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.

This movie was made out by White Rock Lake near Dallas and stars James Best, great character actor of the early sixties (Twilight Zone, Perry Mason, Alfred Hitchcock) and Festus of Gunsmoke. The old Scotsman, Gordon McClendon, Texas Radio Magnate, has a bit part in the movie. This movie is so low, low, low budget you will be amazed and bumfuzzled at the creativity they go to to stretch their production bucks. If you watch this movie, to see James Best and Festus work their magic, and to fall over at the hilarity of it, rather than for its fear factor, you will agree it deserves five stars for entertaining you to the max through sheer laughs. You will neve look at a little bitty wild shrew the same way again!

This classic is a great late night thriller. The special effects are impressive, considering it was made in 1959. Ok for the kids to watch also.

I guess after all the other things that attacked in the 1950's and 60's, film makers were running out of creatures. Shrews are among the smallest of mammals and require huge amounts of food to survive. I guess someone thought that if you made shrews really big, about the size of a coon dog (which played the killer shrews after the addition of a fur coat), you would have giant, voracious shrews. Ignoring the biological unlikelihood of giant shrews existing and still maintaining their appetite, this movie is a reasonably good movie in the "attack of" genre. The shrews are mostly menacing - except in close-ups or when they are shot, and then they look like a stuffed animal.

The theory behind the killer shrews is that a group of scientists were performing experiments on an island somewhere in the remote north. Some of their experiments escaped and quickly ate their way through the local fauna. Lacking sustenance, the shrews decided that people were suitable food alternatives and began seeking ways of entering the laboratory compound.

Thorne Sherman (James Best, best known for being the sheriff on the television series "The Dukes of Hazzard") is a boat captain bringing supplies to the island. He finds himself in the middle of a love triangle involving Ann Craigis (Ingrid Goude, Miss Universe 1957). Sherman discovers that he has to defend himself against four-legged shrews and two-legged shrews carrying shotguns. The rest of the movie involves trying to figure out whether anyone will make it off the island, and who the shrews will kill in the process of getting off the island.

This movie is an above average mutated monster film. The shrews look like dogs when they are chasing their prey, but they look sort of menacing in close-ups. I also appreciated how the producer and director tried to focus on the monster story rather than the peripheral love story, except to the extent that the shrews were able to take advantage of the arguments between the various characters. Fans of mutated creature films, "attack of" films, and campy horror and science films of the 1950's and 1960's will enjoy this one.

Enjoy!

This is a strange,but very funny movie. The monsters are dogs (small Collies) with some kind of fake fur and tails tied on them. It is really too muckin' fuch! Hysterical!