Attack of the Giant Leeches

The original Attack of the Giant Leeches is a classic "bad B-movie" horror film that isn't scary but you will definitely laugh at it and enjoy it with friends. This movie just takes advantage of the fact it is a public domain movie, steals the title and story and literally (pun intended) leeches off of that film with this. The problem is zero effort went into it. The sound and picture are so bad I barely could sit through the whole film. The acting is terrible. They clearly didn't care about the movie or viewers at all, just about getting enough screen time on camera to cash in on the original's title. This is shameful. Worst of all it's not even bad the way you can still enjoy and laugh at it, it's just a shameless and very, very boring waste of two hours I will never get back.

Let us endeavor to conjecture and propose a supposition pertaining to a conundrum I am experiencing after viewing this atrocity. Variable one pertains to a Roger Corman. This is a man with an incredible propensity for the creation of films on a minimal budget and almost ALWAYS a profit on his investment. He truly is the king of exploitation films. This being a remake (probably due to the film being out of copyright date) is of a 1959 movie he made.

So how does one create a movie to begin with on a minimal budget that still exceeds the product created decades later? Could it be an overwhelming plethora of non-talent?

I have a great affinity for actors that do horrible hillbilly stereotypes with Canadian accents. The "Leeches" are hand puppets that can be misconstrued for earthworms on steroids. I did find the "rifle" that was supposed to be a shotgun but was a toy musket seen multiple times. They try to exploit young ladies which has absolutely no impact in sexually gratuity within the film. We get a few scenes of a marsh but the action takes place around a lake, no marsh or swamp. Our hillbillies are supposed to be comical relief while we wait for a meteorite to plummet to earth and obliterate them. The sheriff inhabits room 12 with crap being stored in some building somewhere.

Let us examine one scene in particular. A search party has been gathered to attempt to locate two bodies. Several men follow the sheriff down the shore of a lake, not a marsh. All follow after the sheriff. Would it not behoove them to "Spread out" instead of following him and looking at their feet literally as they walk? One idiot is looking up in the trees where many a body has been known to be discovered. If only the Lockness monster would have interjected itself into the movie and consumed the entire cast, that would have been worth watching.

The Corman version of this movie receives a 3.5 on the IMDb which sounds about right. If you view the MST3K riffing of the Corman movie then it is a 7.0 as this film rates a 1.9 and should be considerably lower.

After viewing this movie I made preparation to invoke the great Cuthulu and the old ones to enter this dimension to rule but they declined because it is too dark and forbidding a place even for them and with absolutely nothing original that can be done in writing, films or art we are all in a pathetic Hell anyway.

To be very honest, this film is undoubtedly inferior to its predecessor since being a remake, it should offer a better caliber in terms of production, special effects and even gore, but instead, it is another more low-budget film that is far from the original version that It had a little more caliber. The only thing that stands out are the animatronic leeches and some other elements, but the movie feels a bit cheap and the blood and effects look quite fake. It's like a movie made by newbies. I rate it with a 5/10 since at the end it is just an unnecessary remake of Roger Corman's original movie.

There is an old joke about "sound" technicians, common in the business. "They don't know what the hell they're doing." And low budget films suffer from it. Sound technicians make and break a film more than people know.

This film is a remake, very true to the original about giant monsters in a swamp. Like the original, the giant monsters come across more as "killers" than leeches.

The low budget has its shortcomings, but this really turned out very well.

The actors struggled, but when all of the actors struggle, you have to look and listen close. It becomes obvious that they had to sacrifice a lot for audibility. You can tell that the actors were of higher quality than they looked.

The original ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES was the king of cheese, with the champion of all time cheese still, when the muscle bound hero has a gun in one hand and a skimpy dressed, shapely blonde in the other.

And the original was not the classic science fiction style of the problem solving characters in the forefront. In fact, they were the backdrop, with the yokels in the forefront. The original was mostly Yvette Vickers, the sultry, shapely, super sexy long haired blond. It was her story. The original was Yvette 98%.

Here, the Yvette Vickers character is in the backdrop. Much of the reason is the production style.

The original used darker sets, which complimented the blond vixen. Here, we have bright sunshine. And bright sunshine is the enemy of blonde hair and pale skin. Our vixen is hardly a sexpot in this light. Nothing against the actress. She would be stunning in a dark light.

Which may be why we have the three needless additional girls in bikinis, whose darker complexions are more complimented by bright light. They serve little purpose for the story. However, their comic relief is fairly well placed.

While the vixen was the story in the original, in this version there are no favorites. Everyone has almost equal time.

Yet while the characters have close to equal time, the classic science fiction style of a focal group of principals is used.

What helps this low budget survive the turmoils of poor sound quality is "the characters". And the actors. Those who serve for comic relief are very adept. And the serious characters are better than your average film characters.

The camera work gives it an "ordinary" look, and the cast looks incredibly "next door neighbor" style, which works very well. While it is low budget, and sound quality is poor, it looks well blocked, and there are more assets than defects. This is very watchable. And despite some crinks, it is much more entertaining and satisfying than most of the modern science fiction you'll find with bigger budgets.

There are some nit picks. I didn't care for the "canned" macho fist fight, but that is minor, and pretty much a staple in action movies.

One gets the feeling that the editing wasn't quite ready. I wouldn't be surprised if it is reedited in the future, and that would make a huge difference.

So first off I saw the original on Creature Feature when I was like 7 and it was scary and creepy. AS bas as that movie was the costumes looked amazing (for the time) and being black and white made it even scarier. While it may have been shlocky the actors all took the roles seriosly and the horror in their faces felt genuine.

I have litterally seen high school plays with better acting that this movie, and the 'so called screams' of the actors is nothing short of laughable, too bad the movie is not funny at all even a 'so bad its funny' mode. Save your time.