The Hot Spot Rating
Leeches (2003)
Cast: Matthew Twining, Josh Henderson, Stacey Nelson, Tony Carroccio
Director: David DeCoteau
Synopsis: Steroid-pumped leeches mutate into humungous huge and nasty bastards!
GBHBL’s Carl Fisher praised it as “a solid horror flick with some surprisingly good acting, decent story and fun visuals…silly, but it’s a fun kind of silly” youtube.com
Letterboxd user “James” raved: “This movie was SO much fun. A hot college swim team are terrorized by steroid‑induced super leeches. Brilliant.” letterboxd.com
Movies and Mania called it “a dreadful farrago of a chiller, with rotten acting, a dire script and terrible effects,” yet acknowledged it’s “cheerfully cheap and short…so bad it’s good.” moviesandmania.com.
Reddit r/horror summed it up as “one of those ‘so bad it’s good’ horror movies…so bad it’s fantastic” reddit.com.
Letterboxd user “Darthemed” praised its body horror: “in contrast with most… this one has some genuine body horror and (light) gore.” imdb.com
Queer Beacon (2007) noted matter‑of‑factly that “giant leeches… slowly tak[e] out a college swim team.” youtube.com
IMDb user review slammed it for “awful acting, the plastic ‘monster’ leeches moving as if someone is pulling a string,” criticizing its low‑budget feel. imdb.com.
Rotten Tomatoes shows no critic reviews and a low audience score (Popcornmeter 20%), underlining its niche, cult‑status appeal. rottentomatoes.com
A modern-day killer leech film – now there is a bit of a turn-up. This creature feature by David DeCoteau (of Creepazoids, Nightmare Sisters, and Sorority Babes in the Slimeball Bowl-O-Rama fame) was in collaboration with the editor of Fangoria, who co-wrote the film and came up with the inspired storyline featuring a college swim team on steroids who become fodder for genetically mutating leeches who grow very nasty and to gigantic proportions due to the steroids in the bloodstreams of their victims!
With a plot line as inspired as this, it’s difficult to go too far wrong. The director claims in the DVD commentary track that he chose not to go with CGI, hoping that he could achieve a more authentic leech monster with old-fashioned make-up and special effects – he might reconsider if ever he was to consider doing a sequel because the leech stars of the film resemble rubber gloves with rubber fangs stitched on to them. The leeches’ movements and the camera’s ingenious framing suggest that rubber gloves are exactly what they were! They resemble William Castle’s majestic Tingler creature but are much more slimy and tend to squeal and make deliciously bizarre sounds.
So the plot involves a swim team being fed a diet of steroids by a team member dealing on the behest of the team’s dastardly coach. The story has a deep moral that aspiring athletes would do well to remember. Take steroids and risk ingestion by giant leeches.
Despite its intrinsic stupidity and cheesiness, and perhaps because of them, Leeches is a rather entertaining and amusing time waster. The acting is suitably ropey, and the plot enough to guarantee at least a few laughs along the way. The Leeches are a pitiful sight, but their awfulness gives them a certain cult credibility. It’s a harmless, fairly amusing Z-grade monster movie that is so awful that it’s quite endurable. Lots of nubile young male flesh on display throughout – it makes an odd change! Leeches is a farcical and ridiculous film – but enjoyable for its cheapness, inane plot, hammy acting, and the lovable rubber glove leech monsters!
Leeches shouldn’t disappoint undiscerning genre addicts.
