Attack of the Giant Leeches | |
---|---|
Directed by | Bernard L. Kowalski |
Screenplay by | Leo Gordon |
Produced by | Gene Corman |
Starring | |
Cinematography | John M. Nickolaus Jr. |
Edited by | Carlo Lodato |
Music by | Alexander Laszlo |
Production company | Balboa Productions |
Distributed by | American International Pictures |
Release date |
|
Running time | 62 minutes |
Country | United States |
Language | English |
Budget | $70,000 (estimated) [1] |
Attack of the Giant Leeches (originally to be called The Giant Leeches) is an independently made, 1959 black-and-white science fiction-horror film, produced by Gene Corman and directed by Bernard L. Kowalski. It stars Ken Clark, Yvette Vickers, Bruno VeSota and Jan Shepard. The screenplay was written by Leo Gordon. The film was released by American International Pictures on a double bill with A Bucket of Blood , and was retitled Demons of the Swamp for its UK release. Later, in some areas in 1960, Leeches played on a double bill with the Roger Corman film House of Usher .
Attack of the Giant Leeches was one of a spate of "creature features" produced during the 1950s in response to Cold War fears; a character in the film speculates that the leeches have been mutated to giant size by atomic radiation from nearby Cape Canaveral.
In the Florida Everglades, a group of gigantic, intelligent leeches live secretly beneath the depths of a deep swamp. Following the violent death of a local fisherman near the swamp, game warden Steve Benton (Clark) sets out to investigate the cause, despite local authorities blaming the incident on an alligator.
Only a few days after, two more locals, Liz Walker (Vickers) and Cal Moulton (Emmet) go missing near the swamp, while having an affair behind the back of her husband (VaSota), who is wrongly blamed for their deaths (eventually committing suicide while in jail). Search parties are formed throughout the surrounding area looking for the bodies but none are found, and two more men go missing.
Steve, with the aid of his girlfriend, Nan Grayson (Sheppard), and her father, Doc Grayson, discover the gruesome truth, the giant leeches are not only the cause of the disappearances, but are also feeding on their victims (who are imprisoned in an underground cave), slowly draining them of blood. Steve and his friend Mike (Kelley), both divers from the war, dive to the bottom of the swamp. They find the cave’s underwater entrance, but are attacked by the leeches. With the use of spearguns and knives, they manage to kill one, but are forced to retreat before they can save a single victim, all of which are found dead.
The creatures are finally destroyed when Steve, Mike and several state troopers blow up the underwater cavern using dynamite. The bodies of the killed leeches rise lifeless to the surface of the water, but in the film's closing moments, one of the leeches can be seen, still alive and swimming away.
The movie was one of a trilogy of films Bernard Kowalski made for the Corman brothers. [2]
The film was shot over eight days, including outdoor sequences at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden. During filming, Gene Corman came down with pneumonia and wound up in the hospital. [1]
Actress Yvette Vickers had appeared as the Playmate centerfold in the July 1959 issue of Playboy magazine, [3] several months prior to the film's release.
Producers Roger and Gene Corman begged special effects artist Paul Blaisdell to create the leech costumes for the film, but Blaisdell said the effects budget was so minute, it wouldn't have even covered the cost of the materials he would need to make the creature suits. The costumes were eventually designed by actor Ed Nelson and Gene Corman's wife, each contributing ideas. Some reference sources say the monster suits were constructed from black raincoats that were stitched together, while others say black plastic garbage bags were used. [4]
Attack of the Giant Leeches is now in the public domain; its copyright was never renewed. [5]
Attack of the Giant Leeches holds a 70% approval rating on review aggregation website Rotten Tomatoes, based on 10 reviews; the average rating is 5.06/10. [6] Film critic Leonard Maltin awarded the film 1.5 out of 4 stars, calling it a "ludicrous hybrid of white trash and monster genres". [7] Other retrospective reviews either regret the lack of scenes showing the monsters (although an expected lack in B movies of the genre) [8] or find them "ridiculous-looking". [9]
A review of the film in AllMovie described it as "uneven at best but the swamp locations, filmed at Pasadena's Arboretum of Tarzan fame, are certainly picturesque and the cave sequence, photographed, according to co-star Yvette Vickers, at the old Charlie Chaplin Studios, at least somewhat creepy," adding that the leeches are "stunt divers wearing what appears to be small ponchos with tentacles." [10] Also writing for AllMovie, critic Cavett Binion described the film as an "hysterical drive-in favorite [that] pits a community of swamp-dwelling yokels against the silliest-looking monsters since the shag-rug aliens of The Creeping Terror ", but added that it is "hard to be too critical of this early film from [...] Kowalski, since executive producer Roger Corman allocated a budget for this production that would hardly cover the catering bill on a major studio film -- even in 1960!" [11]
A remake of the film, directed by Brett Kelly and written by Jeff O'Brien, was released on July 7, 2008. [12]
A stage adaptation of the original was performed at The Village Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia in February 2020. [13]
In July 1992, Attack of the Giant Leeches was featured as a fourth-season episode of the film-mocking television series Mystery Science Theater 3000 . It was also featured on the nationally syndicated horror host television show Cinema Insomnia , [14] and in the second episode of season 5 of Shilling Shockers, a New England–based television show hosted by the witch Penny Dreadful XIII. [15]
Being in the public domain, Attack of the Giant Leeches has received numerous bargain bin DVD releases. [16] The MST3K version of the film was released on October 26, 2004, by Rhino Home Video as part of a box set, The Mystery Science Theater 3000 Collection: Volume 6. [17] Cheapskate Theater released an HD download of the film on June 7, 2016, featuring a new introduction by Toby Radloff and Radloff outtakes and bloopers. [18]
Attack of the 50 Foot Woman is a 1958 independently made American science fiction horror film directed by Nathan H. Juran and starring Allison Hayes, William Hudson and Yvette Vickers. It was produced by Bernard Woolner. The screenplay was written by Mark Hanna, and the original music score was composed by Ronald Stein. The film was distributed in the United States by Allied Artists as a double feature with War of the Satellites.
It Conquered the World is an independently made 1956 American science fiction film produced and directed by Roger Corman, and starring Peter Graves, Lee Van Cleef, Beverly Garland, and Sally Fraser. Shot in black-and-white, It Conquered the World was released theatrically by American International Pictures (AIP) as a double feature with The She-Creature.
Reptilicus is the mutual title of two monster films about a giant, prehistoric reptile. A pair of Danish-American co-productions produced by Cinemagic and Saga Studio, the Danish-language Reptilicus was directed by Poul Bang and released by Saga in Denmark in 1961, while the English-language Reptilicus was directed and co-written by Sidney Pink and released by American International Pictures in the United States in 1962. They've frequently been incorrectly described as two release-versions of the same film.
"In every film reference book published over the past four decades, the Danish-American monster-movie Reptilicus is listed as one film, and one film only. However, in spite of sharing an identical plot, identical sets and locations, a nearly identical cast and crew, as well as overlapping use of some shots, Reptilicus is in fact two distinct films, shot in separate languages by two directors, very much in the manner of the American/Spanish versions of Universal's 1931 Dracula."
Yvette Vickers was an American actress, pin-up model and singer.
Attack of the Crab Monsters is a 1957 independently made American black-and-white science fiction-horror film, produced and directed by Roger Corman, that stars Richard Garland, Pamela Duncan, and Russell Johnson. The film was distributed by Allied Artists as a double feature showing with Corman's Not of This Earth.
Alien Dead is an American horror film directed by Fred Olen Ray. Ray co-wrote the script with Martin Nicholas. The film involves a meteor hitting a houseboat, which causes the people on board to become zombies who eat alligators and eventually people.
Tarantula is a 1955 American science-fiction monster film produced by William Alland and directed by Jack Arnold. It stars John Agar, Mara Corday, and Leo G. Carroll. The film is about a scientist developing a miracle nutrient to feed a rapidly growing human population. In its unperfected state, the nutrient causes extraordinarily rapid growth, creating a deadly problem when a tarantula test subject escapes and continues to grow larger and larger. The screenplay by Robert M. Fresco and Martin Berkeley was based on a story by Arnold, which was in turn inspired by Fresco's teleplay for the 1955 Science Fiction Theatre episode "No Food for Thought", also directed by Arnold. The film was distributed by Universal Pictures as a Universal-International release, and reissued in 1962 through Sherman S. Krellberg's Ultra Pictures.
Sssssss is a 1973 American body horror film directed by Bernard L. Kowalski and starring Strother Martin, Dirk Benedict, and Heather Menzies. Its plot follows a college student who becomes a laboratory assistant to a herpetologist who is covertly developing a serum that can transform human beings into snakes.
Beast from Haunted Cave is a 1959 horror/heist film directed by Monte Hellman and starring Michael Forest, Frank Wolff and Richard Sinatra. It was produced by Gene Corman, Roger Corman's brother. Filmed in South Dakota at the same time as Ski Troop Attack, it tells the story of bank robbers fleeing in the snow who run afoul of a giant spider-like monster that feeds on humans. The film was released as a double feature with The Wasp Woman (1959).
The Killer Shrews is a 1959 American independent science fiction horror film directed by Ray Kellogg, and produced by Ken Curtis and Gordon McLendon. The story follows a group of researchers who are trapped in their remote island compound overnight by a hurricane and find themselves under siege by their abnormally large and venomous mutant test subjects. The film stars James Best, Ingrid Goude, Ken Curtis, McLendon, Baruch Lumet and "Judge" Henry Dupree.
The Wasp Woman is a 1959 American independent science-fiction horror film produced and directed by Roger Corman. Filmed in black-and-white, it stars Susan Cabot, Anthony Eisley, Michael Mark, and Barboura Morris. The film was originally released by Filmgroup as a double feature with Beast from Haunted Cave. To pad out the film's running time when it was released to television two years later, a new prologue was added by director Jack Hill.
Monster from Green Hell is a science fiction B movie released on December 12, 1957, as a double feature with the English-dubbed, re-edited version of the Japanese tokusatsu film Half Human. It was directed by Kenneth G. Crane, and starred Jim Davis and Barbara Turner.
From Hell It Came is a 1957 American science-fiction horror film directed by Dan Milner and written by Richard Bernstein, from a story by Bernstein and Jack Milner. It was released by Allied Artists on a double bill with The Disembodied.
Night of the Blood Beast is a 1958 American science-fiction horror film about a team of scientists who are stalked by an alien creature, which implants its embryos in an astronaut's body during a space flight. Produced by exploitation filmmaker Roger Corman and his brother Gene, it was one of the first films directed by Bernard L. Kowalski and was written by first-time screenwriter Martin Varno, who was 21 years old. It starred several actors who had regularly worked with Roger Corman, including Michael Emmet, Ed Nelson, Steve Dunlap, Georgianna Carter and Tyler McVey. The film was theatrically released in December 1958 as a double feature with She Gods of Shark Reef.
Monster from the Ocean Floor is an American 1954 science fiction film about a sea monster that terrorizes a Mexican cove. The film was directed by Wyott Ordung and starred Anne Kimbell and Stuart Wade.
The Beast with a Million Eyes is a 1955 independently made American black-and-white science fiction film, produced and directed by David Kramarsky, that stars Paul Birch, Lorna Thayer, and Dona Cole. Some film sources have said that the film was co-directed by Lou Place. The film was co-produced by Roger Corman and Samuel Z. Arkoff. and was released by American Releasing Corporation, which later became American International Pictures.
I Mobster is a 1959 film noir crime-drama film directed by Roger Corman. The film features a cameo of famous burlesque star Lili St. Cyr.
Eugene Harold "Gene" Corman was an American film producer and agent. He was the younger brother of Roger Corman with whom he collaborated on several occasions.
Paul Blaisdell was an American painter, sculptor and visual effects creator, best remembered for his work in science fiction and horror B movies of the 1950s.
Bruno William VeSota was an American character actor, director and producer who, between 1945 and 1974, appeared in hundreds of television episodes and over 50 feature films. He is remembered for prominent supporting roles in 15 Roger Corman films as well as for having directed three low-budget features: Female Jungle (1956), The Brain Eaters and Invasion of the Star Creatures (1962).
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