User reviews

The movie was bad. But the guys playing in it made it possible to for me to see it until the end. I really don’t know what kind of budget they had for this movie, I am sure it wasn’t that much, but the director did a good job. The shots seemed weird but they served their purpose: not to see the hands! When you see the movie you will understand what I mean with the “hands”! For the money they must have had, I really thought they did a pretty good job although some sounds, like the heartbeat when the leeches came, made me want to break the TV screen! The positive of this movie was the director who had some interesting findings to make his movie work. On the other hand the movie didn’t work that well in the end! But I found it pretty interesting watching and learning how the director worked with what he had in every scene and made it possible for this movie to come out. Really don’t expect much, it’s not that good. For those who love low budget movies you will love this one. It is one of the worst and it is an honor I think for a horror movie to be one of the bottom. First the octopus in “Bride Of The Monster”, now the leeches in “Leeches!”. The actors had to do what Lugosi had done then!! Sorry for not saying more you will have to see it!

I've got a friend who plays on my masochistic urges. He tries to dig up the worst movies that he can because he knows I'll watch anything once. 'Leeches' was his most recent bid to break my spirit. It is pretty far from great, but it is no worse than you might expect it to be. This is actually a very good time to 'judge a book by its cover.' Everything you need or want to know is there.

In fairness, the film is not trying to be anything more than a low-level exploitation film. A similarly masochistic buddy of mine watched it with me and we actually found it hilariously funny in a couple of spots. The acting is total cheeseball and the dialogue is ridiculous. The film is charged with homo-eroticism. Come on, it is just hilarious the number of shower scenes that take place, and the fact that all of the guys go into slow motion when they undress to go swimming.

The leeches are pretty funny. They move very slowly ... until they attack. Then suddenly they become piranhas and move with lightening speed. The leeches also have high pitched squeaky voices. Oh yes, this is a special film.

If I was going to be generous I would say you could watch this film as a satire of teen monster movies or that it is maybe a message film -- "Steroids are BAD!" You'll be happier if you watch it and just revel in the b-movie humour. A lot of it is unintentional and the actors all take their parts with a hilarious degree of seriousness. What little hope there might have been for this movie was spoiled by a completely random plot twist in the last moments of the movie.

I was going to list a series of questions that the movie had brought up for me, like why a competitive swim team with an Olympic sized pool would need to swim in a leech infested lake. I don't really want to waste anymore time on this movie though and I hope anyone reading this is doing it pre-emptively. I love bad movies but this is just garbage, sprinkled with a side of unintentional humour.

Leeches is by far the worst movie I've had the "pleasure" of seeing this year. I love low budget creature-feature type flicks, but this one is unforgivably bad. It's also the most blatantly homo-erotic movie I've ever seen. Every two minutes there's a slow motion "buff guy undressing" scene for no reason. All the young male actors take off their shirts/pants (in gratuitous slow motion) for no reason at all, even during the horror scenes. Seriously, you have to see it to believe it, it's awful. The leech attacks are a series of strobe effects and bizarre editing, this is one horrible crappy flick. AVOID! 1/10

There is no reason why this movie is as bad as it is. wait, yes there is. it was shot in six days and as far as i can tell, the budget went to location fees instead of talent. the movie was made b/c one of the actors "wanted to play a nerd," and it's just downhill from there.

the actors all look alike, and i can't tell whose character is who. for a campy horror movie, there is NO sex, not even nudity. and the leeches. the barely muppet-esque, hand puppet leeches. the pain. the agony.

i've watched some bad movies in my time, but this simply takes the cake. a bad aprody of a film student's final project, this is a flick to be avoided AT ALL COSTS. and when something isn't even worth the cost of a 99 cent rental...

it's just bad. out and out painfully, not even mockably bad.

I finally meet a monster movie I did not like, what a sad day. This seems to be a movie designed around shirtless men/boys. I gave up counting nipples at about 1000, sadly for me all men, good news for teen females I guess.

This is a monster movie, so lets talk about the monsters. What a joke, I could see the string in one scene dragging a lump of green rubber shaped like a turd, across the floor. Woo! That scared the crap out of me. Rest of the time it was a unconvincing hand puppet.Just brutal.

Acting sucked, Story was poor, sets were boring, and my time was wasted. I did like this better then "speeddemons" but that is not saying much.

I can not recommend this movie to a "B" movie monster film lover, or anyone else for that matter, avoid it.

This is by no means a good horror movie other than sitting around to make fun of it. My friends and I have entire bad horror movie marathons, just to get a kick out of how bad they really are. We watched this Wednesday evening and laughed and laughed. It's not so terrible it's unwatchable, but watch it if you love good "bad" horror movies. It's akin to the 70's movie "Frogs" for the modern age and is still as crappy. Still, it's watchable, unless you're a homophobe and are too insecure to handle shots of male chests and legs and the occasional butt shot. Most people rate it badly because of this, but since I am secure with my heterosexualness, I don't need to judge it solely on the fact that it seems to have gay undertones. (even though there's no gay couples what so ever)

Campy fun reminiscent of William Castle's classic "The Tingler." Never takes itself too seriously as rather obvious hand puppet leeches crawl up victim's bodies. Not sure why people think this film is "gay." Gosh, boys on swimming endurance team wearing Speedos. What else would they wear? If a woman directed this picture no one would make such an outrageous observation. When two boys strip off their baggy swim trunks to shower in their Speedos we get the feeling that the director is being a little too cautious about offending homophobic straight males. "Porky's" (1982) showed far more male nudity, including frontal, and the boys in the Annette Funicelo-Frankie Avalon "Beach" movies were shirtless more often that these guys. This is one of the better DeCoteau outings: beautiful location work and a good-looking cast (a departure from the pimply 1950s teens this film pays homage to). The shower scene with the leeches is an interesting blend of Alfred Hitchcock's "Psycho" shower murder and the attic bird attack in "The Birds." (This victim showers in his underwear, alone in his own house -- I guess that saves doing laundry?) Like most modern horror epics this is more of an ensemble story with too many characters that lead to dead-end plot lines (no pun intended). This would have been a better film with a smaller cast and stronger character development. Curious R rating, apparently for steroid use. Violence is bloody but make believe. Watch it as a double feature with "The Tingler."

Did someone make a research before this movie? At the Olympic games, they said that swimming is one of the only sports where steroid decrease the performance of an athlete. Also, just a look at Zoboomafoo and we know that these creatures don't have the real life style of the leeches! Just to say that nobody made a minimum of research!!!

Also, everything looks like fake in this awful film: monstrous leeches, small leeches, the school lab and even the glasses of the "bright guy"! It was like to watch a Baywatch episode, but where boys replaced all the girls. Worse, it was like a skin flick, but the sex in less, just a director who loves male body. He film them at the lake, running shirtless on the campus, at pool, laying in the bed and in the shower with a water spray which make a cast of their muscles. And tell me why everybody in this movie takes its shower with Speedo or boxers! Would it have also been necessary to make a research on how taking its shower to make it real!?

LEECHES! (love that retro exclamation point! :-) turns what could have been another low-budget schlock horror flick into good creepy unpretentious fun, thanks to the witty, twisty script by Michael Gingold (of FANGORIA Magazine fame) and the stylish direction of David DeCoteau. The scaly-scary leech puppets are well-done considering the tight F/X budget, and the swim team angle provides a nice excuse to watch the cast of hotties writhe around in as little clothing as possible -- *yum!* ;-) Gingold freshens the Nature Goes Nuts plot by making the leeches' deadly transformation the result of sucking on the swimmers' steroid-rich blood -- so you see, LEECHES! is not only an effective horror film, it provides a strong subtext about the dangers of relying on steroids to enhance athletic performance, not to mention swimming in unknown waters! :-) The leech-attack set pieces were staged suspensefully and inventively (I won't go into detail because I don't want to spoil any surprises). My only complaint is the strobe-light-style transitions; I suspect director DeCoteau might have been trying to emulate the lightning motif he's used in previous movies (listen to his commentary on the DVD for more details), but I'm afraid I found these flashing transitions migraine-inducing (I'm not being snarky -- I am in fact a migraine sufferer). Luckily, these are only a very small part of this otherwise enjoyable popcorn flick; it's a fun rental for a lazy afternoon or night of horror movie-watching!

I had been trying to get this for a long time, it had no release in New Zealand, but I eventually found it on a trading website. I pretty much knew what to expect, and the film turned out to be as I suspected, utter trash. That's not to say that the film could have been more, because it probably could have been. Though this is the first David DeCoteau film I have seen, I had heard what they were like. The story was rather absurd, but so are a lot of other's that pass for films now-days. The only redeeming qualities for this film were firstly the array of hot guys in the speedoes parading around for most of the film, and secondly the classy chicks who all had great hair! (Weird, I know). A lot of the guys looked alike so it was sometimes hard to tell them apart, but once they all began to get killed, it didn't really matter. So if you want a d-grade movie with plenty of eye-candy, check this out, otherwise, stay away, as it may "Bleed you dry" like the tagline says.

Steroids for endurance swimmers? Sucking down pills of 'steroids' with whiskey, and belly buttons that look like ani.

If you are gay or very naieve you will like this movie. I hate every actor in this movie, and if they were actually eaten by leeches, that would be a very good thing. TERRIBLE, there is no point to list how many bad specific areas in how bad this movie.

TERRIBLE: Sprecial effects, gayness, dialogue so low you cant hear it. Homoertocism is what the purpose of this film apparently is. Its currently on sci-fi right now, I thought I would watch it to make fun of it, but when i realized just how bad this is, I had to go online to write this review, I'm going to turn it off and take a nap insead, and thats what I recommend rather than watching this movie. It doesn't even deserve the 2.8/10 it currently has. My score: -0.05/10

This is a specific target market: Gay men who love Horror films. It is not for woman who like seeing the flesh of men at all. Directed by super la cheapo David DeCoteau, who could bring any movie under budget. And it is not for heterosexual fans of horror either. Period! I have David's entire collection of these types of films. I surprise my friends with one every once in a while and they swoon. They love them! Someone -- with a sense of humor -- is actually smart enough to produce them and I'll bet they make a bundle. There is a market for this. It is not necessary to rip it apart. Yes. From the onset, anyone familiar with these films, (Voodoo Academy, Brotherhood et al.) knows what they're in for. Hot stupid guys with great asses running around in their underwear. The plots vary but who cares, the dialogue is straight from the 1950s Drive-In fare.

My favorite in this film, is the Leech coming up the leg of a sleeping hunk, right up to his lower ass, the Leech rears it's head and it looks like he's gonna plunge into the guy's . . . . I was laughing so hard. Alright, serious business here. David, please, please, please can't we have a couple of hot butt shots (naked)!! So. Hot studs. Underwear. Crazy plot. Acting not so good. DeCoteau's dazzling and interesting camera shots. What's not to like??

In what is possibly the most unscary horror film ever made, college students are having the blood sucked out of them by the terrible creatures in the title. Er.. why not just stay out of the water, then? Unfortunately, this bunch of morons are the stupidest people ever to graduate.. so we get scene after scene of them diving in, despite being given plenty of warnings about the danger. In fact, it is impossible to care whether they live or die after a while, their behaviour is so idiotic and suicidal. So instead, why not sit back and enjoy the plastic toys that are supposed to pass for leeches and the worse acting you'll see outside pantomime. And this little treasure was made in 2003. The mind boggles.. 0/10

I was expecting little from Leeches! in the first place, but that didn't stop me from hoping that it would be entertaining at least. Apart from maybe- big emphasis on maybe- having some entertainment value from how bad it is, Leeches! was everything a good movie should not be. It looks cheap for starters, the scenery is alright but the camera work is rushed and annoying and the special effects unfinished-looking and cartoonish. The dialogue has no real momentum, often very cheesy accentuated by the awkward line delivery, while the story is predictable and turgid and the characters stereotypical and irritating cardboard cutouts. The acting at best is very amateurish, and instead of having like a standout in a good or bad sense this is a standard of amateurishness that sees everybody on the same plane to one another. There is also nothing scary or suspenseful about Leeches!, partly because nobody seems to give a tuppence about what is happening or going to happen to them, partly because the leeches look and act in such a cartoony way and partly because all the attack scenes are shot too quick and reek of stupidity. So all in all, an awful movie, that might have some novelty value, where the only things attacked are your senses. 1/10 Bethany Cox

I'm not quite sure what to say other than this was quite possibly the worst movie I have ever seen. I felt, after watching it, that years had been sucked from my very life. It made me want to cry out and put my fist through the television. This movie is so terrible, its not even good enough to criticize a la Mystery Science Theatre. Save yourself, avoid this film. The special effects are below mediocre, the plot is simple enough for a young child, the scenes of "tension and fear" make one want to wretch at the, not even joke of an attempt at horror. The camera work can only be tolerated by someone with high motion sickness capacity, and the script, the script must have been shot out of Hell itself. This movie belongs at the bottom of a lake.

Why would a schlocky horror movie like this be on LOGO? The answer is very simple. It is about a swim team that takes steroids and there are lots of bare-chested guys running around in speedos.

Now, these guys love to strip and jump in the lake (No, no nudity), and the steroids transform the natural leeches into monsters. This has been done before by Roger Corman, and remade again in 2008. Why, I cannot imagine.

You will not believe the leeches. They are the cheapest monsters I have ever seen! So, if watching Josh Henderson is for you, then this is the film for Halloween.

Let me start off by stating that this is NOT the first David DeCoteau film that I have seen. I am actually familiar with his work, if that's what we'll refer to it as. It was disgusting to watch the many segways of homo-erotic behavior that Leeches promoted. Prior to viewing this, I had watched "Final Stab," which had also disappointed me. It featured two dudes making out. We don't need this stuff in a horror picture. Maybe I was just a little late in catching DeCoteau's subliminal messages that he was trying to reach across towards his audience. Many of the shots on "Leeches," had the slow motion effect at which time men were getting out of the lake and when they were changing into their speedos. There were a FEW WOMEN in this film that I would have enjoyed to watch strip down. Instead, DeCoteau wanted to focus more on the male gender. He killed the ladies off real quick. I guess that I was expecting a little more out of "Leeches." I had expectations that we could put it alongside "Slugs." Nope, instead DeCoteau can rank this crap alongside some of his other hideous projects, which include possibly the worst movie of all time "Creepazoids." If you are a horror fan, stay away because this was truly awful!

This movie has the dubious honour of being the absolute worst movie of all time. Too much to go into in detail......the awful acting, the plastic "monster" leeches moving as if someone is pulling a string, the "exploding" leech full of balloons, the awful and predictable plot line, etc, etc. However, this is nothing more than a soft-porn gay flick, disguised as a grade Z (worse than "B") sci fi horror movie. Slow panning shots of semi-naked boys' bodies, slow-motion boys emerging from the water or showering, leeches moving slowly up the boys' legs to their abs, to their chests, to their......you get my drift. Then, there are the "bondage" scenes with the young teenager tied to the bed, the hunky coach tied to the shower, and I could go on and on. Great movie if you're a gay male teenager and too afraid to go get a XXX movie from your local XXX shop. Enjoy it if you can.

Wow!!! David DeCoteau has assembled one of his Hottest casts and stuffed them all into tight swimming speedos to provide his fans with the type of movie we have been begging for! Fast paced, Entertaining and Sexy (with Greg Lyczkowsky, Josh Henderson and Matt Twinning in the cast how could it not be). If you are tired of movies in which the girls run around naked while the guys stay fully clothed, then this movie is for you. Also, don't let the R rating put you off; the blood/gore is kept to a minimum (I have seen more in PG-13 movies) and there is no nudity. The only reason this movie has an R rating is because of the personal feelings of the Censorship Board, I mean MPAA Board, who will allow women to show whatever they want but get uptight and nervous when guys take off their shirts.

Wow there are some hotties in this movie. As a young gay man and a horror movie buff I've always appreciated Decateou's films. There obviously not meant to be taken to seriously. But they're always a lot of fun. This one features less homeoertocism than the others and still doesn't deliver on a good hookup scene or even a kiss. But there are tight, buff, bodies everywhere with the most beautiful faces attachted to them check out Jason(I think I'm in Love). And as far as the movie goes, it's not half bad. Sure there's some cheesy dialogue,spfx and plot developments. However,these things add to the overall fun of the film giving it an 80's horror flick type feel. Now before I begin a film synopsis may I say that this a huge step up from the other fare Decateou has directed. The acting is about average, the direction is tight and the filming is stylish. And for all those bashers out there watch the other flix before tearing my just opinion apart. So it's like this, There's a swim team who takes steroids and hang out at a leech infested lake. The leeches bite them and mutate into giant super leeches that kill off members of their clan one by one. There really isn't a main charachter and no one is really all that developed. But his charachters have slightly more depth than your average teen thriller. They have moral dilemnas and in most cases are fully redeemed before meeting there untimely fates. So no matter whats your thing you curious guys out there and girls there are alot worse ways you could spend an evening.

Yes, I knew what I was getting into when I rented LEECHES! Yes, I know what kind of films Dave makes for Rapid Heart. Yes, I knew there would be non-stop guys-in-speedo scenes. And yes, I even knew this movie would be flawed.

So why did I see it?

Simple, I was on a swimteam back in the day and I thought: "What an interesting concept!"

Of course, all of the other thoughts in my head kept telling me "Stay away...stay away. You know what this is gonna turn out to be!" But I say to hell with it and rented it anyway.

All of what I thought did come true. Too many speedo shots, boring and obviously mechanical "leeches" and an ending so rushed and so dull I think I could have slapped one of the leeches on my and let it suck out my blood. Just to numb the pain of seeing this film.

Still, the fact of a swimteam taking on a "hord" of killer leeches was fun, funny and out of the norm!

Oh well...I am a sucker of b-movies and will be until my dying day. If they keep making them. I'll keep watching them.

5 out of 10