Bats

Assuming, for argument's sake, that there was a demand for a mutant killer bat movie, you'd still have to have you-know-whats in the belfry to bring in this one. Starship Troopers veteran Dina Meyer stars as Dr. Casper, a most unconvincing bat expert (she's the best in her field, we're told) who, together with her likes-bats-from-a-distance assistant (single-named actor Leon, saddled with the comic relief), is summoned to Gallup, Texas to investigate a "biological emergency," which is just fancy talk for a plague of bats that are shredding the locals. Stock characters include the cigar-chomping sheriff (Lou Diamond Philips), a mad scientist who waits until the final reel to reveal his true colors (Bob Gunton), and the sinister military, who you knew would turn up to clean up after this--all together now--top secret government project gone awry. The PG-13 rating is for the ferocious bat attacks, but the cuts are so dizzyingly and disorientingly quick, they make The Blair Witch Project look like a Merchant-Ivory film. For sheer winged terror, stick with Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds instead. Not recommended. (K. Lee Benson)