Amazing Animal People #7: The Bat People

On their honeymoon somewhere in the American southwest, Dr. John Beck (Stewart Moss) and his wife Cathy (Marianne McAndrew) decide to take a tour of some caverns before hitting the ski slopes. Cathy suggests that they ditch the tour group and find an out-of-the-way place for some impromptu lovemaking. As she looks for a good spot she promptly falls down a crevice. John scrambles down to rescue her, but climbing back out is a problem. Before help arrives, John is bitten on the forehead by a rogue bat.

Later, as they’re taking a gondola up to the ski run, John has an eye-rolling seizure. Cathy is worried, and even though the incubation period for rabies is a minimum of several weeks, she insists John get treated at once. At the hospital, John has an even more violent reaction to the rabies shot, and is kept at the hospital for overnight observation.

John is not only suffering from severe seizures, but he’s also having terrible nightmares of shrieking bats, and of stalking and attacking people in the dead of night. Sure enough, wherever he goes, he seems to leave a trail of bodies in his wake: first, a night nurse at the hospital whose throat is cut open, then an unfortunate girl living in a trailer park, and finally a homeless man living out in the desert.

Sleazy police sergeant Ward (Michael Pataki) is suspicious of Beck, having found his patient ID bracelet next to the nurse’s body, and begins shadowing the tortured doctor. But Ward seems as interested in hitting on Cathy as he is in solving the string of homicides.

Even as the evidence is stacking up against her husband, Cathy wants to believe that John is just having severe hallucinations as a result of the rabies treatment. Will her love be enough to prevent John from joining the ranks of The Bat People?

Funanimal fact: The Bat People was special effects wizard Stan Winston’s first makeup credit for a feature film (his very first credit was for the TV movie Gargoyles, 1972). He would later go on to do creature effects and makeup for such sci-fi classics as The Terminator (1984), Aliens (1986), Predator (1987), Jurassic Park (1993), Galaxy Quest (1999) and Iron Man (2008). Along the way, he won 4 Oscars in the categories of Best Visual Effects and Best Makeup. He is just the second special effects person to earn a star on the Hollywood Walk of Stars.

Winston is quoted as saying, “I don’t do special effects. I do characters. I do creatures.”

Stan Winston (1946 - 2008)

"Go back to sleep dear, it was only a bat dream."

Animal Crack-up (click on the text to see the punchline):

Don't miss these other Amazing Animal People:
Lota from Island of Lost Souls | Paula Dupree, Captive Wild Woman | The Mole People | Leonora the Cat Girl | The Alligator People | The Vulture

Amazing Animal People #6: The Vulture

On a dark and stormy night in a remote village in Cornwall, a woman decides to take a shortcut home through a church cemetery. To her horror, something claws its way out of a nearby grave and takes flight on huge wings. Later at the hospital, the woman, whose hair has turned completely white, describes the thing as having the body of a huge bird, grasping, human hands and a horrible human head.

The police discover that the coffin at the gravesite is empty. Local legend had it that the person buried there, Francis Real, had been accused of sorcery by the patriarch of the area’s most prominent family, the Strouds, and was buried alive along with a strange vulture-like pet and a chest of gold coins. Legend also had it that before dying, Real had vowed to rise again and kill off every remaining Stroud descendent.

American nuclear scientist Dr. Eric Lutens (Robert Hutton) and his wife Trudy (Diane Clare) are visiting Trudy’s uncle, Brian Stroud (Broderick Crawford) at his large estate. The police think graverobbers are to blame for the incident at the graveyard, but when Lutens hears the hospitalized woman’s story first hand, he’s not so sure.

The absence of footprints at the gravesite, and a strange feather found there, seem to confirm the woman’s story. Later, a mutilated sheep’s carcass is found high up on a cliff ledge, as if a huge bird of prey had carried it there. Lutens interviews a local scholar and antiquarian, Prof. Hans Koniglich (Akim Tamiroff), who confirms the details of the legend and agrees that there may be an extraordinary explanation for what’s happening.

Will Lutens solve the mystery of The Vulture before the curse claims the lives of the Strouds, including his beloved Trudy?

Funamimal Fact: American actor Robert Hutton was offered the lead in The Vulture while he was in London editing a film he had shot in Lisbon, Portugal. He recalled wanting very much to work with veteran Akim Tamiroff and Broderick Crawford, who was a longtime friend. But on the set, Crawford was not above messing with him:

“In the movie Brod[erick] had a cane with a wolf’s head on it, very highly polished. And I remember I had a long speech by a fireplace and he had to just sit there and listen to me go on and on. During rehearsal he played with that wolf’s head and twisted it around and made it reflect the light. Stealing the scene. And I thought, ‘Now, that’s not right, not while I’m talking -- I’ve got a long speech here!’ So just before we got to the actual take, I said, ‘Brod, are you going to play with that wolf’s head like you did in rehearsal?’ And he said [laughs], ‘No, I was just trying you out.’ He was a wonderful guy." [Interview in Science Fiction Stars and Horror Heroes, Tom Weaver, McFarland, 1991]

 

"So, how long have you been working here?"

Animal Crack-up (click on the text to see the punchline):

Don't miss these other Amazing Animal People:
Lota from Island of Lost Souls | Paula Dupree, Captive Wild Woman | The Mole People | Leonora the Cat Girl | The Alligator People