The shrew feeds only by the dark of the moon
Thorne Sherman (James Best) is the captain of the boat that brings supplies to an isolated island. He and his first mate Rook Griswald (Henry Dupree) just took over the run. Scientists on the island are conducting experiments. The group on the island consists of Marlowe Craigis (Baruch Lumet), his daughter Ann (Ingrid Goude), his servent Mario (Alfredo deSoto), Radford Baines (Gordon McLendon)and Ann’s fiancé Jerry Farrell (Ken Curtis).
Sherman arrives at the island and the inhabitants encourage him and his mate to leave before dark. With a hurricane coming captain Sherman is not keen on the idea. He won’t even unload the boat. They batten down the boat and Griswald decides he will stay with it and ride out the hurricane. Sherman joins the group for cocktails at their compound. Sherman gets a lesson on shrews and how they act. When Sherman starts to leave Ann finally tells him about the mutant shrews. An experiment gone very bad that escaped. The shrews are now as large as a “coon dog” with sharp fangs a nasty disposition and poison saliva. Not only do they need to eat three times their weight each day but now the available food on the island is gone and the only food left are the people in the compound. The group is trapped.
In the meantime Rook gets caught unawares and was overrun by the shrews.
Rain starts pelting the compound and melting the adobe that forms the walls of the compound. One of the shrews gets into the cellar. Sherman and Mario go down to confront it. Mario gets bitten and dies from the poison saliva in the shrew. Now they are stuck in a house with killer shrews outside and inside is a different kind of animal; fear, panic, jealousy and anger.
"The Killer Shrews" was released in 1959 and was directed by Ray Kellogg. Other than “The Taming of…” nobody ever heard of a shrew until this movie came out. Still it’s one of my favorites. I saw it as a kid and believed that there were giant shrews. Granted they’re just coon dogs with fur coats and the close ups are puppets but between the noise they make, the sharp teeth, the poison spit, and their tenacity they are actually frightening. I think that the worst part of them is that they just don’t stop. Ever. Yes, today the movie is campy and not just a little ridiculous. Especially the dogs, I mean shrews. But I like to think of it the way I did as a kid. To me, the people are stupid, but the shrews are terrifying.