Attack of the Giant Leeches

ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES

1959/Director: Bernard L. Kowalski/ Writer: Leo Gordon
Cast: Ken Clark, Yvette Vickers, Jan Shepard, Michael Emmet, Tyler McVey, Bruno VeSota

Sure there are a lot of problems with this movie. The lighting is dark and the sound quality is poor. The plot has more holes than the leeches have suction cups on their octopus type arms. The acting is pretty bad and the dialog is as campy as it comes. But I really enjoyed this thing for the most part and since it clocks in at about an hour it is not the worst way to waste sixty minutes of your life unless you’re doing cancer research. Getting with the mood of the day the giant leech creatures are more than likely radioactive mutations caused by the rocket launches at nearby Cape Canaveral and they are soon sucking blood from the local moonshine swilling swamp hillbillys. The creatures look like giant plastic garbage bags really and you can plainly see the actors inside moving about. There are a few grisly close-up scenes of the beasts feeding on redneck blood and the scenes of captive hicks inside the underwater cave are pretty good really.

The basic plot centers on the conflict between beefcake game warden Steven Benton (Ken Clarke) slowly coming to the realization, after the locals keep disappearing, that some sort of creature is living in the swamps. Creatures he refuses use dynamite on because that might kill a few fish. Of the opposing view is local Dr. Greyson is ready to blow the blood suckers sky high but first he and Benton must have a series of heated arguments that wear out the pro and cons of using dynamite to kill the beasts and of course at the end of the film they use dynamite to finally kill them). Benton and the doc’s daughter Nan (Jan Shepard) have one of those classic old horror film relationships where they act like they can’t agree on anything but it is obvious they are smoking hot for each other and all the bickering is simply so much horror couple foreplay.

More interesting is the relationship between local tub of lard cuckold Dave Walker, played by sometimes director (The Brain Eaters) Bruno VeSota, and his slutty, ball busting wife Liz (Playmate Yvette Vickers). This poor guy is so whipped and humiliated by this tramp you sort of feel sorry for him but not too much. She is just too hot for this guy and there is a really spicy scene of him watching her change clothes. He gets his revenge later when he is wandering around in the swamp when he was supposed to be making grocery deliveries and finds her with the local tomcat. For punishment he makes them walk out into the swamp water (???) where they are pulled under by the giant leeches and taken into an underwater cave. The leeches suck blood out of them as needed and poor Liz gets pretty much drained dry before the monster are finally blown up after hardheaded hunk Benton decides a few dead minnows and turtles is a worthy exchange for killing the man sized blood sucking radio active leeches. It is sold as a DVD double with The Wasp Woman, which is a better film really but Attack of the Giant Leeches has it B-Movie moments and is recommended for cheese lovers. Included here is the Playboy gatefold for July 1959 with the lovely Miss Vickers playing some records. Lucky leeches.

Last updated: 2010-04-18 08:31:39 by user07

Attack of the Giant Leeches

I've decided that I'm probably going to go right through my 50 horror DVD collection right now and watch as many of these movies as possible. The good thing about them is that they're relatively short, so even if I have to get up early the next day, I can watch them and still get to bed at a decent hour. Attack of the Giant Leeches was up next on DVD, so I popped it in and enjoyed the 50s radioactive era.

Attack of the Giant Leeches is about... well, just what the title says. A park ranger living by the swamps finds that people are being drained of their blood, with strange sucker marks on their skin, as they are near the swamp. So he consults his girlfriend/wife's father, a doctor, who thinks that this animal is some alien life form that has been living in the swamp. The rest of the story is a way to kill the animal and save the ones that it has taken.

The 50s were a time of the Atomic Age, with the Cold War scaring everyone into thinking that the world could end at any second with the press of a button. The horror movies of that era reflect this, only they slightly warn of the dangers of radioactivity. Throughout the movie, I was expecting this to be a theme of why the leeches were gigantic and attacking other people. However, I was dismayed to find that this was only quickly thrown in at the end of the movie. If it was supposed to be such a prevalent warning, shouldn't it have been discussed throughout the whole of the movie? If you're not listening closely, you might even miss the explanation, as it comes within the last 5-10 minutes of the movie.

The movie is entertaining, even if the beginning moves a little bit slowly. Some of the plot lines go on for too long while being less important to the story; however, one could argue that they make sense in order to get each of the victims to the swamp. There are some good examples of framing in the movie, where an arm on the hip acts as a triangular frame to the doctor's face. It's the small things like this that really hold our attention to the movie, even if they are done rather primitively.

Let's take a look at the leeches. They're fascinating.



WHOA! And then let's compare them to real leeches.


YIKES! Okay, so the giant leeches and the regular leeches share some characteristic traits. But wait! The giant leeches in the movie have... well, limbs??? In one scene, where the leeches have just captured some humans and are bringing them to their cave, the leech has a hard time lifting the body out of the water and ummm... well uses some limb-like appendages to push the person onto the bank. In that case, it looks a lot like a person in an over sized wetsuit with suckers attached to it. I guess the radioactivity the leeches were exposed to could make them grow arms. But I'll use my suspension of disbelief technique to just forget that happened!

All and all, though, the movie is an interesting B-movie, even if the ending is rushed. And I don't mean just like wrapped up a little too quickly. I mean, it's more like a car race where the leading man is about to be passed by a car going about 210 mph, and then the car hits the side of the race track, and then it flips over four times and catches fire, creating an explosion which causes a pile up behind him, and then the other cars catch fire, ending the race indefinitely. A little like that. As soon as the climax hits, and the problem solved, the movie's over with virtually no ending whatsoever. All of those deaths were avenged, just by blowing up the swamp? The park ranger avidly opposed the use of explosives before, and he seems to get over having to use them rather quickly later in the movie. There really is no denouement, and it hurts the movie overall because the audience has just watched an hour of attacking leeches just to see them blown up in a non-climactic showdown.

There are probably better 50s radiation-related movies that do the whole gigantic-animal-because-of-use-of-nuclear-power themes much better than this one, but I haven't seen them so I can't recommend any. But if you're in the mood for a fun, ridiculous, and cheesy plot, and are prone to lack of attention, and don't really like to put much thought into what you're watching, this is a good movie to watch on a late night. The giant leeches do suck a little bit though, har har.

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