ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES On Blu-ray From Film Masters

 

Film Masters continues its releases of lower-budget Roger Corman productions with a double feature consisting of NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST and ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES. Today I'll be focusing on the latter. 

ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES, produced by Roger and Gene Corman, and directed by Bernard Kowalski, holds a special place in the hearts of a lot of bad movie fans. What makes it stand out is its slimy, seamy, sweaty atmosphere. The story is set in a remote Florida swamp, and while the title creatures won't impress many, the peckerwood passions on display put it above the typical cheap monster flick. The victims of the giant leeches are a collection of poor rural folk who one might find in a Tennessee Williams tale. Chief among them is Yvette Vickers as Liz, the young white trash tease who happens to be married to the slovenly local storekeeper (Bruno Ve Sota). Ken Clark (who in the 1960s would go to Italy and work with Mario Bava) plays the stalwart game warden who is ill at ease in dealing with not only the monsters, but the local rednecks as well. 

ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES didn't have much of a budget (the swamp scenes were filmed in a Pasadena arboretum, and the costumes for the leeches appear to have been made out of rain slickers) but director Kowalski and screenwriter Leo Gordon get much more out of the setup than one would expect. The sequences set in an underwater grotto, where the leeches store their victims to keep feeding on them, are quite disturbing. The characters might be lower-class caricatures, but they're still more memorable than the nondescript folks one finds in the dozens of quickly made Fifties horror/sci-fi features. Yvette Vickers became a genre legend mainly due to her role here, and while she certainly is sexy in a trashy way, she also makes Liz more than just a one-dimensional skank. 

This release by Film Masters gives each of the films its own disc, and it is Region Free. ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES is presented in a 1.85:1 aspect ratio, and while the packaging says that LEECHES comes from a new HD print, the visual quality looks dark and murky at times. It still is better than the tons of public domain versions of the film that have circulated through the years. 

The extras on the GIANT LEECHES disc include a program on Bernard Kowalski, presented by C. Courtney Joyner, which focuses on the director's television work. There's also a new commentary from Tom Weaver (with a little help from his friends). If you listened to Weaver's talks, you know what you are in for. As expected, he has plenty of sarcastic comments on the movie's plot, but he also offers up a lot of inside info on the making of the film and the people involved in it. Weaver also discusses his friendship with Yvette Vickers and the tragic conclusion of her life, along with giving a mini-tribute to the late Roger Corman. There's also a re-created trailer for the film, a slideshow featuring Yvette Vickers, and the MYSTERY SCIENCE THEATER 3000 episode that focused on GIANT LEECHES (I might as well point out that I am not a MYST3K fan). 

A 22-page booklet is included in this release, and Tom Weaver has an article about GIANT LEECHES in it, where he makes some cogent insights on how the film is looked upon by monster fans today. 

Film Masters has been doing an exemplary job lately of rescuing low-budget genre outings from public domain purgatory and giving them impressive presentations with worthy extras. ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES is not a great film but any stretch, but it has had a longer shelf life than most of the "important" mainstream big-budget movies made during the same period. I'm looking forward to what Film Masters has planned for the future.