Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Instant Favorite.

Blending excellent reporting and strong storytelling, this is a disturbing film truly stranger than fiction

Yes, absolutely, there is fun to be had, as well as many, many things to go boom, all amid an atmospheric urban jungle.

A small town is suffering a rash of deaths that appear to be the work of a vampire ... wounds on the neck, blood drained, etc. Local cop Melvyn Douglas is skeptical, but the townsfolk are convinced and eccentric, bat-loving weirdo Dwight Frye is blamed. How is seemingly benevolent doctor Lionel Atwill connected. An enjoyable, brief little programmer with an impressive cast (Fay Wray is also here as a love interest for Douglas).

This is another pairing of Lionel Atwill and Fay Wray - albeit in a more modest film. "The Vampire Bat" offers some effective moments along with Dwight Frye being his usual kooky self!The film resembles that of a "Universal" horror film but to the best of my knowledge, it wasn't actually filmed at that studio.Worth watching.

The early 30s were of course the great days of the CLASSIC horror movie - the horror wave (although its beginnings lay back in the silent days, with first and foremost performer Lon Chaney) started in 1931 with "Dracula" and "Frankenstein", both made by Universal Pictures, which took their vampires and monsters seriously, and exploited about every old Eastern European or other superstition, until even the audiences of the time almost started believing in vampires and werewolves...The other 'school' was initiated by Warner Brothers, in 1932 with "Dr. X" and the following year "The Mystery of the Wax Museum" - and with both films starring Fay Wray and Lionel Atwill. You could call it the 'scientific school', because in those cases there is a real-life explanation for the murders - nothing supernatural about it. And since those two great masterpieces were enormously successful (and expensive: they were the two first Technicolor talkies, the first in 2-color and the second in 3-color; that shows how much the producers believed in their new 'science horror' concept), Wray and Atwill were teamed again, this time by Majestic Pictures - and with a much smaller budget, and in black-and-white, of course.But "The Vampire Bat" develops the concept further: this time, a police inspector is looking for a REAL murderer while all the superstitious villagers believe in vampires; so, from the beginning, the movie mixes crime and horror (a concept that MGM would 'take over' a year later in "Mark of the Vampire", in quite a similar, though not very scientific way) - and, parallel to the good old creepy houses and dark caves which every fan of classic horror movies loves, we've also got a real, neat 'whodunit'. A two-in-one movie, you could almost say - and although we may ask ourselves after a while why the young inspector (Melvyn Douglas' turn to become Fay Wray's rescuer; he'd also had his experiences in the genre in "The Old Dark House") doesn't suspect the sinister scientist for a moment, while all the village is hunting after poor, mentally retarded Herman (another MARVELOUS madman portrayal by Dwight Frye), we're just contented when finally the big light goes on in his head, and he saves his girl from the hands of her mad employer...This movie really makes you go back in time and feel like a cinema-goer in 1933 - a piece of film nostalgia which has got just about everything: romance, horror, crime, and its share of humor; what else could you want for a GREAT late-night entertainment?

"The Vampire Bat" is one of those underrated horror films of the early 1930's that seems to impress more with each viewing. I won't go into the details of the plot, as that has been covered multiple times in other reviews, and it's not the story that makes the film shine.There are three things that make "The Vampire Bat" stand out from the other poverty row films - the cast, the direction, and the comedy.The Cast - Lionel Atwill, Melvyn Douglas, and Fay Wray get the heavy lifting in the film, and all are excellent. Atwill is perfect for this type of part, as he demonstrated many times. Douglas is sufficiently perplexed as the investigator, and Fay Wray is just gorgeous in distress. The other players add sufficiently, especially Dwight Frye channeling a dimmer version of Renfield from Dracula.The Direction - Frank Strayer does an admirable job in shooting the film, with creepiness abundant and lots of camera movement. Some shots are just so outstanding (such as the opening scene), that they almost seem out of place in a cheap horror movie. Strayer provides loads of atmosphere and never loses the audience. An excellent job.The Comedy - As with most horror films of this time, comedy relief was thrown in to lighten the mood of the audience, and in most films, the comedy was misplaced and terribly unfunny. However, in "The Vampire Bat" the comedy, mostly provided by Maude Eburne as Aunt Gussie, is spot on and still funny today. This helps to keep the film watchable.The Downsides - There is really only a couple of downsides to the film. The first is the editing, which is clumsy and hurried. It sometimes spoils the excellent direction. Cuts are often not matched, and this can distract. Obviously, this was not a big budget film, so the sets and overall production values are not high, but this is mostly glossed over by the efficiency and care shown by the director, but there are a few scenes where the seams showed too much, like the cave scene, parts of which look like it was filmed in a closet.Overall, "The Vampire Bat" is certainly worth a look for the great direction, a mad Lionel Atwill, and the always lovely Fay Wray.