john_vance-20806
Make no mistake, you'll find no great cinema here. The acting, dialog and special effects are very B-grade. Yet I find it compellingly fun to watch.Perhaps it is the non-stop drinking that occurs throughout the film that makes me want to join in. Such drab, dour characters sipping martinis in such a drab, dour location fascinates me. One would think scientists would want to be a little more alert in a dangerous situation but apparently they prefer to be well-lubricated. There is one scene that makes me think of "synchronized swigging" and always makes me smile.The stunning Swedish beauty who should be prancing merrily in heels walks about all droopy and slack-shouldered. Almost as though totally bored with the whole idea that they may all be devoured by ravenous beasts before the break of dawn.The grim scientist who appears blinded to all but his work only brightens when he holds a tiny shrew in his hand - not with a look of curiosity and fascination, but with a lip-smacking leer suggesting he is ready to gobble it up in one bite.I pull this out at least once a year with a full supply of my own favorite mind-altering beverage to join in the fun. It makes me wonder if I need to look into AA.
AaronCapenBanner
Ray Kellogg directed this horror film about a misguided scientist on a remote island who has developed a serum to bring growth to animals to deal with future overpopulation. Unfortunately, he experimented on tiny shrews that have grown to the size of dogs, and become vicious killers on the loose, just as a fierce hurricane threatens the island and the few survivors, who try desperately to escape before the shrews get them... Brought to you by the director of "The Giant Gila Monster" that same year, film is a bit better, with some surprisingly tense scenes, and fierce-sounding monsters. Still silly of course, but better than you would expect, and a definite cult item.
LoneDoveProductions /MTN
Of course this wasn't a master piece, it was a b movie. But as far as b movies go, it was entertaining, it was relatively clever, and I enjoyed the acting, again not the greatest acting ever, but I enjoyed it. The shrews were just dogs in a costume, but it's better than the cgi sequel return of the killer shrews. Some down sides of the film is because the effects aren't great, almost every b movie cliché has been followed, such as the Black man dying first, and the jerk in the film dies off around the end. This would be a great movie to show at horror themes parties, watching a movie during Halloween. I have given it the title of the best b movie I have seen. Give it a watch.
phil allen
Now, wasn't '59 a gas year for movies? We stumbled on to 'The Killer Shrews' Saturday evening (when else?), and I came away with these impressions before my viewing mate said "Enough": The interior set design was bad-drunk good, with the wonderfully grimy walls, windows that look out onto nothing but gates and teeth, and that killer bar in the corner under the mirror, where I imagine the sane folk gathered while the hurricane of terror just swirrlled around them..this was either a career maker or breaker for the fellow playing ever- compliant Mario, the bartend..Gordon McLendon ("the Old Scotsman") was a heavy in radio broadcasting, and sonorously ran 'beautiful music' (an extinct format that sounded like elevator music) KABL in San Francisco..the real lift this odd little offering brought me was in seeing a portrayal of a black man--the 'mate Griswold--without any buffoonery, racial stereotyping or condescension, relating to his boss (Thone) as one neighbor to another. (This changes to "Help me, Massa" screams as he's turned into dinner by the shrew/dogs.) I can recall but too other such examples from the non-p.c. era: the escapee in "My Sweet Charlie" and the 'hero' in "Night of the Living Dead". If going to Heaven means doing what I want,..I want to go to Heaven so I can bend men's minds into believing that 'Killer Shrews' swept the Oscars for that year.
AD
