RetView #77 – Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)

Title: Attack of the Giant Leeches

Year of Release: 1959

Director: Bernerd L Kowalski

Length: 62 mins

Starring: Ken Clark, Yvette Vickers, Jan Shepard, Michael Emmet, Tyler McVey, Bruno VeSota

ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES, (aka THE GIANT LEECHES), poster art, 1959.

IMHO leeches are a very underused mechanism in horror. We see far too many rats, spiders and snakes, but not nearly enough of these natural blood-sucking vampires. They are fucking disgusting. Even the little tiny ones that stick to your legs after you go paddling in streams are gross. Imagine giant ones! Luckily, someone else did, so you don’t have to. Produced by Gene (brother of Robert) Corman and directed by Bernerd L Kowalski (who would go on to direct episodes of classic eighties action series’ Knight Rider and Airwolf) Attack of the Giant Leeches came right at the end of the 50’s creature feature craze that was a reaction to the Cold War that gave us such timeless gems as It Came From Beneath the Sea (1955), The Indestructable Man (1956) and The Blob (1958). This is reiterated, if you were in any doubt, when a character speculates that the man-eating leeches they are up against have been affected by atomic radiation from nearby Cape Canaveral. It was shot over eight days and released as part of a double bill with the horror comedy A Bucket of Blood (strangely enough, directed by another Corman, Roger, who would later gain fame for his film adaptations of Edgar Allan poe stories) by American International Pictures.

In the swampy Florida Everglades, a pair of massive intelligent leeches live in an underwater cave, presumably subsisting on the local wildlife as several references are made throughout the film to a lack of crocodiles in the area (which one would imagine not being a bad thing). Soon, though, the giant leeches decide to move on to people and begin dragging locals down to their cave, where they are kept alive and slowly drained of blood. Two of the first victims are local vixen Liz Walker (Vickers), who has been cheating on her husband Dave (VeSota), and her latest paramour. Poor traumatised Dave immediately comes under suspicion, mainly because he admitted chasing the amorous couple through the forest with a shotgun, but then he commits suicide leaving more questions than answers. Game warden Steve Benton (Clark) takes it upon himself to investigate, aided by his girlfriend, Nan Grayson (Sheppard), and her father, Doc Grayson (McVey). The intrepid bunch soon discover the giant leech’s underwater lair and blow it up. The end.

Or is it?

The film is notable for featuring Cary Grant’s long-time squeeze Yvette Vickers soon after her appearance in the Attack of the 50 Ft. Woman (1958), who promoted it by appearing as a centrefold in the June 1959 issue of Playboy. After that, her movie roles began to decline and she was last seen alive in 2010 having withdrawn from her family and friends. Tragically, her mummified body was discovered around a year later at her home on Westwanda Drive, Beverly Hills, by actress and neighbour Susan Savage. There were no signs of foul play, the cause of death deemed to be heart failure resulting from coronary artery disease. After her demise, Hugh Hefner issued statements expressing his sorrow.

Attack of the Giant Leeches, while corny and somewhat predictable, doesn’t get nearly enough love. It barely even comes into the conversation. Any conversation. This is despite a remake directed by Brett Kelly and written by Jeff O’Brien being released in 2008 and a stage adaptation performed at The Village Theatre in Atlanta, Georgia, in February 2020. The original has proved somewhat divisive on Rotten Tomatoes, where it measures 70% on the Tomatometer but has an audience score of just 18% based on 1000+ ratings. In his book Classic Movie Guide: From the Silent Era Through 1965 (2010) film critic Leonard Maltin awarded the film 1.5 out of 4 stars, calling it a “ludicrous hybrid of white trash and monster genres.” There’s just no pleasing some people.

The original movie is now in the public domain as its copyright was never renewed, and you can watch it in full HERE.

Trivia Corner

The monster costumes were designed by actor Ed Nelson and Gene Corman’s wife, with some claiming they were constructed from stitched-together black raincoats. Other insiders were less gracious and insisted black refuse sacks were used. Honestly, I kinda hope that was the case.

RetView #73 – Indestructible Man (1956)

Title: Indestructible Man

Year of Release: 1956

Director: Jack Pollexfen

Length: 72 mins

Starring: Lon Chaney Jr, Max Showalter, Marian Carr, Ross Elliott, Robert Shayne

The summary of this one reads like a mash up of Curse of Frankenstein and Shocker. Charles ‘Butcher’ Benton (played by Chaney Jr, by consensus one of the greatest horror movie actors ever) is a convicted murderer and robber betrayed by some acquaintances (and his attorney) who wanted to get their hands on his share of some loot. As a result, he is sent to the gas chamber and his body unlawfully sold to a mad scientist (Shayne). Benton’s lifeless corpse is then zapped with high-voltage electricity and subjected to various experimental chemical injections. His heart is re-stimulated and he is essentially brought back to life. Except now he has been rendered mute because of the electrical damage to his vocal chords, so all he can do is stare menacingly at people. By way of compensation, he is immensely strong and impervious to scalpels, bullets and even, as we find out later, bazooka shells. Hence, the Indestructible Man. Got it so far? Nice.

So, moving on, when Benton ‘comes around’ he is understandably a bit miffed at how things have turned out and swears revenge on all those who have wronged him. And by now, its a pretty extensive list. So first he kills the mad scientist and his assistant, then goes on a murderous rampage to even up the score(s). At one point, one of his would-be victims seeks the help of a friendly barman, busting into his joint saying, “I need help! I just found out Benton has hired a killer to get me.” This was before anyone had twigged it was Benton doing the killing, of course. The ‘friendly’ barman turns out to be anything but sympathetic and says, “Then drink up and get out. I don’t want any trouble in my place.”

The entire movie takes place in Los Angeles over a 72-hour period and is told in the kind of narrative style popularised by TV cop show Dragnet, which keeps the viewer up to speed and is just as well given the fact that the main star has been struck mute. Weirdly enough, that year Chaney Jr starred in another movie in which his character doesn’t speak (The Black Sleep). A very accurate IMDB review (where it currently holds a review score of 4.3/10) says, “Dragnet meets Frankenstein’s monster is the best way I can describe the flavor of this film, which is not nearly as bad as its current low rating would have you believe. In fact, if you like 50’s and 60’s Allied Artist horror on the cheap, I think you’ll like this one. Remember Allied Artists was a poverty row outfit, and they could usually afford just one star. In this case it is Lon Chaney Jr.”

In their contemporary review, the website Basement Rejects gives us the other side of the coin. “For the most part the special effects are pretty awful and the movie appears very cheap. I say for the most part because I think the burn make-up at the end of the film is pretty good. He is supposed to be a character that cannot die but his character can still be maimed. The result is a pretty effective face-melt burn. Indestructible Man isn’t so invincible. It is a rather lame story that seems more like a plot of an episode of The Twilight Zone or The Outer Limits than a feature film (maybe that is why it is only 70 minutes long). The movie isn’t very good and it isn’t very fun…there is a reason it is often a bargain B-Movie.”

The Spinning Image was even more scathing, but no less accurate: “This endearingly rubbish science fiction thriller was scripted by Vy Russell and Sue Bradford. It’s basically a low budget gangster movie with the novelty of featuring an indestructible man as its main villain. There are many moments of lunacy: the map to the stolen money has no landmarks or writing on it, save for a big X, the professor’s assistant apparently drives Chaney’s freshly-executed corpse home in the back of his car; Chaney’s stripper girlfriend eagerly agrees to go out with the lieutenant tracking him down when the detective reveals his first name is “Dick”.

Indestructible Man came as something of a surprise to me. Or a bolt out of the blue, if you’ll excuse the pun. It’s refreshing to come across a fifties B-movie that isn’t about either aliens or radiation. It was distributed on a double-bill with World Without End (1956) and in some areas with Invasion of the Body Snatchers (1956) both of which ARE about aliens. Sort of. Overall, I liked it. Sure, the special effects are questionable. Okay, everything about it is questionable, but it was made in1954 (and held back for two years). That’s a long time ago. So long ago, you can watch the whole thing on YouTube for free.

Do it.

Trivia Corner:

Lon Chaney Jr. reportedly asked director Jack Pollexfen not to make any dialogue changes or additions after the lunch break, because he was a big drinker and would usually be blotto by then.