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.

SimonJack The best thing one could say about "Attack of the Giant Leeches" is that they would have made good bait for sharks or deep-sea fishing. But these so-called monsters are laughable. As a terrorizing horror, they can only work if the actors stand still, make a face and then scream. The folks can't fight off or use their arms to push away the slow, lumbering slugs that crawl onto them and then suck their blood. Except for an intimation of murder in this film, it is really a laugh all around. The script is lousy, most of the actors are wooden, and there never is an "attack" anywhere in the film. I kept waiting for these things to crawl out of the swamp and tear into the town. But these little blobs just waited for wimps to come their way. The only actor who did a decent job was Tyler McVey as Doc Greyson. The worst of the rest was the lead, Ken Clark. He played Steve Benton, a real doofus for a state wildlife officer. This may be the cheapest set ever made and used for one of these nickel and dime horror flicks.

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.

JoeKarlosi This is one of those so-bad-it's-good '50s monster flicks that is as much fun as its title, and stacks up as a quick and easy 60 minutes of monster madness. Residents of a small hick town are plagued by rubbery blood-sucking creatures living in a nearby swamp that kidnap human victims and keep them barely alive in an underwater cave so they can keep sucking them dry. For a movie of this era, it's pretty gruesome in the way the leeches suck their victims' flesh and how this leaves them as stone-faced corpses floating back up to the surface. It's always a treat to see sexy Yvette Vickers (ATTACK OF THE 50 FT. WOMAN) as the town tramp, who two-times her "tub of lard husband" (Bruno Ve Sota). With Gene Roth as the doubting sheriff. **1/2 out of ****