Next up in our Moviepalooza: The Devil Bat (1941), starring Bela Lugosi. Where to begin? I suppose at the beginning: Lugosi plays Dr. Carruthers, some kind of fragrance genius who invents a killer (ha!) fragrance for a company and then accepts $5000 for his part instead of a share in the company, which becomes very successful. Convinced that the generic company owners screwed him, he develops an aftershave that attracts the giant devil bats he’s grown by zapping regular bats with lost of electricity. And them in true evil mad scientist fashion, he starts offing the guys he thinks have wronged him, by getting them to try the aftershave and then loosing his devil bat on them. A reporter and his photog sidekick show up to report on and solve the murders. Routine stuff follows and eventually Carruthers is suspected of and held to the murders. It isn’t a very good movie, and although the bat effects are not as atrocious as, say, the spaceships in Plan 9 from Outer Space, this probably would not have scared any adult back then (and possibly not even many children). It’s a straightforward telling, without any real twists to speak of, and is suitable for killing (ha!) some time waiting for the real classics to show up on the screen as dusk begins to fall on this spooky night. On a scale of 5, I’d give this a 1.