NIGHT OF THE BAT

Another gruesomely explicit creature feature from the author of Rats (not reviewed). Jake arrives at his scientist father’s Amazon rain forest camp just as a car-sized, brain-sucking vampire bat begins picking off the native helpers. Impeded only by the most minimal plot or character development, Zindel cuts to the gore right away, running up the body count, and sometimes changing point of view so that readers can experience directly the pleasures of having venom vomited into one’s mouth or fangs sinking into eyeballs. Eventually, Jake is left alone to face the monster, and after a wild struggle leaves it for the piranha to finish off. Readers who get goosebumps from R.L. Stine’s books will rip into this with relish. (Fiction. 12-14)