THE 31 MOVIES OF HORROR-WEEN: MOVIE #13: ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES (2008) **

(Streamed via Fawesome)

Since so many movies from the ‘50s and ‘60s have lapsed into the public domain, virtually anybody can remake them without paying for the rights.  Because of that, I’m surprised many fledgling low budget horror directors don’t take advantage of the opportunity to remake a film with a recognizable title and release it.  You’re almost guaranteed that some sucker (like me) will stumble upon it and watch it.  

The great thing about remaking an old (I say “old” and not “classic”) horror movie like Attack of the Giant Leeches is that you can update it to fit the modern times.  And by “update”, I mean you can put things in your film that just wouldn’t fly during the time of the original’s release.  For example, this version of Attack of the Giant Leeches contains a slow-motion water gun fight between sexy girls wearing cutoff shorts and bikini tops AND a part where a guy gets bitten on the dick by a giant leech… all BEFORE the title card appears on screen.  If you can’t already tell, writer/director Brett (Raiders of the Lost Shark) Kelly knows how to get things started off on the right foot.  

From there, the film follows the basic outline of the original.  A sleazy restaurant owner (Jody Hauke) is constantly bickering with his much-younger, hot-to-trot wife (Shawna McSheffrey).  Meanwhile, giant leeches are in the swamp killing off wildlife before setting their sights on humans.  A young game warden (Mark Courneyea) is baffled by the sudden appearance of corpses drained of all their blood, and because he didn’t see the first part of the movie (or the 1959 original), he doesn’t know that the leeches are the ones responsible.  

Speaking of leeches, the rubbery leeches are OK, I guess.  They look more like tentacles than the creatures from the first movie, which for me was a bit of a miscalculation.  I for one kind of miss the monsters from the original that looked like stuntmen wearing trash bags.  At least Kelly resisted the temptation to make the creatures CGI.

I have to give it to Kelly.  The stuff that hews closest to the original movie is pretty dull and talky.  (Just like the original.)  However, whenever he’s doing his own thing (the aforementioned bikini girls getting into water gun fights), it’s not too shabby.   I imagine if he added some gratuitous sex and gore into the mix, it would’ve been even better as this version is just about as chaste and bloodless as the original.  Ultimately, Attack of the Giant Leeches isn’t all that great, but at least it doesn’t completely suck.