Directed by: Bernard L. Kowalski
Starring: Ken Clark, Yvette Vickers, Jan Shepard, Michael Emmet, Bruno VeSota, Gene Roth

STORY

Deep in the Florida Everglades, something enormous is hiding beneath the black water.

When local trapper Lem Sawyer claims he has seen a gigantic creature in the swamp, nobody is particularly eager to believe him. But Lem knows what he saw, and whatever is lurking beneath those waters is unlike anything that should exist in nature.

Meanwhile, local store owner Dave Walker has problems of his own. His beautiful young wife Liz is desperately unhappy in their marriage and secretly meeting another man, Cal Moulton.

One night Dave catches them together.

Furious, he chases the terrified couple into the swamp at gunpoint. But whatever punishment Dave might have imagined for his unfaithful wife and her lover is nothing compared with what is waiting for them beneath the water.

Liz and Cal disappear.

Their bodies eventually turn up drained of blood, and game warden Steve Benton begins investigating. Together with his girlfriend Nan Grayson and her father, Doc Grayson, Steve starts piecing together a mystery that the locals would probably prefer to dismiss.

People are disappearing around the swamp.

Bodies are being found without their blood.

And underneath the water is a hidden cavern inhabited by enormous, mutated leeches that have discovered a particularly efficient food source.

Us.

The creatures capture their human victims and drag them into their underwater lair, keeping them alive while slowly feeding on their blood. When Steve finally realizes what is happening, stopping the monsters means venturing directly into the swamp and destroying the nightmare hiding below.

Attack of the Giant Leeches is exactly what its magnificent title promises: swamps, monsters, screaming victims, underwater caves and gigantic bloodsucking parasites.

It is low-budget 1950s creature-feature filmmaking in all its glorious splendor.

And if something brushes against your leg the next time you step into a swamp?

Maybe get out of the water.

AIN BACKSTAGE SECRETS & AINTOIDS

ROGER CORMAN BROUGHT US THE LEECHES

Attack of the Giant Leeches was executive produced by legendary independent filmmaker Roger Corman.

Corman became famous for making movies quickly, economically and with an extraordinary understanding of what audiences wanted to see.

And really, when your title is Attack of the Giant Leeches, the audience already knows EXACTLY what it came for.

THE KING OF THE CREATURE FEATURES

By 1959, movie screens were crawling with oversized creatures.

Hollywood had already unleashed giant ants, spiders, tarantulas, praying mantises and countless other monsters upon audiences.

Attack of the Giant Leeches took one of nature’s most unpleasant little bloodsuckers and asked the obvious 1950s science-fiction question:

What if they were HUGE?

THE ATOMIC AGE STRIKES AGAIN

Like many science-fiction and horror movies of the 1950s, Attack of the Giant Leeches taps into the era’s fascination with radiation and mutation.

The movie suggests that atomic radiation may be responsible for the creatures’ enormous size.

During the Atomic Age, radiation could apparently produce almost anything Hollywood needed.

Including enormous bloodsucking swamp leeches.

THE LEECHES WERE PEOPLE IN SUITS

No giant mutant leeches were harmed during production.

The monsters were performers wearing large rubber creature suits.

The costumes may not fool a modern zoologist, but that is part of the enormous charm of movies like this. The creatures are physical objects interacting with actors in actual water, giving the attacks the wonderfully handmade quality that defines so many independent monster movies of the period.

YVETTE VICKERS WAS A PLAYBOY PLAYMATE

Yvette Vickers, who plays the doomed Liz Walker, had already become familiar to science-fiction audiences through Attack of the 50 Foot Woman.

She was also Playboy magazine’s Playmate of the Month for July 1959, the same year Attack of the Giant Leeches reached theaters.

Vickers became one of the recognizable faces of late-1950s cult science-fiction and horror.

FROM A 50-FOOT WOMAN TO GIANT LEECHES

Yvette Vickers had a particularly impressive run of wonderfully outrageous movie titles.

In Attack of the 50 Foot Woman she faced one kind of oversized menace.

The following year, she found herself dealing with another.

Giant leeches.

Some actors get Shakespeare.

Some actors get giant radioactive bloodsuckers.

We know which movies are more fun at Halloween.

DIRECTED BY BERNARD L. KOWALSKI

Bernard L. Kowalski was still a very young filmmaker when he directed Attack of the Giant Leeches.

He went on to have a long career directing television, with credits spanning decades and including episodes of major series such as Mission: Impossible, Columbo, Baretta, The Rockford Files and Knight Rider.

Before all of that?

There were leeches.

WRITTEN BY LEO GORDON

The screenplay was written by Leo Gordon, a familiar character actor whose imposing appearance made him a natural for heavies, gunfighters and villains.

But Gordon also built a substantial career as a screenwriter.

Attack of the Giant Leeches gave him the opportunity to put the menace on the page instead of playing it himself.

THE SWAMP WASN’T REALLY FLORIDA

Although the story takes place in the Florida Everglades, the production did not haul its cast and giant rubber leeches across the country.

The movie was filmed in California, with locations standing in for the mysterious Florida swamps.

A little water, some vegetation, careful camera angles and several enormous leeches were apparently all that was required to transform California into the Everglades.

A DOUBLE FEATURE BUILT FOR THE DRIVE-IN

Attack of the Giant Leeches was released by American International Pictures, the company that became synonymous with inexpensive exploitation films aimed heavily at teenage and drive-in audiences.

The movie was paired with A Bucket of Blood, Roger Corman’s wonderfully dark horror comedy starring Dick Miller.

That meant audiences could buy one ticket and get murderous beatnik art AND giant bloodsucking leeches.

Now THAT is a night at the movies.

AINTOID: KEEP THEM ALIVE

Perhaps the creepiest thing about these particular monsters is that they do not necessarily kill their victims immediately.

The leeches drag people into their underwater cavern and keep them there while feeding upon them.

That simple idea gives the movie some genuinely disturbing imagery underneath all the creature-feature fun.

AINTOID: THE TITLE IS THE SALES PITCH

Independent filmmakers of the period understood the extraordinary power of a title.

Attack of the Giant Leeches does not require an elaborate explanation.

There are giant leeches.

They attack.

Buy a ticket.

Sometimes marketing really can be that simple.

AINTOID: ANOTHER CORMAN CULT CLASSIC

Roger Corman's extraordinary career eventually included hundreds of films as director, producer or executive producer, and he became famous for recognizing young talent.

Filmmakers and actors who worked within the Corman world over the years included Francis Ford Coppola, Martin Scorsese, Peter Bogdanovich, Jonathan Demme, Jack Nicholson and many others.

Attack of the Giant Leeches comes from the wonderfully scrappy independent filmmaking universe that helped make Corman a legend.

AINTOID: CREATURE FEATURE PERFECTION

Attack of the Giant Leeches runs barely over an hour.

It does not waste much time explaining itself.

We have a swamp.

We have missing people.

We have enormous bloodsucking monsters.

We have screaming.

We have dynamite.

And then we are done.

Sometimes that is exactly what a monster movie should be.

DATE RELEASED

October 1959

COUNTRY RELEASED