Released to TV in 2007, "Bats: Human Harvest" chronicles events after info is uncovered in an Alqueda camp in Iraq on the location of an important weapons specialist, American Dr. Walsh (Tomas Arana). It turns out the doctor has found an alternative funding source and sets up a new research facility deep in the mysterious Belzan forest in Chechnya, Russia, where he is developing weapons and selling them to Chechnyan rebels. A Delta team is sent on a covert mission to retrieve the doctor and his technology before the Russians find him and his lab. What the team soon discovers is that the doctor's latest weapon is a flock of large carnivorous bats that have been genetically altered to desire human flesh. The Delta team includes characters played by David Chokachi, Michael Jace and Melissa De Sousa with help by a Russian biyatch played by Pollyanna McIntosh.This is a sequel-in-name-only to 1999's "Bats," which was a conventional nature-runs-amok flick about government-funded mutated bats that escape and harass the citizens of a West Texas town. You have to give credit to "Bats: Human Harvest" for trying something different. Practically the entire movie takes place in or near the supposedly cursed Russian forest with the various militaristic groups fighting each other and the mutated bats. So there's a lot of action, albeit in a comic booky manner a la "Rambo: First Blood Part II." Speaking of the bats, they're more menacing here and there are some close-ups, but they're still a relatively weak "monster." Thankfully, the movie is well made for what it is, a made-for-TV creature feature, and there are plenty of stunning visuals in the forest, the bats, etc. And the soundtrack rocks. Unfortunately, the babe factor is almost zero. Don't get me wrong, De Sousa is an exotic curvy beauty, but she's clothed in military fatigues the entire flick. As for McIntosh, she's definitely an interesting character, but she lacks sex appeal (for me, anyway). Lastly, whereas there's a lot of action and cool visuals the story generally fails to pull the viewer into the events. That said, I DID care when a certain character buys the farm. The film runs 87 minutes and was shot in Sofia, Bulgaria.GRADE: C

Sent to investigate a colleague's disappearance, a team of soldiers along the Russian forest finds the area overrun by genetically-altered bats created as a biological weapon and try to get out alive.On the whole, this is much better than expected and is overall quite fun. One of the best elements about this one is that the films beginnings as an Action film work incredibly well in placing rather impressive action scenes in the film. the first ambush in the forest is one of these great scenes with a lot going on to take control of the bats as they're valiantly fighting the creatures swarming all over the area, making for an impressive sequence. Likewise, the take-over of the bunker and the later ambush in the woods help keep the action going with the fire-fights, explosions and creature attacks to work in a rather impressive amount of action. Aside from the fine action pieces, there's some rather good times here with the film making the most of the bats as the central villains as the swarm here is just big enough to do some real damage as this is gory enough to matter and the special effects used for them are actually very well done with the CGI swarms getting good definition by letting each creature be spotted and the close-ups for the individuals being kept to a minimum so that the focus remains on the group in action. There are a few flaws here, mainly in the rather flimsy story about the purpose behind the mission to get the scientist. It's all quite haphazard as it was done in just a few brief segments that don't make a lot of sense. Otherwise, the bat attacks comprise so few moments of screen time that it's bound to be somewhat disappointing with that factor keeping the creatures to a few select scenes, but this isn't enough of a flaw to really hold back the rather important factors here.Rated R: Graphic Violence and Language.

It's called "Bats: Human Harvest", I'm pretty sure I can end the review there. You know it's going to be good for some marginal entertainment, you know it's going to be bad in any other field you can think of. What's up with the special effects in this one? CGI always looks laughable in low-budget movies but Jesus, this is just insane. The acting is universally terrible, but the Scottish chick who tries and completely fails to do a Russian accent ought to receive special mention. The weirdest thing about that though: this movie was shot in the former Soviet state of Bulgaria! How hard is it to find someone with a genuine Russian accent there? The logics behind a B-movie production, I guess I'll never get it. The comic relief scenes look like they've been written by Germans or something, most awful lines ever. Check out the hilarious interplay between the first victims, move over Laurel and Hardy. When a bunch of corpses are found in the forest, one guy reacts: "Who did this? Stalin's ghost?". Even Ed Wood would throw that in his wastebasket. The movie's filled with action though, it's not a total bore. If you can get over the fact that it sucks, you might even have fun with it.

Okay, I can sit through almost any movie, and I tend to get a real kick out of Sci Fi Originals, but there was a major flaw in this movie that made me have to turn it off half an hour into it.Having served in the US Army, there are certain expectations in a movie including the military. At least some semblance of attention to proper military rank, uniform, and terminology is necessary if you expect a viewer to actually enjoy the experience. "Bats: Human Harvest" had characters wearing rank that was facing the wrong direction on the lapel and, later in the movie, the time was listed as 11:00 hours, but it was full dark outside. Even if the script was perfectly done, and the dialogue spectacular, and the acting Oscar-worthy, if the people making the movie don't care enough about the movie to even bother to look up the proper way to display military time, why should anybody bother to attempt to watch it?