406-Attack of the Giant Leeches

Film Year:  1959
Genre:  Horror
Director:  Bernard L. Kowalski
Starring:  Ken Clark, Yvette Vickers, Jan Shepard
MST Season:  4
Featured Short:  "Undersea Kingdom:  Chapter One - Beneath the Ocean Floor"

The Short

This serial's about to get soggy!  It's the Undersea Kingdom!  Life under the sea has seemingly been discovered.  Is it the lost city of Atlantis?  A generic batch of gung-ho, rag-tag serial adventurers goes exploring, only to be attacked in the process.

Undersea Kingdom is more Commando Cody than Phantom Creeps.  And yet an attack from Atlantis seems a bit more colorful than a rocket man punching the space men over and over again.  I'm not entirely sure how Undersea Kingdom played out, because we saw a lot less of it than we did of Radar Men from the Moon, but this first chapter is daffy fun.  It won't win any converts into the serial fan club, but those who like them will enjoy this tasty spoonful.

The Movie

Produced by the mighty Corman sibling moguls, Roger and Gene, Attack of the Giant Leeches is pretty self explanatory based on just knowing who made it and its title.  A bunch of rednecks in Florida find themselves terrorized by giant leech people (GASP) where they are drug underwater and slowly drained of their blood for days.  Its up to people playing with matches and dynamite to do the American thing and blow them straight to hell.

About what you'd expect for a Corman funded film about blood-sucking monsters, Attack of the Giant Leeches doesn't hold any surprises.  It's a very small scale film that takes place in only a handful of locations.  Given how remote and tucked away the titular leeches are, it seems like it would be plenty easy to avoid them.  But no, people just keep walking right into their territory because we have to have some sort of body count.

Of minor note, the movie actually does offer a minor disturbing scene in which the leeches' victims, too weak to escape, are trapped in a cavern and fed upon at will.  It provides a situation that in a better movie could have been claustrophobic and haunting.  Attack of the Giant Leeches doesn't do a lot with it, but it gets points for providing an almost unsettling idea.  The movie on the whole is a bit of a dry bore full of unlikable characters.  Suck 'em dry, who cares.

Creature from the Black Lagoon this is not.

The Episode

Serials are back for the first time since they gave up on The Phantom Creeps in season two.  This time they choose Undersea Kingdom, a fantasy romp that gives them a lot of ripe cheese.  It's apparent how much more confident they are with this than the were with previous serials as they fire on all cylinders at such a rapid rate of funny that there are very few moments without a laugh.  However it must be said there is more event and less monotony in both the first and last chapters of just about any serial you can name, so the challenge of riffing such a thing has hardly presented itself.  The real hurdles would have been latter on, however they only riffed one more chapter before giving up on serials entirely.

The proceeding feature film portion isn't quite as lively and fun as Undersea Kingdom, but with a movie this dreary and dour the pace was always going to slow down.  Luckily Joel and the Bots are still jazzed up from the short and it's going to take more than a slow-paced public domain film to get them down!  They keep the mood fun, probably more fun than this movie deserved.  Even when the film gets dark the riffs stay light and playful, and while full on laughter doesn't quite ensue there is a constant stream of giggles put forth.  This riff is consistent and fun to watch.

The host segments lead off with an unexpected, and quite hilarious, part two to the final segment in Being from Another Planet, in which Joel has been attempting to shut off his clown simulation on the Hexfield for three weeks!  The clowns have since grown creepy and agitated, BUT THEY WANT TO LIVE!  This segment is a favorite of mine.  There's also a great song in this episode, "A Danger to Ourselves and Others," which keeps the lighthearted spirit of the theater mocking the stupidity of the film alive.  The other segments are more casual, but entertaining.  The Invention Exchange provides a movie-based gag where a leech is attached to Frank and grows to tremendous size, while the Insty-Adolescent Kit is more or less just an excuse to make teenager jokes (though I do love Servo's "I DON'T CARE!  I DON'T CARE!  I DON'T CARE!" as he enters the theater).

Attack of the Giant Leeches doesn't provide enough laugh-out-loud moments for me to consider it a season best, there's a lot of clever wit to the episode.  I'm impressed that they did this well with this particular movie because this could easily have been one to stumble on (much like the following episode, Killer Shrews).  Giant Leeches is an episode I don't think about often, but when I watch it I find myself enjoying it quite a bit.

Good

The DVD

This episode was released on Rhino's Volume 6 collection.  Picture and audio were both exceptional and there were no special features.  Shout re-released this volume also without special features.

The Undersea Kingdom short was featured on the Serial Variety Pack bonus disc with Volume XXVII, along with its sequel.