NIGHT OF THE BLOOD BEAST
B&W, 1958, 62 mins. 1 sec.
Directed by Bernard L. Kowalski
Starring Michael Emmet, Angela Greene, John Baer, Ed Nelson, Georgianna Carter, Tyler McVey
Film Masters (Blu-ray & DVD) (US RA/R1 HD/NTSC)

ATTACK OF THE GIANT LEECHES
B&W, 1959, 62 mins. 43 secs.
Directed by Bernard L. Kowalski
Starring Ken Clark, Yvette Vickers, Jan Shepard, Michael Emmet, Walter Kelley
Film Masters (Blu-ray & DVD) (US RA/R1 HD/NTSC), Anolis (Blu-ray) (Germany RB HD)

Continuing its line of double Night of the Blood Beastfeature salutes to the productions of Roger and Gene Corman, Night of the Blood BeastFilm Masters turns its sights to a pair of drive-in favorites from just Gene directed by a young gun for hire, Bernard L. Kowalski, who went on to a busy TV career (including the spooky Black Noon) and the beloved '70s snake-man favorite, Sssssss. Both titles have floundered around in the public domain wasteland for a long time (and were famously ribbed on Mystery Science Theater 3000), but their presentation here should make plenty of monster movie fans very happy.

First up is the sci-fi / horror hybrid Night of the Blood Beast, a cheapie shot in Hollywood including location work around the familiar Bronson Canyon. When astronaut John Corcoran (Emmet) dies during a history-making space launch and crashes into the woods, his body is taken back for study due to strange anomalies in his physiology and at the impact site. His doctor fiancé Julie (Greene) is among the researchers including Dr. Alex Wyman (McVey) and techs Steve Dunlap (Baer), Dave Randall (Nelson), and Donna Bixby (Carter), they find themselves stranded without communication. When Corcoran shockingly revives at the same time a creature outside is skulking around, it turns out he's serving as the host for alien embryos that could pose a threat to the future of humanity itself.

Very much in line with '50s alien creature features with a particular debt Night of the Blood Beastto The Thing from Another World and The Quatermass Experiment (with a dash of "we know what's good for Earth" speechifying a la The Day the Earth Stood Still), this is a taut Night of the Blood Beastand entertaining programmer with a few moments more grisly than you'd expect including some head severing that made it way to the poster art. First show as a companion film with She Gods of Shark Reef, this wasn't advertised with any of its sci-fi elements at all (which is amusing since it was conceived under the title Creature from Galaxy 27), but either way it's quite fun with a couple of striking grotto monster scenes seasoned into the usual hand wringing over an external threat to the human race.

Released the following year, Attack of the Giant Leeches (or just The Giant Leeches in many engagements) most definitely is a straightforward monster movie, albeit with some trendy atomic mutation tossed into the mix. Despite the fact that it features oversized leeches pouncing on people around the Florida Everglades, this one is especially remembered for the unforgettable screen presence of smoldering femme fatale Yvette Vickers, who had just earned an entire generation of fans in the prior year's Attack of the 50 Foot Woman. This time she plays Liz, a married backwoods bad girl who's having a fling on the side with Cal Attack of the Giant Leeches(Emmet). Meanwhile game warden Steve (Clark) and his war buddy Mike (Kelley) are investigating disappearances in Attack of the Giant Leechesthe area, and we already know from the title that it's those huge leeches snatching folks up and dragging them to a hidden cave.

Sweaty and trashy entertainment straight from the swamp, Giant Leeches gives you exactly what you'd want with that title. The monster mayhem is good enough as far as it goes (and the suits aren't bad), but it's really the overheated melodrama here that makes this one stick with a solid sense of location that will make you want to flip on the air conditioner no matter where you are.

Both films fell into the public domain and have been around in numerous horrible VHS and DVD editions over the years. On the Film Masters release (which gives each film its own disc regardless of whether you go for Blu-ray or DVD), Blood Beast gets a very dramatic upgrade here with an impressive 4K scan of what it only cited as 35mm archival materials (mostly a 35mm original release print), it looks great and blows away anything we've had before. Viewing options are "theatrical" (1.85:1) or "TV" (1.33:1) of equal quality; to these eyes the latter is preferable framing-wise but either one is fine. Giant Leeches is simply cited as an HD master and looks the same as the one seen on an earlier German Blu-ray, though matted down a bit more to 1.85:1 here versus the Attack of the Giant Leechesearlier 1.55:1. As usual you a DTS-HD MA 2.0 English mono track and a Dolby Digital one with optional English SDH subtitles. Both films come with new audio commentaries by Tom Weaver (who also provides the thorough insert booklet essay) Attack of the Giant Leechesand interview recreation voice artists (billed as "The Weaver Players") representing his conversations over the years with various personnel. He covers plenty about the costume creations, the minutiae of the music scores by Alexander Laszlo, the director and Gene Corman, Vickers' notoriously tragic death, and plenty more (with multiple gripes in the second film about scenes where "nothing happens"). Both films also have newly reconstructed versions of their respective theatrical trailers, using the latest scans as source material. You also get the full SD episodes of MST3K for Blood Beast (91m44s) and Giant Leeches (91m37s), and in "Born from T.V.: Bernard Kowalski as a Director" (27m), C. Courtney Joyner covers the history of the Texas-born filmmaker including his development working on one-hour television programs, the lessons from episodic dramas on his features, and his career after these films including extensive work in westerns. Also included are a Vickers slideshow (2m12s), a Super 8 cutdown of Blood Beast (6m56s), a publicity slideshow for both films (2m22s), and a Blood Beast restoration comparison (2m38s).

Reviewed on November 13, 2024