You can tell that they were running out of ideas in the 50s for giant animals when they finally resort to that of the common shrew, a small mouselike rodent. Giant leeches I can understand, since those are all slimy, creepy and blood sucky; but giant cuddly wuddly shrews, well that’s a bit of a stretch for me. And explains why I was pleasantly surprised at how decent this classic horror movie was, given the low expectations going in.
What really interested me about The Killer Shrews was its story’s resemblance to that of Jurassic Park. There are many similarities from the get go and by the end you’d think that the plot was a basis to Crichton’s killer dinosaur novel. From the privately financed island, the pretentious scientists, the gene splicing and the pack hunting; I was almost sure I’d see a Shrewasaurous Rex by the end of this thing.
"Clever girl"
The movie starts with the cocky young Captain Thorne Sherman and his bumbling side kick, Rook, delivering fresh supplies to a small private island. Upon their arrival, they are informed of an approaching hurricane and will have to spend the night at the island’s lone compound where Sherman begins to discover the intent of a mysterious group of scientists.
Turns out that they are using genetics to alter the physical characteristics of small shrews in order to make them half the size, and twice as energy efficient, kind of like the Energy Star version of rodents. But why would anyone want to cook up a crazy scheme like this? Well, it’s simple really. The experiments on the shrews are a precursor to what they want to do to humans in order to solve our eventual overpopulation problems, ya know, since smaller people would consume less resources and all.
We bred eight originally, but when she came in she took over the pride and killed all but two of the others.
However, there is a bit of hiccup in the scientists’ plans and due to accidental negligence, several different strains of shrew genes were mixed when the rodents escaped their holding pens and bred with each other. Hence causing them to become multiple times larger, twice as vicious and to top it all off, filled with deadly poisonous saliva.
From here on in, it’s basically a survival tale with the pack of cunning raptors shrews systematically hunting down and attacking our group. While the survivors try to escape the compound and make it to the rescue boat, assuming they don’t kill each other first.
"Well now, isn't this a barrel full of laughs..."
The monster shrews in this film aren’t as big as other “giant” creatures we’ve seen from similar 50s horror movies. And from seeing the distant camera shots, they mostly resemble german shepherds covered with shag rugs. However, the up close moments we get to see of the killer shrews, they are well done and hideous looking. I even jumped one time when one of them popped up out of nowhere.
Overall, I rather enjoyed The Killer Shrews, more so than Attack of the Giant Leeches. On the 50 Horror Classics Movie Pack rating scale, I give it a “B+” for having an interesting way of achieving gigantism other than atomic energy, solid acting and a lot of good action.
Return of the Killer Shrews
Interestingly, there is a sequel to The Killer Shrews that has been in the making by lead actor, Jim Best, that is now in post production. Check out the Return of the Killer Shrews trailer here:
In this sequel, Captain Sherman is hired by a reality TV crew to film a new show on the island (I’m guessing similar to Survivor), except the only problem is that all the giant shrews from the 1959 movie never went extinct via overpopulation like the original scientists predicted would happen.
“If there is one thing the history of evolution has taught us it’s that life will not be contained. Life breaks free, expands to new territories, and crashes through barriers, painfully, maybe even dangerously, but, ah, well, there it is.”
-Dr. Ian Malcolm
This should be an interesting yet campy movie, and I look forward to hopefully seeing it in 2012.
{ 2 comments… read them below or add one }
Actually, I think the shrews in long shot really WERE large dogs covered with rugs. Shrews don’t look that cuddly to me (they have a nasty set of teeth), but it was certainly a nimble bit of thinking to come up with the idea. The man behind the movie was the actor who played Festus on the tv show ‘Gunsmoke’; but have no clue as how he got from the Old West to genetic splicing on a tropical isle. The reality-tv idea for the sequel sounds interesting; and if there were such things as giant shrews, I can easily see a show like this being done.
Yea, it seems pretty clear that for many of the non-closeup shots, that the shrews were clearly dogs with rugs on them. Wasn’t aware that Festus was behind this, but definitely makes it all the more interesting, so thanks for the info.