Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)

Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959)

Directed by: Bernard L. Kowalski

Starring: Ken Clark, Yvette Vickers, Jan Shepard

Another film produced by Roger Corman and made in 1959. Hell, this movie was probably shot on the same weekend as The Wasp Woman, what with Roger’s style of producing being the old “here’s a thousand bucks, make a movie” type. Wait… did I just watch three movies in a row all from the same year? How the hell did that happen?

In Attack of the Giant Leeches, a small swamp town is beset by terrible monster leeches that capture and slowly kill a few of the locals. There really isn’t anything to tell about the story. The leeches kill some guys, some other guys go looking for them, they kill some more guys, they finally find the leeches, then they blow up the everglades with dynamite. Pretty standard fare, really.

You may know this film from it’s use in one of the earlier episodes of Mystery Science Theater 3000. If you don’t know it from there, then that’s the place you should see it. If I remember correctly, it’s in the third or fourth season of the show, just when things start getting really good, and their treatment of Giant Leeches is pretty damn funny. However, they do spend most of the time making fun of the bass-ackwards country folk inhabiting the movie, and since I have some Texan ancestry, I feel obliged to say a few things. You see, most people don’t know this, but the south isn’t entirely comprised of rock-stupid hillbillies who do nothing but sit around drinking moonshine and fishing/shooting at things. Not entirely. Just… mostly. By a large percentage. The more you know!