It's Andy Fish!

There are movies and then there are horrible movies. I find 95% of modern movies so ridiculously boring (and LOOOONG) that I have little patience for them. Back in the old days a bad movie could often be SO BAD that it’s entertaining- and highest among them is THE DEVIL BAT (1940) starring a soon to be very down on his luck Bela Lugosi whose career decisions plummeted him from super stardom in the 30s where he appeared with films alongside Greta Garbo to near obscurity in the sub basement of budget film studios like PRC.

Bela Lugosi is a chemist who works out of his castle like laboratory working diligently and secretly on a top secret shaving lotion. Yes, you did not hit your head, shaving lotion. It’s his amazing lucrative shaving lotion formula’s have made his employer’s rich. Taken them from a struggling startup to a million dollar corporation, and they are quick to remind him he’d be wealthy beyond his imagination if he’d opted for stock instead of a quick $10,000 (probably about $100k in today’s dollars) for his formula. These evil company is so bad that our opening scene is them celebrating Lugosi and presenting him with a $5,000 bonus check (again, not bad money in 1940).

Lugosi’s plan for revenge is to create a new formula, of which every character in the story remarks at how strong and unpleasant the smell is, which once used attracts a gigantic trained bat he has obtained which will then swoop down and attack them wherever the after shave has been placed, causing a string of corpses all of which cast members also note, smell of Lugosi’s after shave.

My favorite aspect of the film, besides Lugosi who is always entertaining, is his laboratory where he creates his formulas- it’s in a cheap castle like setting but its filled with electrical devices which seem better suited to revving up a Frankenstein’s Monster than making after shave.

Lugosi’s ominous “Goodbye” which he intones to each new victim is also laugh out loud funny.

This is a short movie, under an hour, but it feels a lot longer. Well worth watching if you’re a fan of bad movies, this one competently directed by veteran Jean Yarbrough.