Official Synopsis:
Time: Present Day. The Place: Russia. The mission: To track down and capture fanatical weapons specialist Dr. Walsh hiding in a research facility deep in the notorious Belzan forest of Chechnya. Specially trained and armed, an elite unit of soldiers is combing through the endless forest looking to bring their target to justice. But what they're about to find is an enemy they're not prepared to fight - genetically altered vampire bats programmed to feast on human flesh and blood - in this horrifying action thriller.
  
Our Take:
Bats: Human Harvest, or as the opening credits to the film show us, Bats = Human Harvest (this obviously isn’t the title of the movie just some sort of graphics glitch that I don’t know how it made it to final product) is supposedly a sequel to the 1999 movie Bats. I’m positive I saw that first movie way back when but I honestly don’t remember a single frame of it. As you can imagine, Bats 2 is just as forgettable as Bats 1.

There seems to be a trend in horror sequels at the moment, and that trend is the current Iraq war. Stir of Echoes 2 and The Hills Have Eyes 2 come to mind as recent films that have had themes tying heavily in to Iraq. Why these filmmakers feel it’s necessary to set these stories in or around Afghanistan is something I don’t get. Are they trying to play off of our fear of global war as well as our fear of bats? I’m really not sure. I am sure, however, that it’s gimmicky and they already need to move on from this trend.

Like I said before, I really can’t remember a single thing from the first Bats but I’m going to go ahead and say it was a better movie than Human Harvest. The problem with all these sequels focusing on the war is that we get less of what a horror movie is and more of just plain action. If you’re going to make a horror movie about giant malicious bats, do that. Don’t make a movie about a group of soldiers who have to tactically deal with these monsters. That’s not horror. That’s an action movie with the enemy being something of the fantastic.

The only special features included on the DVD are two Deleted Scenes, which run for one minute each.

Bats: Human Harvest isn’t an awfully shot movie, but it isn’t a horror movie, either. And as a viewer, I just have no interest in watching giant bats in anything but a horror movie.

Overall Picture:
Movie: D
DVD: C

- Landen Chase Pelish
Staff Writer