Devil Bat, The

The Devil Bat is an American horror film directed by Jean Yarbrough and written by John T. Neville. Produced by the Producers Releasing Corporation, it premiered on November 11th, 1940, but was screend for a wider theatrical release on December 13th, 1940. The Devil Bat stars famed Dracula portrayer Bela Lugosi as Doctor Paul Carruthers, a former chemist for the Heath and Morton Cosmetics company who wants revenge against his former employers for firing him. As part of his elaborate plot to bring his plan to fruition, Doctor Carruthers uses enlarged, mutated vampire bats that are electrically conditioned to respond to a certain pheromone - a pheromone that Carruthers instills into his special after shave formula, which he then gives as gifts to his would-be victims. As board and family members begin to turn up dead, an eager reporter begins putting the pieces together and works hard to unravel the mystery of "the devil bat".

Notes & Trivia

 * The Devil Bat was one of many films that were later colorized and re-released on home video.


 * First horror film produced by Producers Releasing Corporation. Primarily, PRC produced and distributed westerns which were extremely popular at the time. The Devil Bat proved to be PRC's most successfull film release in the genre. A less successfull sequel, Devil Bat's Daughter, was produced and released in 1946.


 * A quasi-remake of The Devil Bat, called The Flying Serpent was released in 1946. It was directed by Sam Newfield and starred George Zucco in the Lugosi role.


 * Production on The Devil Bat began on October 28th, 1940.


 * First horror film directed by Jean Yarbrough. Yarbrough also directed King of the Zombies in 1941, House of Horrors in 1946, She-Wolf of London, also in 1946, and The Creeper in 1948. Jean also directed three episodes of The Addams Family'' in the 1960s.


 * The Devil Bat is Bela Lugosi's fifteenth horror film. He previously appeared in Black Friday by Universal Pictures. His next genre film is another Universal film, 1941's The Black Cat.


 * The Devil Bat, a low-budget b movie, was included in Tom Weaver's 1993 essay, "Poverty Row Horrors!" Weaver later conducted an interview with actress Suzanne Kaaren, which was included in the 2000 book Cult Movies. The term "poverty row" refers to a series of low-budget films released during the silent era up until the mid 1950s.


 * Following its theatrical release, The Devil Bat fell into public domain and since the advent of home video, has been released in countless truncated, poorly-edited video and DVD editions. In 1990, the film was restored from original 35 mm elements by Bob Furmanek and released on laserdisc by Lumivision. In 2008, Furmanek supplied his original elements to Legend Films, who performed a new restoration and also created a computer-colorized version. Both the restored black and white and colorized versions were subsequently released on DVD.