ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES (1959)

DIRECTED by Bernard L. Kowalski.

SCREENPLAY by Leo Gordon.

STARRING  - Ken Clarke as Steve Benton,  Yvette Vickers as Liz Walker,  Jan Shepard as Nan Greyson,  Michael Emmet as Cal Moulton,  Tyler McVey as Doc Greyson,  Bruno Vesota as Dave Walker, Gene Roth as Sheriff Kovis,  Guy Buccola as Giant Leech # 1,  Ross Sturlin as Giant Leech # 2.

PLOT - In a small town located in the Florida Everglades, strange events are afoot. As usual things start off small. Local bar owner, Dave Walker is having problems with his marriage. Dave, an overweight middle aged man is married to a beautiful woman young enough to be his daughter. The problem is that Liz, Dave's wife, is having an affair behind his back with a young local man named Cal. Everyone in town seems to have cottoned on to what is happening except for poor old lovestruck Dave himself.  The locals are laughing behind his back whilst the cavorting lovers brazenly carry on with thier affair.

Until one terrible night when Dave catches the pair together, enraged and heartbroken, Dave pursues the pair into the swamps, threatening them with his shotgun. Apprehending the couple, Dave is horrified to see a pair of giant mutated Leeches arise from the depths of the swamp, the creatures drag the screaming Liz and Cal into the depths of the murky waters. The creatures take thier victims to an underground cave where they proceed to slowly drink thier blood.

Soon, the giant Leeches are terrorising the community, taking the unwary and the unfortunate to thier lair to feed upon. Only one man can stop them - local game warden Steve Benton and he doesn't even know where to start...

TAGLINE  - "Fear will pierce your flesh...until every nerve in your body...EXPLODES !!!"

PERFORMANCES  - Ken Clark makes for a fairly bland leading man whilst playing the role of game warden Steve Benton. Steve is your typical square jawed boy scout of a hero, he's brave, heroic and dull as dishwater. There's nothing really very wrong with Clark's acting, he's just not playing a very interesting character.

More interesting is Yvette Vickers playing Liz. She's such an unlikeable character that she's at least interesting to watch. The character of Liz is a deceitful two timer, she's absolutely horrible to her long suffering and loving husband Dave (Bruno VeSota), not only is she having an affair behind his back, she also calls him a "fat pig" to his face at one point. You really do feel sorry for poor old Dave, he's clearly a good man who's just been a bit gullible and allowed himself to be exploited by a money grabbing two timing bitch.

 The scene where Dave snaps and chases Liz and her lover into the swamps is very well played by VeSota. You can feel the poor guy's rage upon discovering the truth of his wife's behaviour and you partially hope that he's going to blast her with the shotgun. The Leeches get there first though...

I also think that Cal is quite an amusing character. Cal is Liz's lover and is played by Michael Emmet. Cal is another one of those characters that you cant wait to see get his just desserts. He's such a smug, cocky arsehole. Acting like he's Dave's friend whilst secretly shagging his wife. Seeing as he never seems to change out of the same flannel shirt whilst living in the middle of the hot Florida climate, I'm surprised he doesn't actually stink like a sweaty pig but Liz doesn't seem to mind too much.

Anyway, Cal swans around the place like some kind of big man, that is until Dave sticks his shotgun in his face and he starts blubbering like a big fat baby. Its satisfying to see, it really is. Even better is the fact that he screams like a girl when the Leeches drag him to his watery doom. Bye bye dickhead.

SFX - The special effects are minimal to say the least. Apparently, the film's budget ran out before they could begin construction of the titular monsters. The Leeches ended up being made from stitched together plastic raincoats. To say how cheaply they where made, they actually look sort of OK...

They do look very cheap it's true, but I do like the overall design. Those big suckers that take up the entirety of thier head are at least suitably menacing looking. It all depends what angle the creatures are filmed from. Sometimes they can look quite cool, other times...less so...

SEX & VIOLENCE  - Yvette Vickers was, at the time of filming, a Playboy magazine centrefold and a lot of the film was marketed to cash in upon her sex appeal and popularity with the male audience.

The violence in the film is surprisingly effective and quite creepy. You see the Leeches feed upon thier victims at several points in the film. When doing so, you hear these horrible slurping noises, it's obvious what the creatures are doing, especially when you see the red welts that are left behind on thier victims bodies...

I also like how the Leech's victims just lie around in the cave, so physically drained that they cant even move. They're clearly just hovering on the brink of death at all times, being kept barely alive as human blood bags for the Leech creatures to feed upon at thier leisure. Its a chilling concept.

When the victims finally die, fully drained of blood, the Leeches casually throw thier corpses back into the water. The bodies then float to the surface to be dragged out of the river by the local Police. Once again we see all this in loving detail.

RATING  - Attack of the Giant Leeches is very, VERY nearly a half decent film (at least by 50's B-movie standards) but just misses the mark due to a few unfortunate errors.

The main problem is that it kills off all its interesting characters in the first act. Dave, Liz and Cal are all great characters but by the midway point of the film Dave and Cal are both dead and Liz is a prisoner of the Leeches in a perpetually monged out state as she's having her blood drained. This leaves us with lots of boring scenes with boring old Steve Benton instead. This really slows the movie down and hampers it greatly. Rule one of ANY type of film - make your hero interesting and if you cant then at least leave some of the better characters alive to hold the audience's attention. This film plays all it's best cards at once and then coasts along in a sleepy state, much like the unfortunate blood drained victims of the Leeches themselves.

What saves the film is the concept (if not the actual execution) of the monsters themselves. The scenes in the underground cave with the victims being slowly drained are genuinely creepy and work really well. Those scenes have a lot of atmosphere and despite thier budgetary limitations the monsters are quite eerie. The cut of the film that I saw was filmed with some kind of filter that gave the screen a greenish tinge, this also added immensely to the overall atmosphere. It's just a shame these great moments are let down by a boring hero and stodgy, pedestrian story telling.

Overall I'm giving this movie a rating of 2 and a half boring game warden's out of 5. I'd like to give this film a higher rating, I really would, but it simply cant escape the weight of being dragged down by it's tedious second half and bland central protaganist. A shame as there's a lot of potential in the movie's opening scenes.