I was thrilled when I first learned that Film Masters would be releasing 1958’s Night of the Blood Beast to blu-ray. The film, produced by Gene and Roger Corman, had long been lacking any form of high-definition home release. However, vintage sci-fi and monster films that had long since fallen into the public domain, particularly ones with an extensive history of negative reviews, tend not to be as highly requested or highly publicized as, say, obscure European films of the 1960s and 70s. Although I do enjoy 1959’s Attack of the Giant Leeches much more than Blood Beast, I was actually a little less concerned about its inclusion as the “bonus feature” film in this set, due to its having received a blu-ray release previously, albeit one with notable flaws.

FILM REVIEWS:

Night of the Blood Beast – The film was one of the first features directed by Bernard L. Kowalski, who would also direct Attack of the Giant Leeches for the Cormans’ shortly after. Kowalski would later direct 1973’s Sssssss, in which a deranged Strother Martin turns The A-Team‘s Dirk Benedict into a snake-man, as well as episodes of television programs such as “Columbo”, “Perry Mason”, and “Jake and the Fatman”. Blood Beast also features that same piece of music from Alexander Laszlo that serves as the opening theme for Giant Leeches and 1959’s Beast from Haunted Cave.

Although the film is credited as being written by Gene, it is actually the work of Martin Varno, who was only just into his twenties at the time. The film would prove to be Varno’s only screenwriting credit (more on that later). However, he would serve as a make-up supervisor on 1969’s Nightmare in Wax (under the name of Martin Varnaud) and is reported to have been a sound-effects editor on cartoons in later years.

In the film, the United States has just successfully launched its first manned rocket into space, as demonstrated by the animated opening credit sequence. However, while in orbit, something goes wrong and the rocket crashes back to Earth. The engineers and scientists working on the project arrive at the crash site and find a gaping hole in the side of the craft. The pilot, astronaut John Corcoran (John Baer – “Terry” of TV’s “Terry and the Pirates”), has seemingly been killed. Surprisingly, while the man shows no sign of life, he also does not exhibit any signs of rigor mortis or pooling blood. Somehow, no one in the vicinity seems to have noticed the section of rocket falling back to Earth, nor does it appear to have been detected by any radar. So, no police, medical crews, or curious eyewitnesses ever arrive to investigate. 

Corcoran’s body is taken back to the lab at a small base that our team have been using to observe the rocket. One has to wonder how the craft happened to fall so close to the base, especially since it seems far too small to have actually launched the damned thing. Thankfully, the alien creature that hitched a ride back to Earth with Corcoran soon shows up to distract from such oversights in the plot. Making matters more interesting, Corcoran steals a page out of Lazarus’s playbook and rises from the dead. Tests reveal that he’s been impregnated by the alien, giving him a telepathic link to the being. 

 

Although he insists that the creature is peaceful and means us no harm, it still feels the need to decapitate the only doctor assigned to the project. Naturally, actions such as this make the other members of the team, including Corman-regular Ed Nelson (Attack of the Crab Monsters, The Boneyard) and Giant Leeches co-star Michael Emmet, hesitant to accept Corcoran’s claims. Although he pleads for more time for the alien to divulge its motives, the others make preparations to kill the beast. Ya know, just in case. 

Angela Greene (a former model and one-time girlfriend of JFK), Tyler McVey (who also appears in Giant Leeches), and Georgianna Carter (who thankfully didn’t appear in much else as she’s just awful here) round out the cast. The suit used for the alien, which rightfully has been described as “a human-sized parrot covered in feces”¹, was previously featured in another Corman film, Teenage Caveman. Of course, the legendary Bronson Caves make ample appearances.

Overall, Night of the Blood Beast is a decent sci-fi shocker. There’s an intriguing, but underdeveloped “body horror” element that reminded me a little of Nigel Kneale’s “The Quatermass Experiment”, while the aspect of a small team trapped in a constricted environment will surely draw comparisons to The Thing from Another World. The on-screen presence of the alien doesn’t help as much as it should as the costume design just isn’t particularly intimidating or awe-inspiring. Honestly, I just kind of feel sorry for the thing.

Attack of the Giant Leeches: Giant, man-sized leeches suddenly appear in a swamp near the Florida Everglades. Although one local poacher attempts to warn others of what he’s seen, no one believes him and the man is soon killed by the same giant bloodsuckers. Days later, the leeches make another appearance, this time abducting local floozie, Liz (Yvette Vickers – Attack of the 50 Foot Woman, Reform School Girl), and Cal (Emmet, once again), whom she ran off into the swamp to have a tryst with. Liz’s husband and local shop owner, Dave (Bruno VeSota – Rock All Night, The Haunted Palace), caught the two lovebirds, but can only watch as the leeches drag them into the water. Naturally, no one believes this not-so-gentleman’s claim of giant leeches and he is thrown in jail on murder charges… which proves to be far from the worst fate awaiting him. 

Search parties are set up to look for the bodies, leading to the death of two more men. Eventually, Game Warden Steve Benton (Ken Clark – Love Me Tender, 12 to the Moon) and Nan (Jan Shepard), his girlfriend and daughter of the local doctor, discover that the leeches do exist. Making matters grimmer is the growing belief that the missing people may still be alive, stored away in an underwater cave, which the audience has already been shown to be true numerous times. In one particular scene, an unauthorized attempt by Nan’s father to kill the creatures with dynamite actually plays a role in the deaths of most of the abductees, but somehow no one in the film finds the subject worth mentioning.

From here, the film focuses on the further attempts to exterminate the leeches, which really doesn’t work out as well as initially planned.  Although the film does remain enjoyable throughout, Attack of the Giant Leeches undoubtedly loses steam once the leech attacks cease, mostly because the more interesting characters have been eliminated, leaving behind the film’s rather dull leads. Vickers undoubtedly steals the show as the sultry “Liz”, a troubled young woman married to a man she doesn’t love, flaunting that fact in his face. Gene Roth, who played the sheriff in Earth Vs. The Spider, gets a small role here as another sheriff and adds some mild (possibly unintentional) comic relief, although I don’t think anyone has ever claimed that he exudes the same level of sexuality as Vickers.

VIDEO/AUDIO QUALITY:

As noted in a disclaimer presented before the start of the film, Film Masters have used an original release print as the source material for this release of Night of the Blood Beast, albeit one with heavy damage. As such, some frames are missing, and the film’s title card is sourced from an 8mm copy. A comparison of the print before and after restoration is included on the disc’s Special Features and shows the impressive amount of work that Film Masters’ put into this release. That said…

While there are some specks and scratches to be found, I personally found most of these instances to be minor and of no real complaint. More concerning was the wobble or pulsating effect found at the edge of the screen (usually on the lefthand side) during many scenes. Even my son noticed the effect while walking through the room as I was watching the release.

As for those missing frames? There’s quite a few. While none of these “hiccups” are long enough to omit entire lines of dialog, they do give the film something of a sputtering flow, which will undoubtedly be a disappointment to the film’s more devout fans. It’ll probably be something of an annoyance to more casual fans as well, especially when more “complete” copies of the film are readily available online and on physical media, albeit not in HD. 

Otherwise, the transfer for Night of the Blood Beast looks quite sharp, offering impressive detail… often to the detriment of props such as Corcoran’s rocket or the creature suit. It’s somewhat fair to call this release a “mixed bag” as in many ways Film Masters’ HD transfer is the sharpest that Blood Beast has ever looked, but not the best presentation of the film available.

No information is provided concerning the print used for Attack of the Giant Leeches. In retrospect, this isn’t overly surprising as the HD presentation is far from impressive. While there are definite signs of scratching, the print used for Film Masters’ release does appear to be less damaged than that of Blood Beast. However, image clarity and detail are nowhere near as impressive, and honestly doesn’t look very HD at times. Granted, this print is in much better shape than the one used for the Retromedia blu-ray release from a few years back, but I do feel that this is still far from the best the film can look.

Audio sounded great on both films, with dialog clear and at least minor sense of depth to sound effects and the score (which is shared by both films). I did not notice any of the “tinny” quality that often accompanies lower quality versions of older low-budget films such as these.

SPECIAL FEATURES:

Night of the Blood Beast Disc:

“Mystery Science Theater 3000” episode featuring Night of the Blood Beast – debuted on Nov. 23 1995 as part of that year’s Turkey Day Marathon, but later re-aired in Feb. 1996 as part of the show’s 7th season. Also includes the “Once Upon A Honeymoon” segment.
8mm version of the film – 6min:56sec
Night of the Blood Beast re-created trailer 
Night of the Blood Beast & Attack of the Giant Leeches publicity & still slideshow – 2min:22sec
Film Restoration Comparison –  2min:38sec – A short side-by-side comparison of the 4K scan of the film before and after restoration. Film Masters clearly had their hands full with this one as there is notably much heavier damage on the unrestored version, including what appears to be small holes in the middle of frames. So, while the finished product may be a little lackluster, you do have to respect Film Masters’ efforts as the end results are a substantial improvement over what they initially had to work with.

Attack of the Giant Leeches Disc:

“Mystery Science Theater 3000” episode featuring Attack of the Giant Leeches – originally aired July 18, 1992. Joel and the Bots also watch a chapter of Republic Pictures’ “Undersea Kingdom” serial.
“Born from T.V.: Bernard Kowalski as a Director” featurette: -27 minutes – C. Courtney Joyner hosts an in-depth look at director/producer Kowalski’s career, including a somewhat brief recounting by Joyner of Kowalski’s experience working on this release’s two featured films. Per Joyner, Kowalski had a fantastic time working on both films and with the Cormans.
Attack of the Giant Leeches re-created trailer
Yvette Vickers slideshow – 2min:12sec – collection of photos and publicity images, as well as a few photos and autographed items from Tom Weaver’s collection.

 

As with all Film Masters releases, a booklet is included featuring essays and articles from various film historians. Featured with this release are:

“The Boy Who Birthed the Blood Beast” -As dictated by the film’s writer, Martin Varno, to film historian Tom Weaver. Varno discusses how he obtained the job, as well as his receiving writing tips from fellow screenwriters Jerome Bixby and Harold Jacob Smith (Academy Award winner for 1958’s The Defiant Ones). He also briefly discusses Ross Sturlin, the stuntman who portrayed the monster in the film (as well as in Teenage Caveman). A little more attention is given to Varno’s lawsuits against the Corman brothers, first against Roger when Varno discovered that he was being paid under scale, and second against Gene when he credited himself as the writer of the film. Although the interview was originally conducted back in 2002 (Varno passed in 2014), Varno was still proud of his achievement, even if he didn’t think the movie was very good.

“Attack of the Giant Leeches” by Tom Weaver -Weaver discusses what made the film work (primarily sexy co-star Vickers) and how the film became a cult favorite despite having no budget, no stars, and a paper-thin script.

FINAL VERDICT: While I’m thrilled to see these early Corman brothers’ productions receive the HD treatment, they are not quite stellar presentations. Again, I commend Film Masters for their restoration efforts on Night of the Blood Beast, and for even releasing what are probably relatively niche titles from the public domain such as these. However, both films have issues that will undoubtedly leave fans wishing for more. That said, until better quality prints are found, this may be the best we get.

(¹quote from Chris Eggerston of Bloody Disgusting, via Wikipedia)