Movie Review #6

Attack of the Giant Leaches

Shock Value: 3 of 33
Queasiness: 9 of 33
Suspense: 8 of 34
Total Scare: 20 of 100

I'm sure this movie was covered by Mystery Science Theater 3000 or some such show, and while there were several parts that I thought I could add my own bit of cheap comic wit I have to say this movie almost compares with some of the other horrible monster movies they make these days (how about Lake Placid, for example?) The movie begins with one character coming into close contact with one of the monsters and scaring it off, of course no one believes him until people start dying. The giant leaches kill off four or five people before being killed themselves, and these leaches didn't just kill people, but they kidnapped them then held them hostage for a while and killed them slowly... kind of gruesome for such an old movie, eh? The movie's scary parts consisted of showing 1) the monsters themselves and 2)the bloody victims with sucker marks on their bodies. The monsters were way too fake, they should have kept them “in the shadows” more often. The victims looked like they were just dirty, only once did the marks on the bodies look like blood. There were a lot of “suspenseful” moments, but many times these moments turned into boring parts.

My favorite part of the movie was related to the setting. These giant leaches dragged their victims underwater to an underground cave. While it was hard to believe I thought it was pretty creative. Their victims could be helplessly trapped beyond the other town folk and still be alive.

There were too many references to coffee, I was starting to wonder if the coffee was spiked with something that was making them all hallucinate. Also, Steve, the hero of our story was called by his name in almost every scene. Steve was the tall-dark-and handsome man but he was just such a pig-head when it came to using the dynamite. Steve worked for the state, so Steve would have to go through a lot of paper work to get the dynamite authorized. Steve was kind of shocked when his girlfriend went behind his back and her and her father went to use the dynamite themselves. At first it was just to dredge up the bodies of the victims that they just knew had to be underwater. The shock wave freed some of the bodies from the cave, and that convinced Steve to go scuba-diving. Even though the large gun used earlier in the movie had absolutely no effect on the monsters, his harpoon gun was sure to get them. Steve killed one of the Giant Leaches and then the last victim's body floated to the surface, so now that there weren't any more hostages they could just wipe out the rest of the monsters (whatever they were, it was now hypothesized that the radiation emitted from the rockets at Cape Canaveral must have cause the genetic mutations) so they put over 100 sticks of 40% dynamite into the lake and blew it up, killing all (?) of the giant leaches.

One of my favorite scenes was when Steve saved the girl early on in the movie, he was holding a gun, and when she was embracing him (out of fear? Or something more?) he was pointing the gun right at her, maybe he was more scared of her than the monster that was chasing her? It was her fault, after all, that they got pulled into that mess.