Truly Dreadful Film

ridiculous rating

This is a small, humorous movie in some ways, but it has a huge heart. What a nice experience.

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

Released in 1959, "Attack of the Giant Leeches" takes place in a small swamp community in Florida where giant leeches threaten the populace. Ken Clark stars as the ranger who investigates the strange happenings.I didn't have much hope for this flick considering it's dubious name, its short length (62 minutes) and the fact that it's B&W, but the characters are decent and the story engrossing enough. The late 50's ambiance is worth the price of admission and the swamp atmospherics effective. Clark makes for a great masculine protagonist with his athletic build and meek disposition (sorta like a smaller Clint Walker). Jan Shepard plays his wife, the good girl, contrasted by Yvette Vickers' bad girl. Vickers was the July '59 Playmate of the Month and the movie shows off her body a little bit. While the leech monsters are rather lame, the sequences in the underwater cave where the leeches suck the blood of their captives are pretty nightmarish with the accompanying spooky music.Despite these positives, critics lambaste the movie on the grounds that the leeches are laughable, essentially people covered in trash bags with suckers here & there where you can clearly see the actors' arms moving inside the bags. If you can overlook this shortcoming, this is worthwhile 50's swamp horror.The film was shot in Los Angeles. GRADE: B

Favorite Movie Quote: "Don't give me any of that crud about monsters."Ho-Hum. Yet more semi-hilarious Monster Movie Trash from the 1950s.A local, Florida game warden remains totally skeptical when confronted with tales of hideous, man-sized, blood-sucking creatures coming up from the swamp. Even the evidence of the bloodless bodies of some local yokels leaves him completely unconvinced.Only when he sees things for himself does he become a believer and decide to take matters into his own hands.Anyways - It's a good thing this flick was only 62 minutes long. I don't think I could have tolerated this junk for much longer than that.

It's sometimes a little hard to review and rate a movie like this, especially as someone who does happen to enjoy a cheesy Z-grade flick now and then. Am I comparing this movie to every other film ever made, or am I comparing this movie to the rest of the 50s drive-in flicks? I tend, personally, to put every movie on the same scale, so naturally this isn't going to compare to The Exorcist or Halloween. Even when comparing to 50s classics this movie is going to suffer in comparison. Let's face it, it's a pretty bad movie. There's no way around that. No matter how much of a chiller theater sort of fan you are, this movie has few redeeming qualities.We can start with the monsters, which are bad. I've seen elementary school kids with better costumes in Halloween parades. Essentially, guys covered in trash bags with some random suckers placed on them. They work somewhat out of the water, even if we can clearly see the actors arms moving inside the bags. Inside the water, they become formless blobs, with no discernible shape at all.Many will point to a "good scene" inside the underwater cave where the monsters are feeding on humans, which does have some slight nightmarish qualities, but again the effects just lack here. There is no blood, no injuries on the people. Even the dead bodies that start floating up to the surface show no injury makeup, at all, despite a sheriff stating "look at what's happened to her face", there are no injuries on her face that the viewer can make out.None of the people in the movie act in any natural way. The interaction between the characters is forced and the situations they are put in don't feel real at all, so the bad acting is put more into focus. If these were believable scenarios (believable in terms of a cheesy sci-fi movie), then bad acting can be somewhat excusable, but the combination is what makes this nothing but fodder for MST3K.

Since having read about the tragic death of Yvette Vickers,I have been keeping an eye out for any of her main films coming into my sight.Recently looking through a box of DVD's at a near by pond shop,I was very happy to find a four-movie horror disc containing one of her most well known films.With having looked out for any of Vickers films for a good while,I felt that her movie was the first one that I must watch on the disc. The plot:With some of the local population beginning to suspect that the disappearance of some local residents at a near by swamp,may be linked to some weird "monster" leeches that have been seen round the swamp (although,there is some doubt to the existence of the monsters,due to one of the witnesses having had a little too much Moonshine,at the time which he claims to have seen them.)Due the local police refusing to investigate the "rumors",and more residents being grabbed by the monsters,Steve Benton and Nan Greyson decide that they cant just sit back and that they must go as deep into the swamp as possible,to try and find survivors,and to discover if the "wild stories" of the monsters is actually very real...View on the film:Although the scenes featuring the "evil" Leech monsters do look like they were made on a budget the was less then half a shoestring!,I strongly feel that the ultra low-budget for the film actually added a lot of charm to the movie,with the monsters almost looking like a perfect fit for an early episode of the original Dr Who.And although director Bernard L Kowalski's does make the films plot plod along,he is able to give the scenes in the swamp-pit a bit of a "kick",by making it feel that moss is growing on the set whilst you watch!Having picked up the film to see Yvette Vickers performance,I was happy to find that she was the main thing that helped to raise the quality of the film.For her performance,Vickers gives Liz Walker a big dollop of charm,which to give the film a sense of fun,which is sadly lacking in most of its content. Final view on the film:A disappointingly plodding film,saved by a charming performance from Yvette