Just a little under 7,000 folk reside in the small Texas town of Gallup. Kept in line by the ever-diligent Sheriff Emmett Kimsey, not a lot happens in this sleepy little town. Well, aside from a little cow tipping and some sheep shagging, nah I made that last bit up. Gallup is a real stand up place and the local folk are top notch as well, which is a real shame cause they are all about to have their asses ate by a bunch of killer bats!

Every once in awhile one of these low grade suckers are half way decent and fairly original, this one, however is not an example of that.

See if this sounds familiar in any fashion; Evil scientist genetically tampers with animal, makes them bigger, smarter and of course more aggressive, said animal then escapes and begins to either grow or multiply which of course leads to the threatening of nearby human life in small rural town. All too soon it's up to the wholesome town hero/local boy and the good scientist and comedic sidekick to save everybody before it's too late. Sound Familiar?

Bats is nothing different, same old standard formula from start to finish. Lou Diamond Phillips stars as the heroic sheriff and Dina Myer is the altruistic scientist. Myer's performance is OK, but Phillip's really sucks the big one. Not so much his acting as the horrible accent he uses and even worse dialog, lot's of "ma’ams" and cowboy hat tips in this one, now that I mentioned that I think everyone but Dina wore a hat in this one.

The bats themselves go from really bad CGI to fairly bad puppets. In fact I think they are the ghoulie puppets from Ghoulies with added on wings and a new coat of paint. Most of the time the effects are passable, but that’s it. There is only about a pint of blood to be seen and the gore is pretty much all after-attack effects.

Bats is nothing special, but it's not extremely horrible either. If you’re in the mood for a standard mutated animal flick, you'll be happy.

4/10