leeches, the symbol of ireland

last night the first movie on the list of things to do was Attack of the Giant Leeches. oddly, it isn't the first time i've seen this movie (as i own it on DVD). it happened to be on television last night when i got home from work, and since i happened to be feeding the various amphibians in my house, i decided not to change the channel.

what we have here is a horrific tale about people disappearing in the swamp, being MURDERED by mutated over-sized leeches. i sat and thought about it. "what's the animal you're most afraid will kill you at some point in your life?" i asked myself. the answer i gave myself was "giant leeches!"

it's one of those really (really) bad horror movies that depends on over-complicated explanations of seemingly simple scenarios. and being that it was likely shot on a budget roughly equivalent to what i spend on coffee in a given month - the special effects are... well ... special. it is kind of interesting when you get to see the leeches lair full of victims, but overall there's not a lot to be said. i wouldn't recommend going out and intentionally hunting this movie down, but should you happen to come across it in a box set of horror movies bundled together, it's a good one for beer and nachos to help you with your commentary.

after that piece of cinematic gold, i started watching Mission Impossible (can you tell i wasn't in the mood to think about movie plots?). i only watched the first half of it, but a lot of things struck me this time that didn't really occur to me the first time i watched it:

• if he was betrayed by the people he worked for, why did Tom Cruise just go back to the hotel and start using the computers and shit that he most likely got directly from them?
• Tom Cruise's "going crazy learning the truth" face when his boss guy was telling him about the conspiracy and why all his buddies got killed at the beginning makes me think he looks like he just got a lobotomy. i don't think it portrays "holy crap i'm freaked out" very well at all
• when Emilio Estevez's character is about to die - it appears quite obvious to me that if he'd ducked, or lay down that the big sword thing wouldn't have stabbed him in the head.

just sayin' is all. figure i'll watch the rest of it tonight. i haven't seen either of the sequels yet, and i likely won't unless someone can convince me that there's some sort of need to do that to myself. i try hard to limit the number of Tom Cruise movies i watch in a given decade and i'm already pretty close to my limit.