{"id":2107,"date":"2024-08-06T03:50:25","date_gmt":"2024-08-06T03:50:25","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/?p=2107"},"modified":"2024-10-14T11:29:15","modified_gmt":"2024-10-14T15:29:15","slug":"attack-of-the-giant-leeches","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/2024\/08\/06\/attack-of-the-giant-leeches\/","title":{"rendered":"Attack of the Giant Leeches"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"Attack of the Giant Leeches <\/strong>(1959)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 American International\/Sci-Fi-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 62 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (some violent images and gunplay)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Bernard L. Kowalski\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Leo Gordon\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Alexander Laszlo\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: John M. Nickolaus Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 1959 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Ken Clark, Yvette Vickers, Jan Shepard, Michael Emmet, Tyler McVey, Bruno VeSota, Gene Roth, Daniel White, George Cisar.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Box Office:\u00a0 N\/A<\/p>\n

Rating<\/strong>: ***<\/p>\n

\u00a0A long time ago (late 70s\/early 80s), one of my local UHF stations (good old channel 48!) used to show cheesy old monster movies from the 50s and 60s on Saturday afternoons. It was called \u201cCreature Double Feature\u201d. I didn\u2019t tune in too often. On Saturdays, I was either out or listening to whatever new record I bought at Sam Goody that morning. As I got older, I\u2019d be at the movies. As a teen, I was more interested in R-rated thrills at a theater than old movies on TV.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Although I didn\u2019t watch the program, I was acutely aware of the titles they showed. One that sticks out in my mind is Attack of the Giant Leeches<\/strong>. Don\u2019t ask me why, but it just always stayed with me. I never considered actually watching it until I got onto an exploitation movie kick these past few months. I came across it on YouTube and thought, \u201cWhy not.\u201d The price is right- FREE! And at just over an hour long, it wouldn\u2019t be much of a time investment. I basically had nothing to lose except maybe a few IQ points.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Attack of the Giant Leeches<\/strong>, a grade-Z horror schlockfest from American International, is a Corman production as in produced by Roger Corman (executive producer, to be exact) and younger brother Gene. Shot in eight days on an estimated budget of $70,000, it\u2019s one of those \u201cso awful, it\u2019s great\u201d deals. The monsters are actors in costumes made of thin black material with fake suckers sewn on. They\u2019re more funny-looking than scary. That is, when you get a clear view of them which is rarely. Blame the lighting and cinematography. A lot of the time, it\u2019s too dark to see much of anything especially in the nighttime scenes. Guess what? These creatures are nocturnal. Nice one, Roger! The score by Andrew Laszlo was previously used in Night of the Blood Beast. Hey, I didn\u2019t know they recycled in the late 50s. Cool!<\/p>\n

\u00a0For what it\u2019s worth, I guess I ought to talk about the plot of Attack of the Giant Leeches<\/strong>. Set in the Florida Everglades, it\u2019s about a bunch of yokels being terrorized by a pair of giant leeches (as if you couldn\u2019t guess). Concern grows when people start disappearing. First, it\u2019s Liz Walker (Vickers, Attack of the 50 Foot Woman) and her lover Cal (Emmet, Night of the Blood Beast). Her jealous husband, local storekeeper Dave (VeSota, Hot Car Girl), catches them together and forces them into the swamp at gunpoint. That\u2019s when the leeches grab them and take them to their cave where they drain them of their blood.<\/p>\n

\u00a0Every great story has a hero. So does every bad movie. Attack of the Giant Leeches<\/strong> has Steve Benton (Clark, None But the Lonely Spy), a game warden whose primary concern is not killing the local wildlife (i.e. alligators) in trying to find and stop the giant leeches. He\u2019s helped in his investigation by local physician Doc Greyson (McVey, Night of the Blood Beast) and his comely daughter Nan (Shepard, Paradise- Hawaiian Style).<\/p>\n

\u00a0What else is there to say about Attack of the Giant Leeches<\/strong>? It\u2019s terrible. Many critics consider it one of the worst movies ever made. It was mocked on an episode of MST3K. Nobody even bothered renewing the copyright so it\u2019s a public domain movie. That means it\u2019s been released numerous times on VHS and DVD at bargain bin prices. The movie itself is positively laughable. The acting is indescribably bad. The sole point of interest in this area is Vickers being Playboy\u2019s Playmate of the Month a few months prior (July \u201959) to the movie\u2019s release. It has some of the worst dialogue. There are many choice lines, but my favorite is when Steve says \u201cGo soak your fat head!\u201d to the portly and useless sheriff.<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019d say that Attack of the Giant Leeches<\/strong> works 100% better as unintentional comedy than horror even if it tries to prey of the public\u2019s fear of atomic energy at the time (the leeches are thought to be the result of atomic radiation from nearby Cape Canaveral). In any event, it\u2019s not the least bit scary; it was made to be seen by 9YOs at Saturday matinee double features in the early 60s. How scary could it be?<\/p>\n

\u00a0I\u2019m giving Attack of the Giant Leeches<\/strong> a three-star rating because it\u2019s so much fun to watch. Yes, it\u2019s filmmaking at its worst. It looks, sounds and feels cheap. It\u2019s low-budget, low-quality, lowbrow and highly entertaining for all the wrong reasons. GO AND WATCH IT RIGHT NOW! Hey, the price is right.\"\"<\/p>\n

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Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 American International\/Sci-Fi-Horror\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 RT: 62 minutes\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 No MPAA rating (some violent images and gunplay)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Director: Bernard L. Kowalski\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Screenplay: Leo Gordon\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Music: Alexander Laszlo\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cinematography: John M. Nickolaus Jr.\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Release date: October 1959 (US)\u00a0\u00a0\u00a0 Cast: Ken Clark, Yvette Vickers, Jan Shepard, Michael Emmet, Tyler McVey, Bruno VeSota, Gene Roth, Daniel […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":2900,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"nf_dc_page":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[27,25],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-2107","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-b-movies","category-horror"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"https:\/\/i0.wp.com\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-content\/uploads\/2024\/08\/Attack-of-the-Giant-Leeches.jpg?fit=620%2C348&ssl=1","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"jetpack_likes_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=2107"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":2901,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2107\/revisions\/2901"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/2900"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=2107"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=2107"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/movieguy247.com\/MovieGuy\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=2107"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}