The Vampire Bat (1933)

 “You give me apple. Herman give you nice soft bat."

These '30s horror films, by no means all of them Universal, are certainly something to be enjoyed. Not all  of them, alas, can be directed by James Whale. Yet this one is, as the amusingly hypochondriac maid in the film keeps saying, rubbish.

On paper it should at least be fun, if not necessarily good. Fay Wray is the leading lady, albeit in an underwritten role. Yet Dwight Frye, such a cult favourite that Alice Cooper wrote a rather good ballad about him, gets a nice and juicy part which shows how stereoyped he has become as the Renfield figure, but he's bloody good at it. He's the best thing in the film.

And yet... Lionel Attwill and Melvyn Douglas give passable performances, but the burgomeister is shocking. And, while there is some good visual stuff, the film is sloooow and dull, with appallingly functional dialogue. I suppose it's a plus to focus on vampire bats from South Ameirca somehw biting people here in central Europe and turning them into vampire-like people, but the resolution at the end is silly.

And so is the film as a whole, worth seeing only for the sake of the lovely Fay Wray and the splendid Dwight Frye. Not all of these '30s horror films, alas, are any good.