The perfect movie for those special occasions when you need to see dogs in rat costumes try to eat the winner of the 1956 Miss Sweden pageant.
Some fruit loop scientists have an idea that they can increase the world’s food supply if everyone were smaller. So our future Nobel Prize winners go to a secluded island and do tests on rodents. Not all of their experiments go well though, and they end up creating over-sized, poisonous shrews who roam the island eating anything or anyone that they can find. Enter future Dukes of Hazzard star James Best as a likable man of action who gets mixed up in this mess when he shows up to deliver supplies. It’s talky at times, but a fun movie overall with a classic climax.
This film is Texas radio tycoon Gordon McLendon dipping his toe in low-budget movie production. It was shot mostly on his ranch just outside of Dallas and McLendon himself takes an acting role (as one of the scientists). It was a time when Hollywood wanted drive-in theaters wiped off the face of the Earth. The only films that outdoor theaters could book from studios were old ones, so that eventually led drive-in owners to independent producers and their backyard monster movies. McLendon, along with guys like Roger Corman, jumped on the opportunity, though McLendon didn’t last long. He made this and The Giant Gila Monster (both intended to be shown as a double-feature) and then moved on to other things, such as offshore pirate radio in Europe, a failed campaign for a seat in the US Senate and some other crap that nobody even thinks about today.
Meanwhile, The Killer Shrews remains on the shortlist of old B-movies that continue to circulate through the culture like a healthy young guppy in a peaceful pond. There was even a sequel—fifty-three years later!—in 2012. Anywhere where old public domain films live, from late night TV to umpteenth budget-priced home video collections to Youtube, this film’s killer shrews will be there still biting peoples’ faces off. Bless ’em.