So, when I first mentioned that Vampire Bats was going to be appearing on CBS, I thought that Lucy Lawless had been typecast into roles as women who are trying to stop flying creatures from destroying the earth. When I looked to see that CBS has finally put up some promotional material for the special, I learn that it's even worse. Vampire Bats is actually a sequel, of sorts, to Locusts, which madeyoulaugh and I recapped earlier this year. She's left the horrible world of the USDA where she was just moments away from right after she discovered that they wanted her to head up a task force that was to prepare for the country in case millions of frogs fell out of the sky after listening to Frank Mackey or the crab people decide to invade. Our heroine, Maddy Rierdon lest you should forget, has moved with her husband and two daughters to Louisiana to become a teacher. But she can never escape the horror that is about to envelope her. Are you scared yet? Are you at least laughing or drunk? OK! Let's get started!
9:00
The announcer, uh, announces that "It's feeding time!" if that doesn't get you excited enough to miss a rerun of Desperate Housewives, I don't know what will.
9:01
Beautiful Tate University. Lush campus, coeds in bikinis playing slip and slide on frat row. OK Les, you win. AGAIN.
9:02
A girl and two of her guy friends walk past the Greek houses. They don't drink and are modest about their bodies. I wonder if they will somehow save the day while the hedonous fraternity and sorority types succumb to the deadly bats.
9:03
After cutting across the cemetery, the kids are invited to an underground rave, by a guy...passing out flyers to an underground rave. Doesn't that sort of defeat the purpose of making it underground?
9:04
"The party is in the middle of nowhere, that's what makes it underground," explains Low Rent Freddie Prinze Jr. He, his sidekick, and the girl the guy inviting them to the party wanted to have sex with make it to an old house and buy cups for "Planter's Punch", which we just saw was spiked moments earlier.
9:05
Freddie comes on to Eden, and even though the drugs are working, she isn't dumb enough to sleep with him in the middle of the bayou. In the background, sidekick boy spins around like an autistic kid in a planetarium
Sidekick is lost and alone, and his vintage East German military fatigues aren't helping him. This movie is either anti-drugs or pro-buddy system, I can't decide which.
9:07
Uh, oh, some electronica is playing. It's feeding time!
9:08
Dr. Xena, who is now Dr. Momma Xena has two kids, a minivan, and is too cheap for air conditioning. Xena Nipple Count: 0.
9:08:30
The help is in Guatemala? Filming Survivor? No, sick aunt. What is Dr. Momma Xena going to do with the kids?
9:09
Dr. Momma Xena's sister in-law is Brett Butler. Could she be here for...comic relief? This movie has everything!
Blonde girl in pink top asks Mr. Dr. Xena if he is seeing anybody. When he says he is married, she replies "How unfortunate." Clearly not as unfortunate as the untimely death your minor speaking role just foreshadowed.
9:12
Dr. Xena takes attendance. Jason Ortiz is missing. but he didn't miss a class last semester. Oh that's right, last semester he avoided the underground raves that took place near vampire bat breeding grounds.
9:13
We meet local law enforcement that is inspecting the case of dead deer in a wildlife preserve. If I didn't know better, I would say that it was locusts.
9:15
Brett Butler hates a dirty house. By the way, if the house is so dirty, what does the maid do all day? The kids are too young to request quesadillas.
9:16
Law enforcement guy burns the carcasses of a dead deer. Is he trying to cover something up? I wonder if he'll confess to the whole thing only after he is dying because of a bat attack.
Craig Ferguson as a drunken Irish fisherman. Dual forces of comic relief. What will Les thing of next?
9:17
They find Jason Ortiz (the sidekick) dead and beaten up, but there is almost no blood. hmmmm.
9:18
OK, Craig Ferguson is dead. Brett, it's all up to you now.
9:22
Back in class, Eden explains to the rest of her classmates what a hypoxic zone is. The size of her brain is only matched by the size of her breasts.
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Comments (5)
Happy Halloween, 'Gasmers!
Timothy Bottoms as May-I-er Poke-her -- anal sex message count: 1
Brett Butler refusing to go anywhere (including being kidnapped by the incompetent mayor)in a car that doesn't have carseats -- pro-car-seat message count: 2
Having an ineffectual man in charge who looks a lot like a certain chief politician (and has a lot of the same mannerisms) and who a) recommends that the public be kept in the dark about the problem, and b) recommends that the only solution is to immediately go to war against the vampire bats and 'kill every last one of them' -- the parallels are so eerie. Our-current-situation message count: one long horror show (with quite a few plot holes)
ha!
P.S. Did a lot of us vote for the guy so that we could feel better about ourselves (more intelligent, etc)? If so, as Dr. Phil would say, "How's that workin' for ya (us)?" And what does that really say about us? Scary, indeed. Again, Happy Halloween! :)
1 of 5 | Posted by ha! | Posted on October 31, 2005 7:18 AM
Just looking at the pic, isn't the mayor guy the one who plays/played Dubya on the bad sitcom or the bad skits on Leno? That's basically what he does for a living, isn't it?
Also, wasn't one-minute-comic-relief Ferguson playing a drunken *Scottish* fisherman? The accents aren't at all the same. (he's been showing his whole "performance" on his show for weeks, it's the only part of this batshit [heh] thing I've seen)
2 of 5 | Posted by lurkertype | Posted on October 31, 2005 4:50 PM
Jesus, I bailed out of this dreck at the one hour mark... Maybe you did, too: That last hour sounds impossibly fucking awful. I'm baffled that the random drunk sorority girl wasn't actually killed by the voyeuristic bat. Perhaps she and the bat had sex?
3 of 5 | Posted by shank | Posted on October 31, 2005 9:04 PM
I moved into a new apartment this weekend, and I don't have cable yet, so the only stations I get are public access and CBS. Therefore I was forced to watch this movie instead of the latest and (I hear) absolutely fantastic episode of Grey's Anatomy. I slept through the last half hour, but I obviously figured out what was going to happen halfway through act 1. And now I'm going to carry a broom with me whenever I head down to the bayou.
"Blonde girl in pink top asks Mr. Dr. Xena if he is seeing anybody. When he says he is married, she replies 'How unfortunate.' Clearly not as unfortunate as the untimely death your minor speaking role just foreshadowed."
Good call -- my boyfriend and I were yelling the same thing at the TV screen when she said that.
Oh, and points to you if you recognized Mr. Dr. Xena as Pacey's brother from Dawson's Creek!
4 of 5 | Posted by Lisa | Posted on November 1, 2005 10:06 AM
Great recap. In fact it was so great I don't see how actually watching the movie could be any better. So I won't. Thanks for doing it for me :)
5 of 5 | Posted by Genevieve | Posted on November 2, 2005 12:30 PM