Chosen Survivors (1974)

Released back in 1974, Chosen Survivors is a strange hybrid of pseudo-futuristic science fiction, survival horror, disaster movie paranoia, and social commentary — all wrapped up in a distinctly 1970s package complete with underground bunkers, political distrust, and extremely irritable vampire bats.

The film opens with eleven seemingly punch-drunk and bewildered citizens being abruptly snatched from their ordinary lives and transported by helicopter to some remote desert location. There, without explanation, they are herded into a giant elevator that begins an extraordinarily long descent deep beneath the Earth’s surface.

The descent itself is one of the film’s more bizarrely memorable moments. The passengers are thrown around the elevator as though floating through outer space while everything unfolds in slow motion, right down to the distorted, slowed-down sound effects.

Finally, after descending 1,758 feet underground, the elevator doors slide open to reveal an unexpectedly surreal world of giant lampshades, matching stools, and peculiar art deco interiors that look like a futuristic bachelor pad designed by someone who had only vaguely heard of the future.

A gigantic Orwellian video screen flickers to life, and a stern woman calmly explains the horrifying truth to the stunned newcomers. Through graphic footage they are informed that nuclear war has devastated the Earth’s surface, humanity has been annihilated, and they are among the few “chosen survivors” selected to preserve the human race underground until radiation levels become survivable again.

Naturally, the captives react in wildly different ways — disbelief, panic, rebellion, numb despair.

Still, there are compensations. They each have private rooms, plentiful food supplies, and enough oxygen to survive for four years while civilisation hopefully rebuilds itself above ground.

Everything has apparently been planned with meticulous care by the architects of this underground art deco paradise.

Almost everything.

Unfortunately, the survivors soon discover they are not alone down there.

As darkness falls, thousands of dormant vampire bats awaken from the surrounding caves and catacombs. Hungry and sensing the arrival of fresh human blood, the creatures emerge in terrifying swarms to feast upon the unlucky inhabitants.

Suddenly, boredom and existential dread are replaced by a much more immediate concern:

being devoured by bloodthirsty bats.

The film then shifts into a curious combination of survival horror and psychological group drama as tensions among the survivors begin escalating under the pressure of confinement and fear. Old prejudices, paranoia, distrust, and selfishness quickly emerge, dividing the group and threatening to destroy them from within even before the bats manage the job themselves.

As further revelations emerge, it becomes increasingly clear that things are not quite what they initially seemed, though even these twists do little to lessen the danger posed by the winged menace lurking in the darkness.

Each new night brings another desperate struggle for survival.

There are admittedly several fairly creepy sequences, particularly during the build-up to the bat attacks themselves. The bats often work best when lurking unseen in the shadows before suddenly descending in screeching chaos upon their victims.

However, the film also suffers from moments of almost surreal absurdity.

Chief among them is the unforgettable sequence in which hundreds of supposedly lethal vampire bats are casually obliterated during what essentially resembles a giant pillow fight, as survivors swat them from the air with bedding while maintaining expressions of utmost seriousness.

That scene rather perfectly encapsulates the entire movie.

The threat is supposedly terrifying, yet the execution frequently borders on accidental comedy. Even reliable genre stalwart Bradford Dillman appears unusually restrained and almost normal by his typically intense standards.

Interestingly, beneath all the bat attacks and underground panic, the film contains several surprisingly sharp digs at government secrecy and political deception. Authorities are repeatedly accused of lies, cover-ups, manipulation, and withholding the truth from ordinary citizens.

The film unmistakably reflects the deeply paranoid post-Watergate scandal atmosphere of 1970s America, when public distrust of government had reached unprecedented levels following the Richard Nixon resignation era.

There is a constant sense of conspiracy hanging over the film, and perhaps this is partly where Chosen Survivors loses momentum. Rather than fully embracing the potential terror and visceral excitement of its premise, it frequently drifts into weightier moral and social territory concerning human behaviour under extreme stress.

As a result, the film often feels caught awkwardly between serious political allegory and schlocky creature-feature entertainment.

Still, despite its clunky execution and unmistakably dated style, Chosen Survivors remains mildly engaging throughout. Its strange mixture of nuclear paranoia, bat attacks, and 1970s conspiracy thinking gives it an oddly distinctive flavour.

Ironically, for a film this gloriously batty, a stronger sense of intentional humour might actually have helped enormously. Instead, the movie treats almost everything with complete stone-faced seriousness, leaving most of the laughs entirely unintentional.

Which, admittedly, may be half the fun.