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Another sub-par sequel to a sub-par original. Can you guess the killer animal in this one?

Man, they’ll make a sequel to anything these days. I thought Slapshot 2 was pretty much the peak of this trend, but no, Hollywood keeps surprising me with newer and lower ways to milk a franchise. Wait...Bats, a low-budget horror film from 1999 that played in, like, two theaters is suddenly a franchise? Well, it is now.

You know the sad part? They made a sequel to a movie starring Lou Diamond Phillips and couldn’t get Lou Diamond Phillips to return. It’s Lou Diamond Phillips, for heaven’s sake; for a fiver, he’ll star in your vacation slides. No, where the original Bats dealt with genetically-mutated bats overrunning small-town America, Bats: Human Harvest ditches its predecessor completely, as this is a story about Delta Force, a military outfit sent into Russian territory to help find out not only what happened to the Russian squad that went in before them, but to secure a missing American scientist who is apparently selling his services to the local terrorists. But it’s not bombs the mad doc is building; no, it’s...you guessed it, genetically-mutated bats. So in the cardboard soldier characters go, only to be picked off one-by-one by computer-animated bats.

And if you read that thinking “wow, that sounds like a bad Sci-Fi Channel movie,” then you’re paying attention, because that’s exactly where this debuted. It’s not the best thing they ever showed, and while it’s not the worst, it’s just not very good in any way. The only original thing to be found here is that instead of the usual Iraqi/Iranian terrorists that have been showing up in these things lately (though they’re represented too), the main baddies are Chechen. Otherwise, typical bad effects, typical bad acting, plot that makes little sense...you know the drill.

Special features? This Sony DVD has a couple...literally. There are two deleted scenes on the disc, and they’re real winners. Well, okay, no they actually suck as well.

If you’re trying to find something to watch at three in the morning, then a re-run of Bats: Human Harvest may work out for you; just don’t actually rent or buy it, as that may give Hollywood the idea that we’re waiting for more sequels no one asked for. I shudder at the thought of Arachnaphobia 2: Still Phobic.

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