Review of The Killer Shrews (1959) by Kendall I — 11 Sep 2011

If the name didn't suggest enough sci-fi cheese, them ovie itself is pure in that nature.

PLOT:A captain (James Best) stops off on a deserted island to drop off cargo to a doctor Milo Craigis (Baruch Lumet, yes Sidney Lumet's father) while there's a hurricaine on the way. He's invited to stay for dinner with the doctor, his jerky assistant, Jerry (Ken Curtis); his other assitant, Radford (Gordon McLendon); and his daughter Ann (Ingrid Goude). Their testing is an experiment on how overpopulation can rule over a civilization. He uses (accidentally) mutated shrews for this experiment. They're hungry and out of food, so the team has to survive the hurricaine and make it away from the shrews as fast as possible. It is a typical-sounding 50s sci-fi/horror plot, executed by the way of mediocrity and cheese. No doubt it does almost the best it can pertaining to plot, but it didn't have much potential to start with!

ACTING:Yes and no. James Best was definitely NOT the best. There were times when he was okay, and there were times where it seemed his dialogue was laughable. Everybody else did a decent job, except for Lumet, who IMO played a great mad scientist character.

SCORE:It's typical. It makes everything that happens seem like a dramatic twist and horror element. It's merely there for entertainment.

EFFECTS:You gotta be kidding me. The giant shrews were dogs with long tails and "shrew" masks that were just....not scary and somewhat obnoxious. These are some of the worst effects I've seen in a movie. But think forward to Case 39, then back to this. This right here; it's better.

OTHER CONTENT:This movie is nothing but 50s sci-fi cheese merely made for simple entertainment. Aside from all of those things forementioned, it also contained a cheesy screenplay. the last lines of the movie comfirmed this. After all is over and (SPOILER) the remaining members have escaped on the boat, the doctor is talking about how his experiment of overpopulation worked. Then, the captain and Ann are holding hands, and the captain says: "I don't think we're concerned about overpopulating at the moment." CHEESY!!!! This movie wasn't the worst, considering it was made for entertainment with decent acting, but it is certainly no better than this. And yes, I'm being generous!

OVERALL,a cheesy sci-fi that's not bad but not good, with a typical plot, mostly decent acting, misplaced score, very bad effects, and a cheesy screenplay. But considering the type, it wasn't all that bad.