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Verdict: You'd have to be batty to go.

Details: Starring Lou Diamond Phillips. Directed by Louis Morneau. Rated R for intense sequences of bat attacks and brief profanity. 1 hour, 30 minutes.

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Review: "Bats" has nothing to do with baseball or Bela Lugosi. Too bad, because either would be a welcome distraction from this cheesy B-flick about genetically altered man-eating bats.

Yep, you read that right. Humanity's ongoing battle with man-eating bats once again rears its ugly head.

Typically, bats are harmless if somewhat unattractive little critters that feed on fruit and insects. However, the bats in "Bats" must be drawn to ham, because they make a beeline for tiny Gallup, Texas, where the local sheriff (Lou Diamond Phillips), a comely bat specialist (Dina Meyer), her wisecracking assistant (Leon) and a shady scientist (Bob Gunton) have gathered for two reasons: to deliver some of the most overripe acting seen onscreen this year and to engage in some they-aren't-really-going-to-try-that pest control.

The filmmakers and marketeers would like you to think of this as a 1990s answer to Alfred Hitchcock's "The Birds." If you buy that, you've got bats in your you-know-where. "Bats" could, however, be construed as a cautionary tale on the vagaries of an acting career. Take Phillips. One minute he's the toast of Broadway in "The King and I"; the next, he's up to his neck in bat guano.

— Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Cox News Service

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