Horror Movie Review: The Leech (2022)

An absolute delight of a festive-themed horror-thriller with dark-comedy elements, The Leech will leave you on edge across its entire runtime, but you won’t be able to turn away.

From writer and director Eric Pennycoff, The Leech stars Graham Skipper as Father David. A mild-mannered priest who is watching in denial at the slow collapse of the Christian faith in his small town. He preaches about love, acceptance, and decency to an empty Church and to no online reach on social media.

One night, when closing the Church, he meets Terry (Jeremy Gardner). A down on his luck local with a potty mouth and uncouth behaviour. Feeling sorry for him, Father David offers him a lift to his girlfriend Lexi’s (Taylor Zaudtke) house but finds that he has been kicked out.

Repeating the words of his own sermon, he decides to offer Terry a temporary room in his house. Until he can sort his issues out with Lexi.

It’s the odd couple, turned up to eleven, as Father David’s quiet and religious ways do not mesh with Terry’s unfiltered behaviour. What starts as just a clash of personalities becomes something much deeper and darker, especially when Terry invites Lexi to come and stay with them too.

Father David begins to suspect that they might be up to something more sinister. Especially as he knows that Lexi is pregnant and that she plans to get an abortion without telling Terry.

The Leech is brilliant. One of the most uncomfortable and tense horror-thrillers seen in a while. One that utilises the festive period and religious dogma to great effect. A film that has a captivating small cast, richly detailed characters, and enough mind-bending elements to make you wonder about what is going on.

There are no heroes and there are no villains in the conventional sense. It’s simply people from different walks of life, with their own issues and secrets, clashing heads and finding their ideologies can’t exist together. All with the thrilling backdrop of belief, temptation and sin.

Yet, it’s not preachy either. Writer and director Eric Pennycoff nails both the good and bad sides of religion. How it can be used to make people better but also how it can twist the mind to do evil in the name of belief.

None of this would matter though if the actors weren’t up to task and happily that’s not the case. Watching Graham Skipper’s Father David slowly lose his mind and succumb to sin is immense. Seeing Jeremy Gardner and Taylor Zaudtke ‘leech’ off him so effectively, while not being horrible people overall, is immense. Together, the trio make this film one of the best Christmas-themed horrors we’ve seen.

Watch it and be prepared to feel extremely uncomfortable and tense.