Attack of the Giant Leeches (1959) - produced by Gene Corman

In the Florida Everglades, hillbilly Lem Sawyer (George Cisar), sees a man-shaped thing with suckers on its arms in the water, and shoots at it. Lem takes another swig from his jug and rows his boat on. Lem, tells his story to a bunch of locals hanging out in Walker’s General Store. They tell him he’s been drinking too much.

Big fat Dave Walker (Bruno VeSota), the owner of the general store, argues with his unfaithful wife, Liz Walker (Yvette Vickers). She’s going out, but won’t tell him where.

Backwoods game warden, Steve Benton (Ken Clark), is out on the swamp putting animals out of their misery, aided by his girlfriend, Nan Grayson (Jan Sheppard). The two start to kiss, but are interrupted by a scream. It’s Liz, and she’s found a dead man. It’s Lem. Steve knows that it wasn’t an alligator attack, but the sheriff says it was.

Nan's father, Doc Grayson (Tyler McVey), explains squids and octopuses to Steve and Nan. There’s no way these salt-water creatures could be living in their swamp, so it’s a bit of a mystery.

Dave’s out in the swamp with a shotgun, searching, and he finds Liz cheating on him with his friend, Cal Moulton (Michael Emmet). Dave chases the couple through the swamp at gunpoint. Suddenly, a pair of larger-than-human, intelligent leeches come up behind Cal and Liz and take them.

The sheriff offers a fifty dollar reward if someone can find the bodies. Dave is arrested, everyone knew his wife was fooling around and just assumed that Dave killed the pair. They and soon find him hanging in his cell.

Two locals hunt for Liz and Cal's missing bodies, to get the $50 per body. They think it’s odd that they haven’t seen any gators in this swamp. The leeches capsize their boat and drag the men down to their secret underwater cave lair. Cal and Liz are there, but they aren’t dead. The leeches are keeping them alive and slowly feeding on them, draining their victims of blood.

The townspeople head to the swamp to search for the two most recently missing men. They also note the lack of gators. Doc uses explosives to bomb the swamp. Three bodies float to the surface. Liz is still alive in the cave.

Steve and Mike swim into the swamp with spear guns, and scuba equipment. The sheriff and his men watch from shore. Steve shoots one of the creatures. Liz floats to the surface, dead and covered in sucker-marks. Steve and Mike attack the leech, driving it off.

The creatures are destroyed when Steve, Doc and the state troopers drop a dynamite into the swamp. However, in the final moments the leeches distinctive sucking sounds are heard, suggesting they may still be alive.

An independently made, 1959 black & white science fiction-horror B-movie (a/k/a "Demons of the Swamp," originally to be called "The Giant Leeches"), directed by Bernard L. Kowalski, produced by Gene Corman, screenplay by Leo Gordon, cinematography by John M. Nickolaus Jr., starring Ken Clark, Yvette Vickers, Bruno VeSota, Gene Roth, Jan Shepard, Michael Emmet, Dan White, and George Cisar.

Author Stephen King said, as a kid, he had a huge crush on actress Yvette Vickers in this movie. Vickers promoted the film by appearing as the Playmate centerfold in the July 1959 issue of Playboy Magazine, several months prior to the film's release by American International Pictures on a double bill with "A Bucket of Blood" (1959). Later, in some areas in 1960, it played on a double bill with the Roger Corman's "House of Usher" (1960).

Producers Roger and Gene Corman begged special effects artist Paul Blaisdell to create the leech costumes for the film, but Blaisdell said the effects budget was so minute, it wouldn't have even covered the cost of the materials he would need to make the creature suits. The costumes were eventually designed by actor Ed Nelson and Gene Corman's wife, each contributing ideas. Some reference sources say the monster suits were constructed from black raincoats that were stitched together, while others say black plastic garbage bags were used.

Shot over eight days utilizing the same basic crew as "Night of the Blood Beast"(1958) and existing sets on the Chaplin backlot, including outdoor sequences at the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden. Producer Gene Corman, brother of Roger Corman, refused to pay the grips extra money for pushing the camera raft while they were filming in the Pasadena Arboretum in the water. So, at first, first Kowalski and his brother did it, and later Corman put on a bathing suit and did it himself, came down with a bout of pneumonia, and wound up in a hospital for a few days.

This was one of a trilogy of films Bernard Kowalski made for the Corman brothers, and one of the many "creature features" produced during the 1950s in response to Cold War fears. In the film speculation says the leeches mutated to giant size by atomic radiation from Cape Canaveral.

Film critic Leonard Maltin awarded the film 1.5 out of 4 stars, calling it a "ludicrous hybrid of white trash and monster genres".