locations & sort of a decent atmosphere at times but unfortunately none of that can make up for the somewhat lame story and the wonderfully bad acting. Kind of fun in a "so bad it's good" way, but leans more towards just plain bad. 4 out of 10.


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Ok,so.....guy gets bitten by a bat and then turns into a bat (well,sorta). I can only assume this made sense to SOMEONE at the time! Aren't bats supposed to fly, use radar, and eat bugs instead of attacking humans tho?


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This movie promised bat people. It didn't deliver. There was a guy who got bit by a bat, but what was with the seizures? And the stupid transformation? Where was the plot? Where was the acting? Who came up with the idea to make this? Why was it allowed to be made? Why? Why? I guess we'll never know.


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A man wakes from a nightmare about bats. He and his wife go out into the desert for a picnic on their honeymoon. He seems to hear a strange noise, and she is disturbed by the sight of a bat crawling across their picnic blanket. He wants to go on a tour of a cave, which has something to do with some kind of work he is doing, but she wants to enjoy their honeymoon. She relents. They go on the tour, but leave the group to make out. She falls down a slope, where she is disturbed by insects. He follows her. He hears the strange noise again, and seems to know a bat is approaching; one does, and gets in her hair. He fights it off her, and it attacks him, biting his forehead.
They get out of the cave, but when they are in a gondola at a ski resort, he starts having seizures in which he has hallucinations or visions of bats attacking people. He becomes angry when this happens. He's unable to drink alcohol without spitting it out. His wife worries about rabies, and he starts a Pasteur treatment for that, but reacts violently to the injection.
And then some people are killed. We see parts of the man's transformation into a bat person. It seems it is not just in his mind. Whether the bat bite causes these transformations is not clear, since he already was having some symptoms prior to the bite.
While the title seems inappropriate, the implication at the end is that the same thing is happening to another person. Not a very good movie, but I liked the variety of the desert, cave, and ski-slope locations, and some of the weirder scenes. I didn't think this was as bad as other people do, and I didn't think the 1999 movie Bats was as bad as others think either (I rated that one a 5/10).


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The movie is just as fun as staring at the sun.Sheriff Pataki is a total retard that loves nothing better to do than sit on his fat rear making a smoke ring from his puffy cigars and drinking booze while the doctor acts like a zombie version of Nicholas Cage sucking up all that so called "Blood" which in reality seemed like Fruit Punch.
Most of all the plotting seemed very horrid to even call this piece of crap a movie.The rest of the characters in this movie are total wastes of time, the ending was awful, the outlines were cheesy, and the scenes were terrible. What else more should I say to you viewers out there? My advice would be to get your Rabies shot if you've already watched the movie. This movie may give you the foam in the mouth if you didn't get your up-to-date shots.


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Unless the title is supposed to be some kind of spoiler for the wife's transformation (the fiends! ruining it for us). Anycase, if this movie wasn't Made-For-TV, it should have been, it's so remarkably low-budget, underscripted, underacted, and hits every 70's cliche except disco. Nobody is likeable, and you could careless what happens to anyone in this one. Eminently forgetable except for the bad, bad performances.


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While exploring some caves with his wife, a doctor is bitten by a bat which causes some alarming side effects...
Occasionally creepy atmosphere and some decent (though under used) makeup effects don't save this B horror flick from being a sub-par tale of man-becomes-creature. The Bat People aka It Lives By Night suffers from its senseless story that's awkwardly plotted and lackluster in pacing. The plot never seems to go anywhere much and the movie never offers an explanation for what happens, or even a satisfying conclusion for it all. The cast is fairly mediocre in their performances.
Still I give the film some points for its haunting theme song and nice filming locations. The makeup work of the late Stan Winston is pretty good too, but it doesn't get much of a showcase here. A missed opportunity for sure.
Definitely one of the lesser man-creature flicks out there.
* 1/2 out of ****


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I dunno sometimes...you try and try and try to be charitable towards all the B thru Z grade movies out there, but once in a while a particular movie just tests your patience until you want to slap everyone involved. "Bat People" (which I saw under the title "It Lives By Night") is just such a movie. You can't watch this without thinking that it really should have been an episode on "Night Gallery", and not one of the better ones, either.
The movie has something to do with a doctor who gets bitten by a bat and consequently starts to morph into a Were-Bat who drinks human blood. (Actually, you'd think if he was turning into a real bat, he'd be eating mosquitoes by the gallon bucket, but because this is a cheap, lurid horror movie, blood's the word.) In spite of the fact that he has grand-mal seizures at the drop of a hat, and black-out episodes almost every night, his friend and fellow physician, Dr. Mustache Aspen-Extreme, insists that he's just having an 'allergic reaction' to the rabies shots. Meanwhile, the world's most obnoxious and stereotyped county sheriff suspects the doc of being responsible for the brutal murder and exsanguination of several local girls (and one wino). Also meanwhile, the doctor's wife decides that denial IS a river in Egypt and alternately patronizes him and nags him to distraction.
It's not so much that the acting is bad - you can tell that the actors are making professional level choices, and are trying to bring some juice and life to the script, even the guy who plays the sheriff. (Okay, it IS pretty bad, but it's bad in a clichéd, wooden, professional way). It's just that everything about the acting, the way the scenes are paced, the costumes, the dialog, the script and the story line in general sets your teeth on edge and makes you want to, well, slap everyone involved.
I think the movie had an outside chance at being a spooky, unsettling little cult favorite, BUT:
1)The director needed to beat Michael Pataki, an experienced character actor, with a chair until Pataki agreed to ACT, and not just channel Dennis Weaver.
2)He also needed to find a script that made a little more sense with regard to the whole "Bat Bites Human, Who Then Turns Into A Bat" scenario.
3) He also needed the actor who played the doctor to find a little more physically believable bit of stage business for his 'episodes', instead of resorting to "Man Has A Seizure" page from the Little Golden Book of Clichéd Acting Mannerisms.
4) He needed to rework the whole 'wife' character, make her both more intelligent, less shrill and waaaaay more observant.
I would never voluntarily watch this film again, except with the help of Mike and the Bots. It's bad, but it isn't bad in a silly, humorous or interesting way. Still better than "Battlefield Earth" or "Waterworld", though.


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