The Killer Shrews
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Movie Reviews of The Killer Shrews
Movie Review: How can you not enjoy a movie like "The Killer Shrews"?
Summary: 5 Stars
For me there is a lot of fun to be had with "The Killer Shrews," a 1959 movie that takes itself seriously despite having Miss Universe 1957, dogs dressed up in shag carpets, rubber heads with big teeth, and an escape plan that you have to see to believe. The only question is why did "MST3K" wait until season four to take on this one? This one has to be on my list of top ten bad monster movies. Thorne Sherman (James Best) delivers supplies to an island just as a hurricane is coming. He wants to wait out the story, but Dr. Milo Craigis (Baruch Lumet) wants Thorne to leave right away and take his daughter Ann (Ingrid Goude, Miss Sweden 1956 and then Miss Universe 1957), with him. The Doctor sounds German while his daughter has a very interesting Swedish accent, but that is not the biggest mystery on the island.
Dr. Craigis is concerned with over population and apparently his idea is was to shrink people to make food go farther. To this end he experiments with the DNA of shrews who (a) grow to the size of dogs wearing shag carpeting, (b) have all of their worst traits becoming dominant, and (c) develop poison saliva. You would think that any one of those three could cause problems when there are 300 shrews running around on an island, but no, all three happen. The number of humans starts dwindling as the shrews need desert after eating all of the livestock on the island, so everybody starts drinking more (think about it: do you really want DRUNK giant vicious shrews with poison saliva?). Jerry Farrell (Ken Curtis) decides that Ann sparking to Thorne is worse than having giant shrews attacking them, but soon sees the error of his ways and decides that going up on the roof would be a good idea. That is also because he thinks that the idea that Thorne comes up with to escape to the boat is stupid, but I have to say, in terms of 1950s black & white monster movies this plan actually makes sense.
Special mention must be made of Gordon McLendon who plays Dr. Radford Baines, the dedicated assistant to Dr. Craigis and who remains the consummate scientist even once he has been bitten. His death sets up what is probably the funniest line of the movie until we get to the end where the last exchange of dialogue provides a pretty funny punch line to the entire experience of pure terror trying to get away from the giant vicious shrews with poison saliva. There is just too much to enjoy in this movie, from listening to Goude's accent (you know it has to be Swedish but it does not sound Swedish and trying to figure out what it does sound like will drive you crazy), to watching the dogs covered in carpet frolick around the silly humans rolling on the ground, and waiting for one of the teeth on the rubber shrew heads to get caught on something and break off. "The Killer Shrews" is my kind of bad movie.
Movie Review: "You know something doctor? I'm not going to worry about overpopulation just yet."
Summary: 5 Stars
This is just one of those movies that would have it's effects tripled by gross amounts of marijuana. For several years, this has been the bad movie of choice in my group of friends for many reasons. It was probably the first truly bad movie I ever saw, introduced to me by my own mother, an avid fan of bad movies herself, when I was much younger. I can picture her screaming in laughter on a ratty old couch back in the seventies watching this movie, as the parade of dogs dressed up as Killer Shrews invade the house where our protagonists live, trapped on an island isolated from anyone who doesn't smoke or drink in every shot. Some people actually cite this as a classic creature flick, which might be true. Sometimes, it actually does make some kind of sense, and it does progress in a way that could be entertaining to a mass audience. Perhaps this is why we like it so much...because we can make some kind of case for it. But make no mistake, the movie is absolutely abysmal. The acting sucks, the shrews themselves are deliciously cheesy, and funny details are revealed upon continuous viewing only reinforcing that this is one of the most poorly thought out movies ever. Just for a few small examples, the movie is obviously quite racist (think the classic quote "Automatic pilot can't play Dixieland jazz on those banjos like I can!" and also the fact that God himself seems to smite our poor, sensible black accomplice), the main actress having an orgasm underneath the bizarre trashcan contraption that the team makes to escape the island, and the absolutely monumental train wreck of dialog in the final scene on the boat. This is a movie you come back to. This is a movie you watch every Halloween. Just say the name out loud, right now, in front of your computer monitor. The Killer Shrews. You know you want to watch this movie. Positively unfathomable.Movie Review: Shrew You Too!
Summary: 5 Stars
THE KILLER SHREWS is about a seafaring James Best (later to be immortalized in "The Dukes Of Hazzard") stranded on an island with a group of scientists, a beautiful girl, an alcoholic coward, and a horde of giant, mutated shrews (actually dogs in hairy shrew costumes)! Yep, the shrew mutants are the result of an experiment gone wrong. Best is pretty good in his role, and the rest of the cast are adequate, but the true stars for me are the ravenous rodents themselves! Complete with hauntingly eerie snarls and six-inch fangs, these babies are loose and ready to devour anyone they can get a hold of! Can our hero save these folks from becoming shrew snacks? Watch and see...Movie Review: ALPHA DVD VERSION
Summary: 5 Stars
JAMES BEST( THE ANDY GRIFFITH SHOW/ DUKES OF HAZZARD )IS THE HERO AS HE TRIES TO ORGANISE AN ESCAPE FROM SHREW ISLAND. PRODUCER KEN CURTIS (SINGING COWBOY/FESTUS FROM TV's GUNSMOKE) TRIES TO STOP HIM & CLAIM HIS BRIDE TO BE. CLASSIC CHEEZIE SCI-FI ROMP CO-RELEASED TO SOUTHERN DRIVE-INS WITH "THE GIANT GILA MONSTER". THIS ONE HAS TO BE SEEN TO BE BELIEVED!!! I FOUND IT TO BE GREAT FUN, REMEMBERING IT FROM MY 1960's CHILDHOOD YOUTH FROM LOCAL WFMJ TV's 5:00 SHOWTIME.
THE ALPHA DVD VERSION IS REALLY QUITE GOOD, VERY CLEAR WITH GOOD AUDIO...I ACTUALLY THOUGHT I WAS WATCHING A MUCH MORE EXPENSIVE PRODUCT.
YOU CAN'T GO WRONG HERE...HIGHLY RECOMMENDED!!!
Movie Review: "...bone, flesh, marrow, everything..."
Summary: 5 Stars
The Killer Shrews is one of my favorite B&W Sci-Fi films ever. Sure it's bad but it's supposed to be. The idea of giant shrews eating everything they can just gets under my skin. There is some very effective imagery that genuinely creeps me out. For the price you can't go wrong. A perfect film for large gatherings of people, probably best viewed under the influence of something or anything. Alternately funny and scary, the title alone should make anyone curious. Go on you know you wanna watch it.
"...the wildest and most vicious..."
"...some call them bone eaters..."