The Devil Bat

[2][3] The film stars Bela Lugosi[4] along with Suzanne Kaaren, Guy Usher, Yolande Mallott and the comic team of Dave O'Brien and Donald Kerr as the protagonists.

Embittered and insulted, he seeks revenge and develops a system in which ordinary bats are enlarged to massive size, training them to be drawn to a new, pungent aftershave he is testing.

A hot shot reporter from the Chicago Register, Johnny Layton (Dave O'Brien) gets assigned by his editor (Arthur Q. Bryan) to cover and help solve the murders.

Lugosi was beginning a comeback when he signed a contract on October 19, 1940, with PRC's Sigmund Neufeld to star in the Poverty Row studio's first horror film.

[8] PRC was known for shooting its films quickly and cheaply, but for endowing them with a plentiful amount of horror,[9] and The Devil Bat established this modus operandi.

In 2015 Indie filmmaker Ted Moehring directed the sequel Revenge of the Devil Bat,[14] which stars Lynn Lowry, Ruby Larocca and veteran actors Gary Kent, John Link, Dick Dyszel, George Stover, and Conrad Brooks.

The Devil Bat (1940), complete film
Bela Lugosi as Dr. Paul Carruthers, the mad scientist protagonist of the poverty row horror film The Devil Bat (1940).
Lugosi in The Devil Bat
The "devil bat" in Dr. Carruthers's laboratory