Skip to main content

Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959) - Bernard L. Kowalski


This movie looks much older than it rightfully should. It didn't hold up very well at all. The copy that I had watched was the Mystery Science Theater copy. It made it all the more bearable. It even came with a neat little short. 

A yokel spots some weird creatures in a swamp nearby town. Of course no one believes him but his tales are real. Turns out giant Leech creatures are abducting people from the nearby town, dragging them into a cave, imprisoning them, and leeching on their blood! Eventually the town sends the Game Warden out to investigate and they contemplate how to find the missing people and destroy the Giant Leeches. 

It's explained that the Giant Leeches are products of radiation from the nearby Cape Canaveral. Nuclear Radiation is a usual plot devise for movies from this time. Some think that it was playing on the real fears that people had during the Cold War. Nuclear War fear mongering. However, underneath the veil of propaganda is a Giant Monster Horror movie and that's what we try to focus on. 

This movie is really bad. The creatures themselves are neat, if you like cheap costumes and bumbling acting. But that is really the only saving grace for this picture. That and Yevette Vickers make up the only parts of this movie that are worth watching. Everything else just seems like a chore. The acting and writing is flat but if you can watch it as a Mystery Science Theater copy then you might just make it through. 

These movie are a dime a dozen and as I near closer to the fifties, I will only end up watching more of them. This one seems to be pretty horrible and maybe that is due to it being from late in the Drive-In era. Hopefully this is as bad as Drive In movies get. 

Country: USA



Did ya know...

According to director Bernard L. Kowalski, producer Gene Corman didn't want to pay the technicians the extra money for pushing the camera raft while they were filming in the Pasadena Arboretum in the water, so he put on a bathing suit and did it himself. 

The giant leeches are played by actors in sack-like suits made of thin black plastic and complete with fake "suckers" sewn on.



Comments

Popular posts from this blog

Ju-On (2000) - Takashi Shimizu

Watching Japanese horror is similar to watching British comedy. If you enjoy dry whit then you probably enjoy the boys of Monty Python in drag. That's the joke, they're dressed like women. Get it? Well, that's British humor. But if you're like most Americans you probably prefer Adam Sandler farting his way across a football field and hooking up with chicks that are way out of his league. Americans usually prefer this more in your face, crass brand of humor. My point is funny in England is different from funny in the US. The same goes for J-Horror. What the Japanese consider scary is very different from what Americans consider scary and it shows in this horror film. Japanese horror is generally slow (a little too slow sometimes), suspenseful and creepy. Ju-On is a creepy effing film. The movie has almost no soundtrack. It is incredibly suspenseful and the pay-offs are pretty awesome, but I think that it was done better in the American version (cultural t...

Humanoids From the Deep (1980) - Barbara Peeters and Jimmy T. Murakami

This is your standard old drive-in Creature Feature that has tons of gore and boobs. It's great if your in for a cheap thrill. This film goes right up along side any Roger Corman produced picture from the eighties. It's rumored that Joe Dante was approached to direct this movie but he turned it down. Humanoids from the Deep, also known as Monster, is a strange but forgettable piece of exploitation that failed to make it's notch in history. Don't let that detour you though. This is a really fun little film that doesn't fail to be entertaining.  A small sea town in California is terrorized by some mutated creatures from the deep. They look like some sort of mutated fish, merman-thing. They seem to have one goal in mind and that is raping and impregnating the females of the town. Also the town is being taken for a ride by a shifty businessman and his new corporate cannery. Could this evil cannery corporation be responsible for the Extreme Creatures of the B...

Escape From Tomorrow (2013) - Randy Moore

This review may contain spoilers. An American independent horror movie from filmmaker Randy Moore. It stars Roy Abramsohn, Elena Schuber, Katelynn Rodriguez, Jack Dalton, Annet Mahendru, and Alison Lees-Taylor. It premiered at the official selection of Roger Ebert, at the Sundance Film Festival on January 18th, 2013. Synopsis Jim is a depressed middle-aged man that despises his family life but wants to try to hold it together for a vacation to the Walt Disney World Resort. Jim receives a call before they leave and, unfortunately, Jim has lost his job as well. It proves too much to handle as this trip to the Magic Kingdom becomes a hellish nightmare. Jim’s mind cracks as we watch him deal with Disney’s seedy underbelly. Complete with elaborate corporate conspiracy, undercover sex workers, and demons. Oh and two very young French girls that Jim lusts over. It’s gross. Analysis The acting is amateurish. It’s nothing that’s going to win any awards or anything. The wri...