In this sweat-soaked early AIP cheapie, the giant leeches are shaped like Robby the Robot covered in slime and vixen Yvette Vickers is shaped like the hour-glass you’d expect from Playboy’s Playmate of the Month, July 1959.
And speaking of lots of stuff crammed into oh-so-tight confines, this hour-long movie lays a lot of drama on us about how Vickers is cheating on her husband (rotund, drive-in movie mainstay Bruno VeSota) with some muscled stud of the Florida swamps. Meanwhile, we look forward to more giant killer leech monster action. We don’t get much of it, but when we do, it’s pretty good. Also, the film’s dirt-cheap, slapped-together ambiance, full of soap opera organ music and shadows aplenty in a dark and remote setting is compelling in its own right for the drive-in inclined.
Produced by Roger Corman. Directed by Texas native Bernard L. Kowalski, early in a career that that would lead to a long and busy run of television work, with a small smattering of features. His most famous film is either this or Sssssss, the ridiculous killer snake flick from 1973. Kowalski made movies about leeches and snakes. Sadly, he never got around to making horror films about crawdads, mosquitoes or nutria.