Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)

Attack of the Blood Leeches
Demons of the Swamp
She Demons of the Swamp
The Giant Leeches

Cast:

Ken Clark is Steve Benton
Yvette "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman" Vickers is Liz Walker
Jan Shepard is Nan Greyson
Michael Emmet is Cal Moulton
Tyler McVey is Doc Greyson
Bruno " I was in Bucket of Blood" VeSota is Dave Walker

What the box says:

This hysterical drive-in favorite pits a community of swamp-dwelling yokels against the silliest-looking monsters since the shag-rug aliens of The Creeping Terror. Despite the strange sucker-marks found on a dead trapper's blood-drained body, and a man's story of seeing his unfaithful wife and her lover dragged into the swamp by the creatures, the police refuse to acknowledge that something freaky is going on. Only after more trappers disappear does the local game warden decide to take action, which he does with a vengeance. When the leech lair is discovered in a cave beneath the swamp, explosives are employed to blow them to little rubber bits. It's hard to be too critical of this early film from prolific TV-director Bernard L. Kowalski (Night of the Blood Beast), since executive producer Roger Corman allocated a budget for this production that would hardly cover the catering bill on a major studio film -- even in 1960! Look carefully to spot the scuba tanks beneath the leech costumes.

Plot:

In the swamp at night, Lem shoots something large.

Later, at the general store, Liz, the uber-hottie wife, of the store owner, Dave, so fat he may be the hiding place for Al Capone’s treasure. She is completely disgusted by him. The guys are listening to Lem talking about the thing he shot having giant suckers. Of course, they think he’s out of his gourd so heads out to check his traps.

Liz gets ready to head out and ignores Dave. Give us the gams, Liz…

Back in the swamp, Game Warden Bill Benton tries to catch some poachers. He and his girlfriend, Nan, hear a scream. They find Liz who freaked out when she found Lem’s corpse.

The sheriff won’t believe that Lem’s death was anything but an accident. Game Warden Bill won’t let it go because it wasn’t a boating accident or an animal attack.

Game Warden Bill checks with Nan’s father, the Doctor. They think that Lem’s creature could exist and the heroic game warden will search for it.

Back at the general store, Liz pitches a fit at Fat Dave. He leaves to make a delivery. While gone, Cal, one of the locals, puts the movies on Liz. I believe something about how she’d make a nice notch on his bedpost was enough for her to fall head over heels with him.

Game Warden Bill and Nan are getting discouraged in their search.

As Cal and Liz are trying to rut like depraved pigs in the late 1950s, she explains why she married Dave. Well, the unhappy, Fat Dave appears with his shotgun. He forces them to go into the swamp and keeps catching up to them and forces them deeper into the swamp. Cal and Liz are in the lake when creepy music plays, and the Giant Leech gets Cal and Liz.

The next day has the locals searching the lake for the bodies. The sheriff who is slightly dumber than dirt is positive that Fat Dave shot them both. Well, Fat Dave is arrested and taken to jail where he hangs himself.

Game Warden Bill refuses to let doctor use dynamite to destroy the monster. Hero is sure that Fat Dave killed them and hanged himself in remorse. Doctor is sure the creatures are nocturnal. Hero boy doesn’t believe it.

A couple of rednecks search the lake because they’re sure that some gators got the bodies. As the creepy music plays, they realize they haven’t seen any gators when the Leeches tip the canoe.

Later, Cal, Liz, and the rednecks are in a cave. The swarm of Leeches feasts.

Game Warden Bill learns that the rednecks disappeared. He’ll search for them.

In another too dark to see scene, the search party ensues. When they’re about to call it a day, they realize there are no gators in the lake.

Game Warden Bill wants to test the water to see what drove the gators away or dive into the lake. The good doctor wants to use explosives since no animals are in the lake. Game Warden Bill gives his spiel about the conservation of life, etc…

Later, doctor sneaks out to the lake and lets the dynamite fly.

In the cave, Cal and Liz are being drained by the Leeches.

The explosion rocks the cave and knocks some bodies into the lake where they surface, 3 bodies but not Liz’s.

Game Warden Bill is about to head to the coroner’s office and going to arrest the good doctor. The doctor reveals that Cal wasn’t killed by Dave. The bodies were drained of blood. The area is peppered with caves and some caves under the lake.

Game Warden Bill readies his SCUBA gear and other diver, Steve. The Sheriff and the townsfolk are at the shore watching this.

Ronny James Dio’s Holy Diver fu ensues. Steve discovers the entrance to the cave but signals for help.

Doctor is convinced that atomic radiation is responsible for the Leeches.

Liz falls off the ledge into the lake and surfaces. Her face is scarred.

Steve heads back to the cave and encounters the Leech monster. Game Warden Bill in his SCUBA glory comes to the rescue. Stabbing fu. They surface and head for land.

Nan embraces Game Warden Bill.

Later, the dynamite charge is readied. And Bill sets the charge off. The explosion causes the Leech to surface. Everyone leaves but we hear the Leech creepy music. So is it over or not?

What I say:

B-Movies have their sub-genres. From the exploitation, hixsploitation, blaxsploitation, 1980s slashers, 1940s Poverty Row mad scientists, killer animals, etc...One of the most famous genres is the 1950s B-movies. They are special in a way that today's movies can never be. In fact, monster movies of today are a shallow copy of those movies. Take the standard 50s monster in a small town, group that isn't believed and must unite to defeat the creature before it is too late. Really the only differences are making them more explicit and debuting them on Sci-Fi channel today instead of at the being the B slot in a double feature at a movie theater of yesteryear. Ice Spiders is lacking compared to even Beginning of the End.

Look at the monsters. With as however hokey as they were, they have a charm that computer generated monsters will always lack. I would never say that ping pong balls for monster eyes are a good design. For a low budget movie, you have to make do with what you can...Take Robot Monster, it had a guy in a gorilla suit with a diving helmet as a robot!? Killer Shrews had dogs with shag carpets on their backs as giant shrews...Attack of the Leeches leeches aren't any worse than the Creature from the Haunted Sea.

In the pantheon of Bad-Movies and into the smaller realm of true B-Movies, there are small number of names that are more than recognized but festooned with infamy by the typical movie fans. However, for the b-movie fans, those names are more than heroes but giants in the realm. Roger Corman is known for his Edgar A. Poe movies starring Vincent Price in the 1960s. The 1970s saw him become more of a producer and starting his own production company and produce movies ofr new directors like Joe "Pirahna" Dante. Well, Roger Corman was known for his directing in the 1950s. I have to admit, I was more than surprised to see Roger Corman as an executive producer of Attack of the Giant Leeches. The big shocker was seeing that his brother? (Gene Corman) was the producer. We've seen that Sylvester Stallone has the talent rather than Frank Stallone when he's singing.

Say what you will about 1950s horror movies and much has been said. While the horrors of radiation plagued many movies, how it would create giant spiders or practically any time of giant insect to attack humanity is a mystery? For the several of giant animal movies like Them that weren't laughingly bad but good, far more fell into the realm of Bert I. Gordon's Beginning of the End. And if animals can be superimposed to be killer monsters why not just have the ridiculously lame monster costumes instead?

The Creature From the Black Lagoon is an incredible amazing monster. Just picture that monster. For such a great monster, there will be one that is its polar opposite. Excellent monster and its inverse, crappy monster. Take Creature from the Haunted Sea with its monster that looks more like a wet suit covered with garbage bags. That monster is in the same realm as that of Giant Leeches. Humanoid shaped underwater creatures with octopus like suckers that live by sucking the blood out of the necks of people without any mentioning of vampires...

No RUGGED 2 FISTED MAN OF SCIENCE here...It has to be the forerunner to the SLACK-JAWED BUREACRAT DESPERATELY NEEDING AUTHORIZATION TO DO ANYTHING CONSERAVATIONIST. When Richard Dreyfuss from the 1970s is tougher than the 1950s Game Warden Bill, you've got some serious wuss. Game Warden Bill would extol the dangers of using dynamite to disturb the eco-system. While that is pretty rare in most 50s monster movies, it does get awfully repetive after the 3rd or 4th time of hearing it. What's more the closest thing to a scientist in this movie is Bill's girlfriend's father who is a doctor, he immediately latches onto the idea of something not right at the lake and determined to take care of it almost like he thought he was supposed to be the hero.

Something tells me that Attack of the Giant Leeches isn't the best movie to portray marital bliss. Dave and Liz fight but not slight arguements. Knock down drag out fights where everyone can hear them. Liz wants to leave the swamp and movie to town where she'll be able to run around like the cheap trollop she obviously is. Dave wants to stay where he is and guessing from the way Liz keeps implying she can't get any satisfaction from him. When you realize that Dave and Liz's marriage makes the couple in a country and western song sound happily married, you probably need some marital counselor on speed dial. Well, the therapy on hand is Dave's sleazy friend who is ready to cork Liz like a jug of moonshine. The obviously unjovial Dave decides to scary his philandering philanthropist wife (well she was giving it away) which leads to her and her bulb tester being grabbed by the aforementioned leeches. Poor Dave can't get anyone to believe his story and then hangs himself in a jail cell.

Actually, a strange thing with all the remakes coming out, I've heard some rumors about Attack of the Leeches being redone with extra sleazyness. There's the skanky philandering wife, Liz, and the husband she despises. It doesn't take much of a leap of logic to realize she's been trying to compete with the McDonlad's "Billions and Billions served" sign. The biggest problem would be to not quite get the giant Leeches to be chasing after women like the another Corman movie, Humanoids From the Deep. Still just taking this movie and even doing it with better lighting would be a major improvement.

If you desperately crave movies that are too dark to see what is happening, if you craze movies produced not only by Roger Corman but his little brother, Gene Corman, if you craze movies with laughingly bad giant leech monsters, Attack of the Giant Leeches will definitely make you crazy. Or probably because you're crazy, not that I would ever offend or insult the ninjaexcellent ten of fans.

Quotable Dialogue
"One day, I'm, gonna give her the whoopin' she deserves."
"Answer me, you dirty ole man."
"Ain't no use gittin all het up."
"Nothing scares gator."
Morals of the Story
Rednecks wear bib overalls and carry moonshine jugs.
Moonshine is a thirst quencher.
Leeches give giant hickeys.
All rural folks love to carry flaming torches.
Noon is so dark that it requires you to carry torches.
Atomic energy is used in rocket launches.