Xena takes on Vampire Bats
Marilyn Moss

LOS ANGELES—“Vampire Bats” doesn’t exactly have the makings of classic horror (or even Halloween) fare, but it’s decent enough for a spell or two. The new CBS teleflick gives Lucy Lawless and Dylan Neal the chance to reprise their roles from the television movie “Locusts” as a husband-and-wife team of scientists who get embroiled in weird goings-on in the animal and insect worlds. This time around they’re involved, appropriately enough, with maniacal bats who start attacking the community in which they live. What could be more Halloweenish? It’s all good enough for one evening but few will be talking about it next morning.
Lawless is Dr. Maddy Rierdon, a college professor (and anyone who mistakes her for one hasn’t been to college lately) who along with her husband, Dan Dryer (also a professor), has recently moved to a quiet Louisiana town just in time for a bizarre murder. One of her students is found dead — and bloodless, at that — with strange markings all over his body. Maddy gets cooking to find killers. Could they be vampire bats?
The movie has the right stuff to make it seem season: There are flying creatures, a cemetery, drunken students carrying on at a party. It’s all here. So, too, are the effects: circular, even off-kilter camera angles (as if we were being watched, or as if some flying apparatus were about to swoop down).