how this for a really inspired and effective handy dandy sci fi or horror combo premise represent let take your basic randomly select motley assortment of everyday folk gather together in a deep and isolated and self contain underground nuclear fall out shelter so they can survive an impending end of the world holocaust tale and embellish on this standard situation with a borrowing from the then hip killer animal run amuck trend by have a horde of vicious and relentless and chatter vampire bat with a taste for human blood attack the understandably terrified bunch at regular bloodcurdling interval . sound like a pretty desperately reach high concept effort and right . well and that brusque blow off assumption be wrong . dead wrong . under episodic tv show vet sutton roley taut and capable direction the admittedly threadbare story work surprisingly well and result in a genuinely scary and creepy and suspenseful nail biter . the neatly vary cast help a lot while they fill out their stock role with commendable conviction . former child actor jackie cooper portray a cross and foot of clay rich jerk grumbler with stand out sliminess . constantly reliable b pic perennial richard jaeckel ( who later have a fatal run in with a killer bear in grizzly and get off by a pack of wild dog in day of the animal ) and alex cord ( the latter bear a passing resemblance to tough guy thesp extraordinaire william smith here ) make for properly stalwart hero . the always compose and elegant diana muldaur bring a welcome touch of class to the tense and grisly proceeding . future hill street blue regular barbara babcock be a lovely damsel in distress . a bespectacled bradford dillman ( who go on to get stung to death by killer bee in the swarm and have his face nibble on by carnivorous fish in piranha ) nerd it up nicely a a duplicitous dweeby scientist . chronically unsung character actor pedro armendariz and jr. and lincoln kilpatrick contribute solid performance a an eminently expendable decent dude and a gallant and rugged olympic athlete and respectively . the sequence where kilpatrick try to climb out of the subterranean shelter on a rope be both grip and nerve wracking . the bat attack be almost unbearably frighten and ferocious . the claustrophobic set design and gabriel torres cramp and close in cinematography and fred karlin jazzy and spooky score and the unremittingly eerie tone and and the bleakly ironic end all add considerably to the gut wrench tension . and those nasty screech bat be truly horrify little sucker .