The Killer Shrews

I'm shocked by the low rating this movie has on here. I have to assume most of the people who voted don't watch many movies in the genre. I have seen more mutated animal movies than I can remember and this is better than most. The acting is good and the shrews don't look too bad. I mean they are just dogs with throw rugs on their backs and some fake teeth but they only attack at night(BRILLIANT!)and they move very fast so you can't see them very well anyway. The movie starts with two guys on a ship going to an island and knowing a hurricane is coming. When they get there, the captain is immediately and obviously suspicious. Other than the scientists making up a bunch of lies and having guns, there's not much of the usual giant mutated animal movie clichés. One thing you might consider a flaw is that ten minutes in, you will know who is going to die. I actually like that. This was the first time I correctly picked every character who would die. This is definitely worth seeing.

When will the doctors learn? On a desolate and exotic island a doctor with a heart of gold screws up and damn near destroys the world. Am I referring to Fulci's Zombie, no? How about that island with Marlon Brando? Nope, wrong again.

In the Killer Shrews this tome around on that deserted tropical island as seen a hundred times we have mutated shrews threatening to chomp down on our trapped scientists and a boat crew unlucky enough to be carting supplies to the island. Poisonous and hungry these shrews are gonna clean the island and suck the marrow from your bones…burp.

This fun little clichéd cheese fest moves along are a pretty quick pace. The acting is on par with the era, a bit over blown, but who cares. You have to love those shrew monsters. The effects are a bit *ahem* shrewd and laughable. Not to mention the long shots of the animals that appear to be dogs or maybe pigs dressed up in costumes, complete with tail. Good fun to be had by all with a hankering for b-grade sci-horror.

Long before Alexander Payne's 'Downsizing,' Ray Kellogg brought us this science-fiction epic about Baruch Lumet's cunning plan to curb overpopulation and its' effects on the world's resources by shrinking humans down to half their size. Sadly, before Dr. Lumet could save the world with his ingenious idea, the shrews he had been experimenting on mutated, growing to enormous sizes and becoming terribly ferocious (how his experiments yielded the exact opposite results that he was looking for is never explained). The creatures then broke loose, escaped his compound and fled into the forests of his isolated island. Now, they stalk the night, fangs bared, waiting to turn anyone they come across into mincemeat.

'The Killer Shrews' follows sea-captain Thorne Sherman- played by James Best- who is stranded on Lumet's island and- alongside the good doctor and his scientific accomplices- forced to battle the titular mutants for the sake of humanity itself. Trapped in the minimally decorated compound with shrews on every side, the gang drink endless martinis, rattle off ridiculous speeches and plot how to escape the island without becoming the ghastly creatures' next meal.

'The Killer Shrews' is a hilariously cheap-looking affair that is surely the prototypical film that's "so bad it's good." On every level the film is laughably inept, from the performances by the actors, to the set design and decoration and of course, the stars of the show, the shrews themselves. Although the coonhounds covered in shag carpet who play the shrews in long shots look better than the puppets used in close up, it's not by much. Kellogg designed the beasts himself, and he must have been drinking more martinis than his characters to be content with the finished product.

The cast have nothing to do but neck back martinis and recite ridiculous, poorly-written dialogue from Jay Simms's screenplay when they're not running from the shrews, so it's no wonder they all appear totally flummoxed. Lumet, who usually does fine work in small roles (see his brief appearance in his son Sidney's 'The Pawnbroker' for proof of this) here seems confused and a little scared by all the faux-scientific lines he has to spout throughout the film. Ingrid Goude, who plays his daughter, is just as out of her depth, with her wooden delivery and lack of screen presence betraying a dearth of acting talent.

James Best and Ken Curtis- who plays the alcoholic Jerry- come off the best, actually giving the film a bit of life and energy in its slower, martini-based moments between rampant shrew attacks. The other actors in the cast leave the same impression on the viewer as Lumet and Goude except they aren't nearly as memorable. The common denominator between them all is that they approach the material with an over-the-top earnesty and dead-pan seriousness that makes it all the funnier to hear lines like "those who hunt by night will tell you that the wildest and most vicious of all animals is the tiny shrew."

Then there's the set decoration- if it can even be called decoration- which is laughably sparse. Lumet's compound looks like a low-rent motel room from the 30's that someone stole all the furniture from; leaving only the bar in place. The laboratory where the shrew experimentations took place may be the least scientific-looking set ever captured on film, based entirely on the canny inclusion of a couple of microscopes and a few test tubes. Also, the score from Harry Bluestone and Emil Cadkin is so melodramatic and overblown it makes the music in your average soap opera seem practically subtle.

Everything about the film is funny because it's all so mediocre. Though there are a couple of half decent performances, the cast are generally hilarious, their dialogue ridiculous and the story they're trapped in completely fatuous. There is never any suspense in the film because the shrews are so obviously coonhounds and hand-puppets, not to mention the fact that Kellogg isn't a particularly talented director and would probably have struggled to create tension even if his shrews looked like the work of Ray Harryhausen.

'The Killer Shrews' is so entertaining because it's so Godawful, though people who don't find over-the-top ineptitude humorous might be left a little cold by the experience of watching the film. If you do find the awful and the melodramatic funny (like Claudio Fragasso's 'Troll 2') then watch 'The Killer Shrews.' It's not just so bad it's good; it's so bad it's brilliant.

The Killer Shrews is a low budget B horror movie from 1959. Are there problems with it? Does it seem simple and not as scary as modern horror films? Yes and yes, I just said it was a low budget B movie from 1959. Don't expect too much. Considering this, I've watched this movie several times over the years and find it to be a fun, suspenseful, and entertaining movie. I also believe it to be under rated and well worth viewing. Being under rated, it also is very reasonably priced. You just have to sit back, relax and enjoy it. This type of movie however could not stand up to a close examination. If it's taken too seriously or is put under a microscope, it just won't be able to stand the inspection.

Having seen any number of bad movies, I can state that this is significantly better than most of them, and even better in part than movies not considered bad at all. However, in those aspects in which this movie is bad it is not merely bad, it is awful.

We have the usual formula of two-fisted hero (James Best), damsel in distress (Swedish Ingrid Goude), the damsel's mad-scientist father (non-Swedish Baruch Lumet), and the villain (Ken Curtis). The formula in this case is less clichéd than usual. The hero is fairly articulate and the mad scientist is actually quite urbane, tossing off his creation of hundreds of giant, poisonous, man-eating shrews with the line "unusual experiments lead to unusual results". The dialog is competently written and the acting is above par (with the exception of the Swedish eye-candy, who is at least good eye candy).

The general concept is compact and dramatically efficient: a group of people are trapped first by a hurricane and then by an outside menace in a stronghold which gets less and less strong as time, ammunition and group cohesion all grow short.

However the execution is at times illogical. One problem is that the stronghold is made out of...adobe. On a rainswept island crawling with usable timber? The thrilling conclusion is also somewhat implausible.

The main reason for the film's abysmal reputation is the legendary and quite obvious use of ordinary dogs in bathmats to play the part of giant shrews. I suppose this just has to be overlooked.

As a sidelight, it is interesting to see Dukes of Hazard sheriff James Best tall and handsome as the hero, and it is apparent that producer/villain Ken Curtis labored long and hard in the trenches before gaining fame as Festus.