Floaty Birb

Because Vincent Price is a bat scientist, Cornelia calls her to look at the bat that bit Lizzy. After he leaves his lab, the cop sneaks in and finds a Large Toy Bat grinning at him through the window (it is possibly supposed to a giant live bat). #monsterdon

This movie has decided to add a B-plot that so far makes as little sense as its A-plot. We cut to the really tall cop spying on Vincent Price's day job, which is doing bat experiments. Really hoping no bats were harmed in the making of this bat movie. #monsterdon

This movie starts with one of those horny jazzy swingy type soundtracks. We then we get an opening narration by Miss Cornelia, a woman with a hat who lives in a big model house. We meet her and her maid in her drawing room, where the maid, whose name is "Lizzy" and who wears a different hat. Lizzy tells Miss Cornelia and the audience that this town is full of murders and bats. #monsterdon

Extra plot details are dropped on the audience like chunks of dead fish floating down to the seabed. We meet Vincent Price, who is in flannel this movie to remind the audience that he was bi. His friend is a doctor who also wears flannel and together they plot murder robberies. Their current murder robbery plan is to kill a woodland hermit and put him in a coffin and hide money in it also and then somehow profit. I may be missing some of the steps. #monsterdon

Cornelia, two Girl Guestss and Bat Scientist Vincent Price have a dinner party later to discuss the robbery bank mystery. Cornelia suspects that it could be hidden somewhere in the house itself. They call the banker who is smoking indoors with the tall cop and tell them this. Later, I think the banker is snooping around their house looking for treasure, where he discovers a secret closet with blueprints in it. Then the Man-Bat sneaks up on him and karate chops him. #monsterdon

Afterward, Miss Corny tells the audience that "You can't hide murder!" and then the movie ends. #monsterdon

We cut to the bat scientist lab, where the bat is snooping around and writing "here lies the bat threatened with exposure he killed himself." But then the bat scientist shows up with the a gun and is like "aha you are here to kill and frame me but i will kill you first!" and then they have a fist fight and the bat wins and kills the bat scientist and leaves. #monsterdon

The cops call Cornelia on their bedroom phone to let her know they searched the place and didn't find anybody (most likely they just didn't want to be bothered and so just did a cursory inspection). Cornelia helpfully tells them that the bat is in their house, but he hears them and run away. Then later Cornelia and Lizzy go to sleep and the bat comes back and releases an actual bat into their bedroom, for some reason. The bat bites lizzy, possibly turning her into a werebat. #monsterdon

Cornelia and her house guests are hanging out talking about their true crime podcasts, then later snoop around the house and find the secret closet, in which the dead banker guy is stuffed. They summon the cops, so that the tall cop can glare at his body. #monsterdon

The flannel gang considers double crossing each other, then they are ambushed by a forest fire. Then the double cross resumes as flannel vincent price shoots the flannel doctor so he can his use the later's body in the murder coffin plot instead of the nice woodland hermit they were going to murder instead. #monsterdon

In the next Cornelia, who lacks her hat, is chatting, I think with Lizzy again, about how the bank vice president was arrested for embezzlement (probably somehow the fall guy for the flannel gang's coffin robbery murder plot) and we also learn how Lizzy is allergic to ghosts and also there are weird claw murders happening somewhere. #monsterdon

Oh crap this is one of those #monsterdon movies with a really complicated interpersonal plot that I'm going to completely miss the details of, isn't it?

Cornelia's staff drives her to the bank, where she chats with the banker and his wife to give the audience more expedition. They are going to vacation somewhere that the bank president used to live at, presumably this is the town with the murders and the bats. We also meet an extremely tall bald cop who is also on the bank's board of directors, showing the audience how the police are aligned with the forces of property and capital. #monsterdon

The Bat (1959) allows the modern day audience to imagine, "What if our grandmas were both rich AND menaced by a man bat in their youth?" #monsterdon

Anyway, the Bat Scientist shows up and confirms the bat is adorable and healthy. As he is leaving to check if the bat is rabies-free, the tall cop ambushes him and notes the glass hole that the human bat got in; the cop seems to suspect the bat scientist is the human bat. #monsterdon

Guys I hate to tell you this but I think everyone sitting in their room pointing a gun at the door is a stupid plan. Everyone should sit in the same room and glare at each other. That might also be a dumb plan but it is a less dumb plan. #monsterdon

Yo evil crime doctor and evil crime waifu, have you considered all the ways this plan could go wrong? like what if Nora doesn't want to shoot anyone or has bad aim or doesn't find the millionaire or decides to run from the house in terror or.... oh wait, nevermind it went according to plan. she shot the millionaire in the cellar. the insane rube goldberg plan worked, somehow. Hmmm. #monsterdon

After Nora shoots the millionaire and conveniently screams and flees in terror, the doctor dunks the millionaire's body into the Chekhov's Acid Pit. Then the waifu stops playing dead and wanders into the cellar to see where the doctor is. All the doors close behind her of their own accord... #monsterdon

Anyway we all go to our separate rooms and lock ourselves in. A random ceiling bleeds on the older lady again. The pilot goes to the same room as Nora and says the he's going to the police. He ignores her when she suggests maybe the millionaire wasn't the one to ambush her. He also ignores her when she wants to go with him, saying that she's "safer here", which sounds wrong. Then he wanders into a door that closes behind him and we hear some knocking and/or hammering. #monsterdon

The doctor hears the organ music and/or screaming and knocks on the millionaire's door, explaining that he's organizing a search party to find whoever has left the room in hopes that they can save someone from dying. Both agree to his plan and wander around with guns being suspicious of each other. #monsterdon

The doctor (I think) wanders into the room with the dead wife and we learn they faked her death. They have an illicit love affair involving a rube goldberg plan in which they will frighten Nora with fake supernatural nonsense in order to kill the millionaire husband so they can inherit millions of dollars and also kiss. #monsterdon

In the hallway, Nora sees the dead waifu hanging again. Then a spooky looking hand tries grabbing her from behind and she runs into the parlour, where an organ keyboard plays by itself, so she screams at that also and runs away. #monsterdon

In the next 14 scenes, the Corny Harem and a random guy panic while looking for Miss Corny. They eventually see a light on the third floor which is one of the rooms next to where Miss Corny got trapped. She knocks on the wall and lets them know she's there then passes out, I guess due to a lack of air. Then they open the door and rescue her by hitting secret panels at random. Then the bat shows up outside, sees the light that is on and realizes where everyone is at... #monsterdon

Other #monsterdon people inform me that this movie was adapted for a play, which makes sense with the exposition dumps and fairly static shots. But seems unusual how directly they adapted this movie from a play. Like, they could have skipped some of the exposition and maybe shown a flashback of the robbery instead? Maybe that was too hard?

Having killed his would be killers, the millionaire monologues over the acid pit, explaining that he saw through their rube goldberg murder plot. The other guests run into the cellar and he tells them that he loaded Nora's gun with blanks and also they both tripped and fell into the acid pit. The knife fondler adds that now there are more ghosts in the house and they're coming from him now and the movie is like "okay bro" and ends. #monsterdon

@crowbriarhexe@tech.lgbt Was Devil Girl From Mars a play though? I thought it was a case of "hmmm we have some leftover film let's make a scifi movie in this british inn?" #monsterdon

The random guy finds a secret control panel to open the trap doors and discovers that it also opens another secret passage in the fireplace. Outside, the manbat has set the garage on fire. But miss Corny realizes this is a distraction and so turns off the light to set a trap for the manbat. #monsterdon

I award House on Haunted Hill 5 out of 5 spooky acid skeletons. It was sufficiently spooky and I liked it. The best character is a tie between the creepy millionaire and the femme fatale waifu for their skill at misdirection and also monologues of evil. An honorable mention goes to the knife fondler for just saying "ghosts oh no ghosts! ghosts everyone!" while fondling his knife. Also shout out to the servants for leaving 5 minutes before their shift was up. #monsterdon

You see the bat scientist has bloody ears, which is a suspicious. He also happened to just show up at the murder house just as a bat murder happened. Of course, the tall cop and the other guy were also there when the bat murder happened. So really everyone could be a manbat murderer, as long as they have a hat. I'm still guessing it's the guy who was shot in the beginning, because that seems like the easiest dumb twist to do. #monsterdon

The power goes out. Nora is staring at the window during a thunderstorm and then a rope flies through the window and loops around her feet. She sees the dead waifu staring back at her through the window, evidentially commanding the ropes. Nora tells her "no" and then she leaves. Then Nora leaves the room so she can find more things to scream at. #monsterdon

I will now refer to all the non-Cornelia girls in this film as the Corny Harem. #monsterdon

The boys are very bad at finding the manbat though, so he sneaks in, cuts the phone lines and then starts snooping around the house, seemingly looking for secret compartments. Eventually the corny harem cancels their pajama party to instead snoop around the house in teams of two looking for the manbat. #monsterdon

My guess for this movie's Secret Twist is that the Bat Scientist's partner in the flannel gang is not actually dead but has become the Man Bat and is doing crimes this whole time. #monsterdon

"I'm gonna dress up in a mask and murder people with my claw gloves as I search for secret treasure! People will think I'm like a bat for some reason!"

• the villain in this movie, probably.

#monsterdon

yo what's the deal with the severed head? is it a real severed head? if so, whose head is it? #monsterdon

according to the newspaper gossip columns, the bat has no face and no fingerprints, which seems weird to me because bats definitely have faces. Anyway, we putter around in our mansion during a thunderstorm and eventually a weird monster claw slips in through the window and waves its fingers, causing the women to scream and shut the door. #monsterdon

Having located a secret compartment, the Manbat uses a hammer on it, which alerts a Corny Harem search party. He ambushes one girl (Julie) and seemingly kills her, then runs off. This makes Miss Corny and the Corny Harem sad. RIP Julie. Then the tall cop shows up too late and Miss Corny yells at him for not being there during the murder. The cop tells her he saw a guy in the trees but couldn't catch him. #monsterdon

Later Miss Corny does her own investigation and snoops around the house, discovering the hole in the wall that the manbat was hammering, so she wanders around looking for a secret compartment. #monsterdon

The tall cop berates the ladies for ignoring the gendered division of labor and abandoning their pajama party, which has resulted in a Tragic Death. He then berates another guy (a banker?) who was also there searching for the manbat, who says he was knocked out by the manbat, and the tall cop think he's the manbat. Then the bat scientist shows up so everyone can stare at him suspiciously. He says he had a car accident and he came here to call for help. #monsterdon

If Vincent Price was a furry, his fursona would be a bat. #monsterdon

The waifu decides to stare at the acid pit, from which a skeleton rises and chases her. She tries to escape and it chases her, talking in the millionaire's voice and beckoning her into the acid pit. While screaming at it she walks backwards toward the pit until the skeleton pushes her in. Then we get a reveal and see that the millionaire had some funky ass puppetteer harness that he was using to move the skeleton. And also that he killed the doctor too earlier. #monsterdon

I give the Bat 3 out of 5 fake rubber bats. Overall, it was pretty middle of the road for a #monsterdon movie. The scenes were a little clunky, but I liked the goofy secret passages and lesbian subtext. The evil plot didn't make total sense to me, although I didn't catch all the dialog. The best character was a tie between the squeaky bat and the secret passage laden yuri murder mansion. #monsterdon

@davesdogmaggie@mstdn.social I definitely have dreams like that, often for the homes of relatives or other places I've lived though. A lot of "wow I never realized this apartment has another corridor" or "woah this house has another floor with a library in it and a secret ladder way in the closet!" #monsterdon

"do you know what this haunted murder house needs?" "what?" "a meeting. we should have a meeting." "okay, makes sense, i'll make some slides." #monsterdon

We see the bat outside, and it looks like a guy in a hat with a mask and a weird claw, or perhaps claw gloves. Cornelia calls the police but they don't react promptly, so they go up to Cornelia's room to shut themselves in. Meanwhile, the bat is using a glass cutter to let himself into the house. Also, Lizzie forgot her bathrobe so she wants to go outside to get it but then they see the bat guy wandering around and shut the door. #monsterdon

The bat sneaks in; the corny harem and the random guy try to trap him but he shoots the random guy. He's about the kill the Corny Harem when another guy I forgot about shoots him. He removes the bat's mask and reveals that the bat was... the tall cop guy! Because fuck the police. My prediction was wrong I guess, oh well. #monsterdon

Meanwhile Miss Corny is still looking for the secret passageway when she gets trapped in a secret room (still without finding any treasure though). Then Lizzy wakes up and tries to find her and wake up the random guy who was on guard in the living room, but actually asleep; he says his drink was drugged by someone. Meanwhile the Manbat is sneaking into the house again. #monsterdon

This concludes my #monsterdon thread for "The Bat (1959)", in which we learned that should never trust the police, because the head cop just might dress up in a hat and murder people with his claw glove. Thanks to @Taweret@timeloop.cafe for hosting and to everyone who participate. yay bats! yay!

Because the house is menaced by a Man Bat, the other characters have adapted a gendered division of labor to combat it. This involves the girls (Miss Corny and the Corny Harem) having a pajama party while the boys search the woods with flashlights, looking for a man dressed like a bat. #monsterdon