Fall is in the air. Nights are growing cooler and darker. Halloween is next Tuesday, and even though we no longer have anyone in the house young enough to Trick or Treat, the cool evenings are perfect for sitting around the firepit and conjuring up stories of the spooky creatures that scared us when we were kids: black cats, werewolves, big spiders, and vampire bats that change into elegant but sinister aristocrats.

As adults, we know that black cats are no less cute and cuddly than any other cat and that werewolves are no more real than Bigfoot, and spiders hold important positions as garden helpers.

Bats are another story. They tend to haunt our dark evenings, whether we are walking home from a friend’s house or hearing a noise in the attic. Some of the scariest films have featured vampires who morphed into bats (and sometimes other frightening creatures). Think about various adaptations of Bram Stoker’s 1897 novel “Dracula,” especially the 1992 film with Gary Oldman as Bela L...