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Following the events of The
Devil Bat, the daughter of deceased Dr Carruthers of the first
movie (he was then played by Bela Lugosi, but doesn't feature in this
one, the daughter is here played by Rosemary La Planche, Miss America
1941, who also stars in director Wisbar's Strangler in the Swamp
of the same year, also produced by PRC) returns to her father's home,
only to learn he's been dead for some years, billed as the Devil Bat
& even rumored to have been a blooddrinker. This is enough to
retrigger a childhood trauma concerning vampirism in La Planche which
puts her in care of village-psychiatrist Eddie Kane, but - this being a
horror movie - the good doctor is not as good as he ought to be &
instead of healing her he gives her the notion to be a blooddrinker
herself.
But why would he do that ?!, you may ask. To have a cut-out culprit
once he has murdered his wife of course, & everything seems to work
quite fine, La Planche is even willing to take the blame, wouldn't there
be the doctor's hated stepson John James, who has fallen in love with La
Planche ... (you can figure out the rest I think).
This film was often dismissed all too easily for not being an
accurate sequel to the first Devil Bat
(often of course by the same people who quite willingly dismissed the
first Devil Bat as well),
because in a subplot Dr. Carruthers (Bela) is actually rehabilitated,
making him an innocent victim of his own creation rather than a ruthless
murderer.
In fact, this is completely besides the point when reviewing this
movie, that plays more like a moody murder mystery than the monster
movie its predecessor was. Seemingly to emphasize this, the Devil Bat
(the actual prop, that is) doesn't even feature prominently apart from
some dream sequences, & then it is only in distorted images that may
very well have been lifted from the first movie, thus removing this one
even further from the original, rather reminding one of
Jacques Tourneur's Cat People. & while The Devil Bat's
Daughter might not actually play in the very same league as that
movie (given restrictions posed by story, budget & production
methods), it is still an enjoyable, intelligent & atmospheric
psychological thriller with horror elements way above PRC's usual output
(not that there would be necessarily be anything wrong with that at
all).
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