L'Attaque des sangsues géantes

Encore un film d’horreur de série B à petit budget produit par les frères Corman dans les années 50. Cette fois-ci, on a des gens affublés d’un sac couvert de ventouses géantes, le tout censé évoquer des sangsues ayant grandi hors de proportion. Le scénario est terne (Leo Gordon est un acteur brillant, mais un scénariste médiocre) et le jeu d’acteurs est catastrophique – le fait que Bruno VeSota me semble le meilleur veut tout dire. De plus, la scène finale donne l’impression que les acteurs n’ont reçu aucune instruction de la part du réalisateur ; une fois les sangsues vaincues, ils se contentent d’afficher un regard hébété puis de se disperser. C’est mauvais, très mauvais ! (09/11/2018)

Poster tagline: CRAWLING HORROR!!! RISING FROM THE DEPTHS OF HELL TO KILL AND CONQUER!!! An utterly unlikeable film. What I love about the sci-fi movies of the Golden Age, even if some of them are silly, is the charming naivety with which they were made, including the cute sets, the costumes, the make-up, etc. But in this case, Corman's calculating approach offers no such thing – "We've got one camera, two cheap costumes and a swamp, let's put something together in a few days!" Cheapness oozes from every frame of the film (as one contemporary review wittily noted - ".... the budget wouldn't cover the catering costs of another normal film..."), the lighting is non-existent, so most of the scenes set at night are drowned in darkness, the exteriors of the Pasadena Arboretum are drab, ugly, repulsive, and visually uninteresting, and the giant leeches are only occasionally and briefly (one might want to say "fortunately") glimpsed. I give one star for the few shots from the cave with the prisoners, which at least remotely resemble a horror atmosphere, otherwise avoid this miserable hour. (15/04/2015)

As a monster movie, Attack of the Giant Leaches is utterly hopeless and as completely useless as anything else. The titular giant leeches appear on the screen for a total of five minutes and the rest of the film consists of insipid soap-operatic quarrels among Southern hillbillies and scenes of swamps accompanied by dialogue about something fishy happening in those swamps. (26/06/2016)