The good doctor has seen this movie many a time (that should tell you just how sick the good doctor is). This is back in the days when a movie could get away with being only 62 minutes long. It has to do with a couple of Florida swamp leeches that have grown to man-size proportions thanks to the radiation from a local rocket testing ground (isn't that always the way?).
Said leeches go about their business of terrorizing the local yokels and draining these fine citizens of their blood. The leeches escape detection by hiding out by day in their underground air-pocket cave. Ken Clarke play the state game preserve warden or some such, and drags his wife along on their adventures of messing around in the backwoods looking for poachers.
Yvette Vickers plays the two-timing sex kitten wife to Bruno Ve Sota's fat hick grocer. Vickers gets herself in trouble when Ve Sota catches her in the arms of another man. Vickers and lover get chased into the swamp by the gun-toting Ve Sota, where they are attacked by the leeches, and dragged underwater. Accused of murder by fat, cigar smoking Sheriff Gene Roth, Ve Sota is carted away to jail, where he hangs himself from shock. Clarke finally gets it in his lunk head to do some investigating, and what follows is an underwater fight, a few depth-charged dynamite explosions, and a nice
shot of Yvette Vickers in her underwear as her body floats to the surface of the swamp. Oh, and coffee figures prominently in the subplot.
The poorest thing about the movie is the Leech costumes themselves. They looked as if they were constructed from "Hefty" lawn trash bags, with a butt donut cushion for the sucker mouth. In some scenes, you can see the outline of the air tanks from the stunt people wearing the costumes. I give this movie two and a half rectal thermometers out of 5. Solid acting, nice underwear shots (for the 50s), some effective gore. Only the monsters are ridiculous. Of course, this is the 50's, so what do you want?
-----DR. Mel Practice
I’m Bloody Holly, world’s most beloved zombie greaser, and here is what I have to say about , possibly the BEST, leech movie ever made in the 50’s. Unlike my Good Doctor’s report, I will be highlighting some of the lesser attractive details provided in this terrifying thriller of swamp blood madness. Note that I will also be using the character’s movie name rather than their actual names.
Moonshine, shotguns, swamps, dynamite, and a mosquito-synth style musical soundtrack.....an incredible combination, an incredible movie! Starting with the opening scene (if you could see your way through all of the fuzzies and scratches on the film leader) , town drunk and hallucinogen expert, Glenn Sawyer stares his blood-shot eyeballs on the trail of something that just wanted to be left alone. Not really sure of what was squirming in the midnight swamp just in front of him, Glenn pounded a half dozen rounds of shotgun ammo into what later is realized as a REALLY BIG GIANT LEECH!
It took a while before any believers came about of this boasting non-sense! A GIANT LEECH, yeah right. Glenn was not the most believable soul on the premises, being a full time drunk and all.
Shortly following Glenn’s big scene, we find ourselves in big old Dave Walker’s general store/whiskey a go-go! This is the very spot where Glenn was criticized for his poor visual judgment in claiming there was a suction-cupped beast on the swamp prowl. Further, within the walls of Dave Walker, we find his lushish wife, Liz, who gives Dave all he can handle! Dave, the fat softee, only wanted to love his wife Liz the best he could. He couldn’t , however, seem to....give ‘da girl what she was cravin’! As was quoted between the two love-spatters, “I love you Liz baby,” as stated by Dave, followed by, “Get out you fat pig”, as stated by Liz. The couple obviously had their differences.
Our faithful drunk Glenn, finally meets his maker, as he gets sucked to death by a leech in what my have been the bloodiest scene of the movie. As stated earlier in the Doc’s report , we already know Liz and her 4-play counterpart triangle lover Cal got sucked into the bayou......and Dave hung himself rotting in jail. Also, during an edge- of-your-seat swamp search scene--- two more canoe paddling red-neck whiskey guzzlers capsized into the clutches of the very blood hungry GIANT LEECHES.
To make a short story even shorter....as the death toll stands in this movie, the count is only a mere 6. And that’s including the lickable Liz, which at the end of the flick, makes it very unclear if she was pronounced dead or not.
And finally, the ending of this flick was TOTAL DYNAMITE, quite literally. A high-tech explosive scene was developed as the main source for putting a tearful end to our flesh slurping blood suckers. Bloody Holly rates this flick (6) 45’s out of a (10) record jukebox!
-----Bloody Holly: zombie greaser extraordinare