The Bat

A decent enough little thriller, though it lacks the atmosphere of the original Roland West silent classic. Price and Moorehead are fun, and it moves at a quick enough pace that it doesn't outstay its welcome. Worth a look.

There's like 4 red herrings to keep you entertained. A nice proto-slasher. Agnes Moorehead and Lenita Lane are hilarious together.

A rudimentary whodunit about a bat murderer (or should that be murdering bat?) that is better than it should be purely because of the double-barrel presence of Vincent Price and Agnes Moorehead.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Btyx4zkgHpg [480p] [CC: eng]

The story is kind of a Scooby-doo episode. Where if you're paying attention at all you can get who is the killer pretty quickly. There's a lot of potential here, but it's mostly squandered. I think it could've helped if there was a more competent director at the helm. A bright spot in the film is Agnes Moorehead. One of the strongest, (dryly) funniest female characters in 50s horror.

There's not much 50s horror cheese to speak of here, save for the villain (those claws just seem really impractical) and some action sequences, and what is here is overwhelmed by the refreshing female protagonist (the dryly witty Cornelia), engaging dual-mystery (even if its big reveal went unexplained), and consistently solid dialogue and acting (Doc and Mr. Fleming plotting murder is an early highlight, Cornelia's summation an ending one: "You can hide money, but you can't hide murder").

This is a solid adaptation of "The Bat" play/novel. The acting is solid to good. There are some parts that made me chuckle. Vincent Price makes a good use of his screen-time. If you enjoy "old dark house" films, and/or "Whodunnits", then I recommend watching this movie.

Kinda flat and boring.