The Leech Woman

1960 "She drained men of their loves and lives!"
4.8| 1h17m| NR| en| More Info
Released: 01 May 1960 Released
Producted By: Universal International Pictures
Country: United States of America
Budget: 0
Revenue: 0
Official Website:
Synopsis

An endocrinologist in a dysfunctional marriage with an aging, alcoholic wife journeys to Africa seeking a drug that will restore youth.

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Reviews

Lancoor A very feeble attempt at affirmatie action
mraculeated The biggest problem with this movie is it’s a little better than you think it might be, which somehow makes it worse. As in, it takes itself a bit too seriously, which makes most of the movie feel kind of dull.
Orla Zuniga It is interesting even when nothing much happens, which is for most of its 3-hour running time. Read full review
Tayyab Torres Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.
Wizard-8 This movie came out the same year as the Roger Corman production THE WASP WOMAN, which was also a movie concerning an aged woman discovering a secret procedure to make her younger, but with deadly consequences. I don't know if the similarities of the two movies was a coincidence, but the similarities are the only interest one can possibly find from this cinematic yawn. Though the movie is only seventy-seven minutes long, it soon becomes painfully clear that there is only enough story for maybe one of the stories in a multi-part horror anthology; this story is ridiculously stretched out. And there is nothing particularly interesting along the way; the story is very predictable, and the so- called horror is flat. Is there any unintentional camp? Maybe in a few places, but it's not aggressive or plentiful enough to make the movie entertaining on a so-bad-it's-good level. This movie will make you feel your alertness leeched out enough to quickly put you to sleep.
Spikeopath What do you expect from a film called The Leech Woman? It is by definition one of those sci-fi "B" movies strung together as a support feature that played whilst theatre patrons were still necking, chatting and eating etc.Plot follows in the tradition of something like The Wasp Woman (1959), that plays on the theme of a woman striving to stay young as the advent of time catches up with her. Cue bonkers science, where here it involves a trek to the jungles of Africa to unearth the secret of eternal youth. Naturally things get very bent out of shape and pain and misery are sure to follow.Thematically it has mixed messages, on one hand it dares to say, unappealingly so, that a woman is only viable for love and happiness by being young and beautiful. On the other hand it is possibly having caustic observations on the dangers of vanity? The makers intentions are not clear so really the viewers are left to their own devices on that one.It's never scary and some of the latex effects work is poor and befitting the minuscule budget. While the first half hour feels awfully padded out. But all things considered it's not a bottom feeder of the genre, and actually would make a nice companion piece with The Wasp Woman. 5/10
fedor8 Never has a mere ring been such a powerful weapon - not even Tolkien's ring, and certainly no "pineal ring". Then again, there never WAS such a thing as a pineal ring in any type of fiction before - because no B-movie or pulp novel was ever this stupid. (OK, so there are lot worse movies, but only the Z-category ones). The Leech Woman, previously without any formal combat training, uses her pointy little ring to kill with such ease and efficiency; even Bruce Lee and Chuck Norris are red with envy. Cinema's first alcoholic female ninja?TLW also features one huge plot-hole, and an enormously dumb plot-device.The plot-hole. It is never explained WHY the 152 year-old black woman decided to pay Neil's office a visit. Judging from what transpired in "Africa", I can only make the following deduction: she decided that she had to finally die, so she thought "oh, what the hell, before I trek to Africa I'll just go to this guy's office, he keeps appearing in my dream so obviously I gotta lull him into his death somehow". There is some vague talk of needing funds to travel to Africa, and reoccurring dreams, but none of this adds up to much. Even if she did need the money, there is no real reason why she'd have them all killed. Perhaps the MST3K guys were right with their finishing quip: "old women are evil." Perhaps this is the movie's message. Certainly the Leech Woman goes into evilness overdrive once her predictable aging process accelerates.The amazingly daft plot-device. The Leach Woman regains her youth, suddenly becoming... startlingly average-looking, actually. The movie's make-up department essentially just threw mud on her face for the early scenes, so that when she sucks in the rejuvenating pineal concoction they could simply wash her face to create the effect of regained youth. (And what an effect it is! Hilarious.) Nevertheless, her nothing-special, washed-face looks are enough to break off a young couple's engagement and ruin their relationship within MINUTES. Literally! The young lawyer acts as if he'd seen the most ravishing woman in the history of mankind and proceeds to flirt with Leech Woman right in front of his fiancée's nose! Some of the best riffing revolves around these ridiculous scenes.There is a particularly absurd, unintentionally comical scene when the lawyer and Leech start getting all touchy-feely in her house – while his fiancée impatiently sits in the car outside and honks. ZAZ couldn't have written a sillier scene if they wanted to. To make things even more bizarre, the lawyer actually proposes marriage to her that very same day! The writer of this low-budget hooey must have confused this script with some other Leech-like B-script that he'd been writing, which has Leech hypnotizing men into sexual submission. As cretinous as it is, nobody can accuse this film of being totally predictable. What starts off as yet another goofy African adventure develops into a stereotypical dumb vampire movie, with the only difference that Leech doesn't seek the blood of her victims but their pineal juice. Some viewers may construe this as a "touch of originality". Well, good luck to them.Every single character in this movie is a potential or actual murderer. The world Leech & Co inhabit is an immoral, anarchic mess. Given sufficient script time, I do not doubt that the writer would have figured out a way to make the detectives kill an innocent person as well, or at least try to.This flick is so wonderfully retarded, it provides for ample ridicule, and is one of the best MST3K-riffed episodes.
oscar-35 *Spoiler/plot- 1960, An unhappy wife of an obsessed endocrinologist gets involved in his search for a youth drug when an 140 years old African woman seeks out the doctor to get money to return to her African home when she reveals her secret of youth. The doctor and wife go to Africa and learn the secret, but the wife kills her husband and multiple people to stay young when the widow comes home to the US.*Special Stars- Colleen Gray, Grant Wiliams *Theme- Be careful what you wish for, you might not like it.*Based on- Doctor Jeckle and Mr. Hyde, Frankenstein, Fountain of Youth myths *Trivia/location/goofs- ONLINE. This film is interesting in its attempt to take the story from urban US cities traveling into the 'darkest' remote parts of Africa and back. Continuity problem: The file footage shows several different well known African tribal dances of the era, but are unrelated tribes.*Emotion- A fun 50's B-movie romp from Universal Studios consisting of an interesting plot involving 50's cheesecake pin-up shots, some dramatic moral issues and interesting geographic location footage.