The Leech Woman

Was this a film or was this just a big joke? I think the producers looked like there were pulling a big prank.

The low rating and numerous negative reviews around here as well as on external websites warned me to approach "The Leech Woman" with caution and an absolute minimum of expectations, but I honestly didn't think it was such a bad movie. Admittedly the script is incoherent and extremely predictable, but the rudimentary story lines are original and engaging and - unlike so many other contemporary cheap Sci-Fi movies - this one at least doesn't feature any overlong boring speeches and dull padding footage. The screenplay of "The Leech Woman" is already pretty stuffed as it is, with the tone of the film shifting no less than three times, so there really isn't any room for boredom. It may perhaps offer just a few surprises and even less shocks, but at least you won't constantly be staring at the timer, wondering when it'll be over. The film opens with a wondrous sequence of a married couple viciously bickering. He's a heartless and obnoxious scientist continuously preoccupied with his work (the secret to rejuvenation) and she's a depressed and alcohol addicted wreck due to his cruelty. When Dr. Talbot meets the 152 year old Malla, he realizes her native tribe holds the secret of eternal youth and follows his patient to the heart of the African jungle. There they witness a ritual that turns the old and wrinkled Malla into a stunning beauty with just a few drops of juice coming from a dying man's pineal gland. The slick Dr. Talbot wants the formula and attempts to win his wife back in order to use her as a guinea pig, but the joke turns against him when the rejuvenating woman needs to select a man to sacrifice and, obviously, June picks her beloved husband. She returns to the States as a young and stunningly beautiful young woman, but she needs to kill random men and milk their pineal glands in order to stay desirable. "The Leech Woman" definitely has a pretty cool and eventful script; you just need to overlook a copious number of plot holes, improbabilities and continuity errors. There's no real suspense to enjoy, but nonetheless plenty of action and a handful of impressive make-up effects (especially the make-up that makes old women look even older). However, the movie's greatest achievement is presumably an unintentional one: pure and genuine irony! Although a story that constantly revolves on beauty and popularity, the cast of characters only includes shallow, substantially ugly and insupportable individuals. At least Dr. Talbot is a bastard right from the start, but all the others gradually turn into intolerable people. The pitiable and humiliated wife becomes a relentless killer, the fragile old lady becomes a stone-cold tribe leader, the helpful guide transforms into a shallow runaway lover, the devoted attorney becomes an adulterous jerk and the cherubic fiancée changes into a jealous fury. Honestly, I've rarely seen such an unpleasant and even downright misanthropic collection of people playing together in one film … and that's sort of fascinating!

Unlike a lot of movies given a good workover by the fine folks on Mystery Science Theater 3000, "The Leech Woman" is fairly watchable. The idea is that an aging woman who wants to restore her beauty finds a magic that will allow her to become young again- but only for a day at a time. The spell, unfortunately, also requires her to kill men. Of course, she doesn't particularly care about the lives of men, which is where the main plot starts. I won't spoil it for you, because this is a film I think you might actually enjoy. The movie suffers, unfortunately, from some drab performances by members of the cast. The main stars, however, play their roles pretty well, and the elderly priestess featured in the beginning of the film is particularly creepy. Also, the plot, though good in theory, seems to get bogged down at times. The movie crawls along and can get very boring. But there are some excellent sequences in there that really bring the movie back from the gutter. In any case, I recommend at least trying to find the MST3k version of the film...during the more boring sequences you'll appreciate the boys' humor, and even the good parts certainly aren't hurt by a little good-natured jesting.

There's a key scene in the film where Estelle Hemsley, as an old African woman about to be given the gift a youth states: "For a man, old age has rewards. If he is wise, his gray hairs bring dignity and he is treated with honor and respect. But for the aged woman, there is nothing. At best, she's pitied. More often, her lot is of contempt and neglect. What woman lives who has passed the prime of her life who would not give her remaining years to reclaim even a few moments of joy and happiness and know the worship of men. For the end of life should be its moment of triumph. So it is with the aged women of Nandos, a last flowering of love, beauty--before death." Unfortunately, this is, for the most part, true today, especially in films. A much older actor can pair with a decades-younger actress, and there's no fanfare. The opposite rarely occurs, and if it does, there's much ado. In this film, Coleen Gray receives this gift and does have to kill to keep her youth, but only to selfish, dangerous people: her cruel husband (Philip Terry), a guide who ditches her (John Van Dreelen), a crook (Arthur Batanides) and a jealous would-be killer (Gloria Talbot). She won't harm her new boyfriend (Grant Williams), because she loves him. Gray has several classics to her cinema credits, but she'll be remembered for this role: convincing makeup are given full-bodied mannerisms, voice inflections that amazingly reflect old, middle, and young age. The cast is most earnest, giving two black actors (Civil Rights Era gaining momentum) dignified parts: Hemsley, expert as the native old woman, Kim Hamilton as her younger counterpart - the character a smart negotiator and commanding, Terry as the nasty, rotten-to-the-core husband (first dialog scene with Gray fascinates as it is one long 5 minute take with no cuts). But the aspects of male vs. Female aging will stay with you after the final fadeout. The title remains appropriate (i.e. Sucking out body fluids (pineal brain juice here), "leeching off others").

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.

Talk about an interesting plot just dashed all to hell by non-acting! It's got a good story, but the acting (or lack thereof) just makes this whole picture seem incredibly campy. I did enjoy the way the 151-proof Mrs. Talbot exacted revenge on her uptight doctor husband. I agree with the previous reviewer in that this movie did have a lot to say regarding the heavy value placed on female looks at this time in history. The character Malla summed it up better than anyone I've ever heard before (and I am paraphrasing): "When a man grows old, the silver in his hair brings him prestige and honor, and there is a joy to growing old. For a woman, there is nothing." Great plot; I just wish they could've put together a better cast...

A horror/sci-fi film, it is the story of June Talbot (Coleen Gray) a woman who seems about 37 who is treated horribly by her husband, endocrinologist Paul Talbot (Philip Terry), who wants to divorce his wife because she is "old"...even though he looks quite a bit older than her. It actually has lots to say about gender roles and aging for a B movie from the mid 20th century. Paul finds the secret of youth deep in the African Jungle in a remote tribe, and ends up dying the most ironic of deaths. The secret involves drinking the pollen of an orchid found only in that part of Africa. What's the catch? You have to mix it with the pineal gland of a man, which causes his death. What's the other catch? The youth and beauty it bestows only lasts a short time, and seems to get shorter each time you take it. The final catch? After the beauty wears off you look about another decade older than you did before. June went with Paul into the jungle on his trip, and finds out about catches two and three that I mentioned in the previous paragraph as she escapes the jungle with the pollen of the rare plant. She returns to America and pretty soon you find out WHY she probably married a guy who was such a drip as Paul. As a young woman under the influence of the potion, she is wanton, rash, and vain. These things really don't change with age if you never acquire wisdom, and so that is why as an older woman at the beginning of the film June hit the bottle and it is why towards the end of the film homicide in order to stay young seems increasingly easy for her. But I'm not going to rain all over June' s character without mentioning that just about everybody in the movie is wanton, rash, and vain. This was made by Universal, so the production values are much better than you'd find in a film in the same genre and the same era as one from Allied Artists, but there are a few goofs. June doesn't get a matronly figure. Her aging seems to amount to some layers of some kind of wrinkled plastic over her face, gray hair and effects on her hands. A cop with a search warrant doesn't bother to search. He just asks a bunch of questions and behaves rudely. And for June to have no medical training, she sure knows how to hit that pineal gland every single time! One more thing. I first saw this on the late show when I was 14 and babysitting. Now, remember that EVERYBODY over 30 looks old to a 14 year old. I even thought at the time that the initial "old" June did not look old. She just looked like she needed some hair dye, some sleep, and some makeup. I'd recommend this one.

Leech Woman was a great flick,regardless of what anybody says about it.Colleen grays acting was powerful and convincing as the bitter alcoholic wife of an opportunistic rat who wants to use her as a guinea pig for his youth serum experiments.If you ask me colleen should have gotten a face lift instead.And dig that estelle helmsley,she looked like a human prune.Gloria Talbott also added interest to the film as the jealous rival.As for grant williams,he was just a cad,typical easily tempted weak male.To constantly have to kill people with a ring to stay beautiful,what,s wrong with makeup and hair dye? As for colleens killing it was a toss up,some of the people deserved it and some did,nt.

Leech Woman, The (1960) * 1/2 (out of 4) Incredibly dull horror film from Universal about a doctor trying to find a cure for oldness. He and his wife (Coleen Gray) travel to Africa and find the secret but in order to stay young the wife must kill men and put their blood into a mix with the secret potion. This ranks right down there with The Mole People as the worst horror film from the studio but I'm really not sure which is worse but I certainly won't be watching either of them again. The biggest problem with this film is that it's incredibly dull, lifeless and just downright boring. There's really not a "leech woman" in the film as the title should have been called The Old Woman. The performances are all pretty bland but the biggest issue is the screenplay, which is unoriginal and doesn't contain anything decent going for it. I think another problem is that the horror elements don't kick in until the 45-minute mark and by then it's way too late. Even when the horror elements show up it doesn't help the film much. The only thing that works in the movie are the nice make up effects, which look quite good.

I remember watching "The Leech Woman" when I was twelve years old. There is something absolutely terrifying about this movie, but yes I agree it isn't Oscar caliber. For a movie made back in 1960 I don't think it's that awful. (Ever mindful that another movie one year later came out called "Psycho") There is something sensual in the way men and women are punctured in the back of the neck and then their blood is consumed by a woman. Or perhaps at twelve my testosterone was starting to make itself known. I vividly remember the very end of the movie with Colleen Gray laying flat on her back looking like some old tattered witch. It terrified me. Know why? Because the old woman that lived next door to us looked very similar! For a long time after seeing this movie I went outside wearing a turtle neck sweater! Not a great movie but certainly not as bad as others .