Bats Human Harvest - a Movie Review

Bats Human Harvest is a 2006 Sci-Fi Channel original starring David Chokachi and Michael Jace. David stars as Russo, a highly trained military soldier who prefers to work alone. Michael stars as Martinez, the typical wise cracking soldier who rubs Russo the wrong way. Russo and Martinez are part of an elite unit of soldiers sent to Chechnya to retrieve a scientist who is working on some unknown biological weapon. They are accompanied by an American-Russian female civilian Katya who is an expert on tracking the renegade scientist. Warning: there are spoilers in my review.

The soldiers quickly discover the biological weapon is man eating bats as they are picked off one by one. Not only do the soldiers have to worry about vampire bats but they also have to avoid land mines and enemy soldiers. What makes this movie different from normal creature features is that the bats seem to take a back burner and the main focus is on the quest to find the scientist. It actually seemed more of a war movie to me then a killer bat movie. Either way, the movie was quite good for a Sci-Fi channel movie.

I am a big fan of killer mutated animal movie so of course I liked this movie. David Chokachi and Michael Jace were pretty good actors in the movie, much better then typical B movie actors. Plus they are both easy on the eyes. The movie had a storyline that was somewhat complicated. The scenes with the rebel soldiers conferring among themselves seemed to be filler but it still worked with the movie. I kind of wish there would have been more bats and less soldier bonding scenes, especially when I new they were going to all die anyway so what is the point of getting to know them. As with most all creature features, most everyone dies except for the cute guys and a girl. Typical plot idea but still good, especially since the female character in this one isn't a blond ditz.

My only compliant is I wish the storyline would have explained how the bats became killer bats but I guess that idea got lost in the shuffle. Either way the special effects for the killer bats were great. The bats were very realistic and I usually couldn't tell which were real and which were fake. Hmmm, did they use real bats in the filming of this movie? Maybe, maybe not.

Wait I thought of something else. I thought the soldiers were sent in to retrieve the scientist and all Intel but they end up killing him and destroying all paperwork. As the scientist is pleading for his life, Russo makes a comment that they were sent to destroy the Intel, which I must have missed that order because I thought it was a retrieval mission. Instead it ends up just being a revenge mission; which is fine, just a little inconsistent with the orders from the beginning of the movie. I was glad to see the scientist die. He was annoying and never really explained why he hated America.

I give the movie 7 out of 10 and I would recommend it to any Sci-Fi Channel fan.