Our Take

The Devil Bat (1940) - Bela Lugosi stars as a mad scientist who trains giant, mutated bats to kill anyone wearing a specific brand of experimental shaving lotion. If that doesn't sell you, nothing will. It’s a glorious slice of Poverty Row horror where Lugosi’s theatrical menace carries the entire goddamn show on its back. The special effects are endearingly clunky, but the premise is so wonderfully unhinged it loops back around to genius. It’s a campy, bat-winged riot that proves Lugosi could make even a rubber puppet look like a herald of the apocalypse.