(2003) *1/2
I decided to make it a Horrorthon goal to watch at least one movie with an exclamation point in its title. Other than that, this movie has very little going for it.
A bad boy on the college swim team has been getting his teammates to gobble steroids. When they hit the local swimming hole, which for some reason is an unappealing creek full of leeches, the bloodsuckers latch on and later grow to tremendous size. By "tremendous," I mean about a foot and a half. Their first victim is a guy who slips in the shower and knocks himself out. Their second victim is taking a nap. Despite this seeming lack of effectiveness, later victims are dispatched with bizarre ease. Some leeches will be sneaking up on them, then suddenly the victim is holding two leeches to their face and screaming and there's strobelights and close-ups of leech mouths and and and -- ! And you yearn for the realism of the octopus attack in Ed Wood's Bride of the Monster.
The other thing this movie has going for it is that it blows away Nightmare on Elm Street Part 2 as Gayest Horror Movie Ever. It's the swim team, after all, so there are numerous subjects for slo-mo shots of swimming, shower scenes, and general shirtlessness. The napping guy (above the covers, wearing just his tighties and his socks) gets a long, slow pan across his bod both before and after his demise. In between there's closeups of leeches making their way up his tanned thighs (they always go for the face.) The boys always keep their Speedos on, so it ain't exactly nudity, but I found myself wishing for a modern horror movie willing to exploit female skin the way this one goes after the boys (we all miss the 80's, don't we?)
It's goofy, stupid fun. But there's more fun to be had elsewhere.
3 comments:
Wait - I'm confused, how do the leeches get the steroids, from the guys swimming in the leechy swimming hole? Or did they throw some extra steroids in the water...? Is there such a thing as extra steroids?
Sorry, I didn't really make that clear. I just changed the review slightly to include the step where the leeches suck the swimmers' blood. With the first couple, they get pulled off and dumped down the locker room shower drain, then later they come back up all big. Then the bad boy tells the new 'roid recruit to down the whole bag and hands him a bottle to wash it down with. He stumbles into the creek and becomes the subject of a mass feeding.
And no, I doubt there's extra steroids.
This is the type of horror movie that I cannot watch. I can sit through hours and hours of worthless 70's fodder but when it comes to the current B-Movie stuff, I can't physically sit through it. But thankfully Octo took one for the team!
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