Attack of the Giant Leeches stops more than ends. Some plot elements seem to go unresolved, but since the film never actually explains those stakes, maybe they don’t. Director Kowalski likes long lingering shots implying giant leech attacks, except there’s little distinction between ominous shots with leeches and those without. Since the characters never pay attention to the ominous spots, just the camera… no one, human or leech, can say.

The film opens with redneck George Cisar shooting at one of the giant leeches. Does Cisar kill it? Never resolved. What are Cisar’s later motivations, which put him in the same vicinity as wayward wife Vickers? Never resolved. Yvette Vickers isn’t Cisar’s wayward wife, but rather Bruno VeSota’s.

Approximately a sixth of the film are fat-shaming comments directed at VeSota. He owns the only general store in the swamps, so the locals hang out there. And lust after Vickers, who finds VeSota an unpleasant and undesirable life partner.

Given the second half of the film usually involves Vickers being bled by the giant leeches, one forgets the character flaws and defaults toward empathy. Though Kowalski makes sure everyone remembers even if Vickers is in mortal peril and bloody, we can still ogle her gams.

See, Vickers is carrying on with Michael Emmet, the best-looking swamp fella. Emmet’s performance proves wanting. He does okay enough with the accent–they’re all going for one redneck exploitation trope or another–but there’s nothing else to the performance. Emmet kind of gets the accent; nothing else matters.

Top-billed Ken Clark is from out of town and isn’t asked to attempt an accent. He’s the federal game warden, and if there are giant leeches, he ought to know about them. He teams up with girlfriend Jan Shepard’s dad, played by Tyler McVey, to investigate mysterious goings on. Most of the film’s hour and change runtime–at least when Clark does show–has Shepard getting mad at Clark disagreeing with McVey, then not being able to react authentically because… what’s she going to do, not make the men sandwiches? Come on, now.

So even though Shepard tags along with Clark during the boat rides, she doesn’t get anything to do. Possibly because she’s not all about the gams.

Now, Leeches could be a “hide the monster and have them hunt,” but the filmmakers apparently thought the audiences wouldn’t stand (or stay seated) if they didn’t show off the monsters. The Giant Leeches are (visibly) trash bags with accruement. And then, obviously, the giant sucking mouth thing. Except the leeches don’t really look like anything–a giant star-shaped trash bag covered in flaccid teeth. Leeches goes all in on the blood to compensate for the fakery. All of the victims are covered in open sores where the giant leeches feed. And the victims spend lots of their time screaming in agony. It’s a bizarre vibe at times.

While Vickers’s abject terror is often the best acting, otherwise, the most reliable is Gene Roth as the sheriff who thinks Clark’s falling for the ramblings of drunken swamp folk. Roth never gets any pay-off (no one does, except maybe Emmet and pay-off’s a stretch); he maintains a consistency the other actors cannot.

Technically, Giant Leeches actually impresses. Sadly, only because they manage to make the Los Angeles County Arboretum and Botanic Garden look like wherever in the coastal South it’s taking place. Overall, John M. Nickolaus Jr.’s photography is no great shakes (there’s so much day-for-night, and none of it’s good). Still, he and Kowalski make the botanic garden in California look unlike a botanic garden in California.

If the ending had landed at all, the garbage bag monsters would’ve been fine.