The Killer Shrews (1959)

User Rating:

3.1/10   

Director:

Ray Kellogg

Writers:

Jay Simms (story)
Jay Simms (screenplay)

Release Date:

6 April 1962 (West Germany)

Genre:

Horror | Sci-Fi

Tagline:

All that was left after...THE KILLER SHREWS! (Used in conjunction with a woman's pink pump and splattered blood)

Plot:

On an isolated island, a small group of people is terrorised by giant, voracious shrews in the midst of a hurricane.

Plot Keywords:

Shrews | Hurricane | Flesh Eating | Remote Island | Sidekick

Cast

James Best	...	Thorne Sherman
Ingrid Goude	...	Ann Craigis
Ken Curtis	...	Jerry Farrell
Gordon McLendon	...	Dr. Radford Baines
Baruch Lumet	...	Dr. Marlowe Craigis
Judge Henry Dupree	...	'Rook' Griswold
Alfredo DeSoto	...	Mario

Also Known As:

The Attack of the Killer Shrews

Runtime:

69 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Black and White

Aspect Ratio:

1.85 : 1

Sound Mix:

Mono (RCA Sound System)

Certification:

USA:Passed (National Board of Review) | UK:PG (video rating) (1996) | UK:X (original rating) | USA:Approved (PCA #19311)

Filming Locations:

Dallas, Texas, USA

Company:

Hollywood Pictures Corporation (II)

Trivia:

The man playing Dr. Baines is Gordon McLendon. He was the uncredited executive producer and financier of this and its companion feature The Giant Gila Monster (1959). He owned radio stations and a chain of theaters in Texas.

Goofs:

Continuity: As Thorne and Jerry are fighting at the gate, Ann and Radford look out the window to see what's going on. In the close-up Ann is wearing a black top, even though she had just changed into a white blouse. When Thorne comes back into the house after the fight, Ann is again wearing the white blouse.

Quotes:

Thorne Sherman: Why, that's as big as a full-grown wolf!

Movie Connections:

Featured in Ernest Scared Stupid (1991)

Not As Bad As All That

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.