These three were all blind buys for me. I’d never seen any of them before, and only one disappointed.
ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES (1959)
This creature feature came as a double feature with my Blu-ray upgrade of Night of the Blood Beast. It’s another lost treasure that is clearly a precursor to so many tried and true tropes of horror to this day. It’s an absolute gem, beginning with the awesome old school horror organ music and a fisherman in dark, murky waters at night when he spots something horrific in the water.
Quite contemporary in presentation, it has a sexy as hell cop with a furry chest on the case as people go missing, a slutty bombshell who is cheating on her slovenly husband with a hot young man, and some eerie underwater segments with the giant leech monsters.
Rather than killing victims, the leeches bring them to an underwater lair, where they then suck the blood out of them, slowly draining them of energy in the process. Eek!
There’s a scene of dead bodies floating to the surface (awesome), an underwater rescue mission to find survivors, and a plan to take out the leeches once and for all. Perfect.
EYES WITHOUT A FACE (1960)
While it’s not terrifying by today’s standards, if you watch this French film within the scope of the year in which it was released, it will shock you that the movie goes where it does and is as graphic as it is. It is so clearly the precursor to so many horror movies we’ve been treated to since.
The story is simple if not somewhat slow. A mad scientist is delving into transplanting organs…and skin. His daughter’s face was terribly disfigured in a car accident, so he keeps her hidden away and wearing a mask until he can perfect face transplants. He also rewrote her accident as a disappearance.
Now, his devoted assistant lures young women to his isolated home so that he can attempt to peel off their faces and transfer them to his daughter’s face. And he does, in graphic detail. I really can’t believe this movie was allowed to be released in the early sixties.
While the daughter’s mask is creepy and “faceless” for good reason as she lurks around her home and father’s lab trying to learn what he is really up to, just like Frankenstein, the scientist is the real monster.
Meanwhile, there are detectives closing in on the truth.
The concept is truly horrific when you realize that not only is the daughter suffering from the loss of her face, but she is also being re-traumatized each time a transplant fails, further damaging her fragile psyche. Naturally, the only recourse is for her to stop the madness. By today’s standards this might seem like a cookie cutter concept, but this one actually made the mold and is a must-see for those dedicated to horror history.
VENOM (1981)
This is one you definitely don’t want to blind buy, even if you are obsessed with 80s horror as much as I am. This is possibly one of the weakest “nature strikes back” flicks of the era, despite starring both Oliver Reed and Klaus Kinski.
They are part of a trio that plans to abduct a boy from a wealthy family. However, due to a mix-up at the pet shop, the boy brings home the wrong snake…a deadly one that immediately gets out.
This all happens so quickly, as does Reed panicking, shooting a cop outside, and leaving us with a movie about a trio of kidnappers trapped in a building with a deadly snake slithering through the vents, complete with snake POV.
Much of the time is filled with conflicts between the kidnappers and the police plotting how they are going to infiltrate the building. There is very little in the way of snake attack action. It’s a total bore. And naturally, there’s a cliché, hatched egg final frame. Yawn.
