Evengyny Thanks for the memories!

Limerculer A waste of 90 minutes of my life

Lancoor A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Scott LeBrun In a Florida swamp, people are starting to go missing. Among the local townspeople struggling to solve the mystery are game warden Steve Benton (Ken Clark), his lovely girlfriend Nan Greyson (Jan Shepard), and her doctor father (Tyler McVey). Meanwhile, there's a subplot about harried storekeeper Dave Walker (Bruno VeSota), who has a trampy, unfaithful wife (luscious Playboy Playmate Yvette Vickers). Dave terrorizes her and her lover (Michael Emmet), and manages to glimpse the monsters responsible for the disappearances."Attack of the Giant Leeches" comes complete with an ever-so-slight cautionary bent (the giant leeches COULD be the result of mutations in the Cape Canaveral area), and possesses the typical efficiency one would see in B pictures of the era. By that, this viewer means that it tells its story (concocted by actor / screenwriter Leo Gordon) in a no-frills, cut-to-the-chase way, thanks to director Bernard L. Kowalski. (His other credits include creature features like "Night of the Blood Beast" and "Sssssss".) This viewer enjoyed the way that Gordon dropped those white-trash elements into his tried-and-true monster movie formula.Helping to give "Attack of the Giant Leeches" some stature is the presence of Vickers (also in the classic "Attack of the 50 Foot Woman", previously), who is tantalizingly sexy in various scenes, and the fact that the Giant Leeches (who are covered with the kind of suckers one usually sees on an octopus) figure in some moments that are pretty creepy and nasty for a 1959 feature, attaching themselves to their victims and sucking out the blood. Atmospheric photography of the L.A. County Arboretum & Botanic Garden locations is effective, as is the ooga-booga horror movie music by Alexander Laszlo.The performances are fine, with Clark making for a studly hero, and Gene Roth scoring some laughs as the kind of cranky, incredulous lawman you'd expect to find in a tale of this sort.Alright, this is indicative of a very low budget. So what? The filmmakers clearly still went to some pains to make a halfway decent movie, and the results are solidly entertaining.Executive produced by Roger Corman, and produced by his brother Gene.Eight out of 10.

O2D Here we go with another movie that doesn't make any sense.The only thing they don't fail at is letting us know who's going to die next.People are disappearing and the town people never believe those who actually see the "giant leeches".After most of the people are gone, they decide to believe the leeches exist and then quickly make up a bunch of "facts" about them.The hero threatens to arrest the elderly man who wants to use dynamite in the swamp to find the bodies but then ends up using it himself.Of course the elderly man is the hero's girlfriends dad, that's because the scientists don't have guns.Most importantly this movie has the obligatory scuba diving.What's a movie without scuba diving?Good?

Leofwine_draca More gruesome creepy-crawly creatures turn giant-size with disappointing effects in this undeniably cheap slice of swampland scaremongering produced by exploitation legend Roger Corman in his inevitable cost-cutting manner. Whilst the authentic-seeming swamp locations help to add a lot to the atmosphere of the movie, the ramshackle production values hamper it from the start, with a supposedly monstrous "giant leech" looking more like a dirty, poorly-patterned floating blanket with badly drawn-on eyeballs. Also hampered by unbelievable wooden acting from the leads and an emphasis on dialogue and plot development over the bloodsucking action promised in both the title and advertising, this is a Z-movie escapade only of interest to real fans of golden-oldies who can forgive their films' many flaws.Genetic mutation as a result of pollution is the predictable explanation behind this horrific puzzle but it's a shame the monsters are so poorly-seen yet still very tacky and unbelievable from what we do see. Towards the end there's an overload of underwater photography which alternates between being creepy and silly (the creepiest parts are when the corpses of the eaten victims float to the surface, released from their underwater caves). The man vs. monster battles which always form an integral part of such movies are rather poorly done and you never get the sense that the characters are in real danger, despite the best efforts of the music which would have you on the edge of your seat.The build-up to the battle involves lots of cheesy dialogue between redneck types and arguments as to whether the swamps should be bombed - the ecologist debate vs. the rational government approach. The acting is pretty much poor from all performers, who it seems are amateurs at this kind of thing, in fact even the unconvincing leeches themselves are better actors than most of the cast! Even though its only an hour in running time, Attack of the Giant Leeches sorely tested the patience of even this kindly reviewer - sometimes bad movies are so good that they become gems; this is so bad that it's not even funny, just poorly done and with a minimum of skill on the parts of all involved. A spiritless and unconvincing film only for generous fans of the period.

evening1 The first third of this movie is worth watching for the lurid interactions between the sleazy slut played by Yvette Vickers and her wormy lothario."I didn't hurt you, did I?" he murmurs after sex on a blanket sprawled in the Everglades. (Couldn't this creep spring for a motel room?) Moments after hearing Vickers praise his muscles, he's blathering to her gun-wielding husband that she practically raped him! Vickers had an amazing body and pouty face that're used to great effect here. "No no -- please stay away," she tells the rapist-leech approaching her air pocket. She even manages to be sexy after death, in that rowboat. However, it seemed incredibly unimaginative to allow Ms. Vickers' character to die in this flick. (She seems to expire only moments after floating toward the surface.) How interesting it might have been to hear her account of her ordeal! Instead, the movie peters out on a dully anti-climactic note, almost as if Corman had run out of film. Though this flick was too long by half, I wanted more.Intriguingly, Vickers the actress died in a manner B-movie king Corman might have appreciated. Check her out on Wikipedia!