- Directed by Ray Kellog
- Written by Jay Simms
- Stars James Best, Ingrid Goude, Ken Curtis
- Run Time: 1 Hour, 9 Minutes
- Trailer: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nhG8vLz9PUA
Spoiler-Free Judgment Zone
They try to make a harmless animal seem deadly and dangerous here. But hand puppets and dogs in poor disguises don’t quite cut it. It’s got a story, and things happen. There’s action and people to root for and people to dislike. But it’s far, far from a great movie – it’s quite the opposite.
Spoilery Synopsis
We are told that there have been reports of a new invasive species, “The Killer Shrews,” as credits roll.
Throne Sherman takes his boat to a safe cove to ride out a storm along with his pilot, Rook. They anchor off the coast and take a dinghy in. They meet Dr. Craigis and deliver the supplies he wanted. The doctor wants his daughter, Ann, to go back to the mainland with Sherman. No one is happy to hear that they can’t leave today because of the coming storm. Rook decides to stay on the boat to make sure things are OK overnight.
Sherman and the rest go back to the doctor’s fenced-in compound. The doctor’s assistant Jerry says the radio has been out of commission for a week. Sherman meets the nerdy Dr. Baines, another of Sherman’s assistants. No one knew that a hurricane was on the way.
Craigis explains that he’s trying to extend the lifespan of creatures to control eventual overpopulation by making them smaller. “If we were half our size, we could live on half the resources.” They use shrews as experimental animals. “Sometimes they’re called bone-eaters,” he jokes. When Sherman asks how big they get, Craigis gives an evasive answer.
Ann yells at Jerry about drunkenly leaving a cage door open, which he doesn’t appreciate. Jerry is jealous of Sherman.
Meanwhile, Rook is out tying up and securing the boat, but he sees creatures in the woods, so he runs to the house. He climbs a tree, but the pack of animals following him is relentless. Before long, the branch breaks, and the creatures eat him.
Sherman wants to go back to his boat, but Ann begs him to stay; it’s not safe out there. She’s serious enough that she pulls a gun on him. She tells him about the two or three hundred giant shrews outside weighing up to two hundred pounds.
Craigis comes in and explains the abnormal growth on one pair. “They were mutants. Somehow, they managed to escape.” Then they bred out in the woods. They’re out there starving right now, so all they have to do is wait inside until they eat each other.
The power goes out, and the generator is outside the fence. The shrews dig in under the barn wall and eat the horse. They all decide to sleep on it and then make a run for the boat in the morning. When it’s Jerry’s turn to take the watch, he’s drunk again, so Mario the servant does another pass. Mario finds that a shrew has gotten into the cellar, so he wakes up Sherman for help.
They open the door and go downstairs. Mario gets bitten, but he shoots the shrew. It’s only a leg bite, but Mario dies quickly. Could their bite be poisonous? They used poison to kill the shrews, but instead they adapted to use it themselves. Meanwhile, outside, the shrews are digging through the soft adobe.
Morning comes. Sherman and Jerry check out the path to the boat. Jerky-Jerry points his gun at Sherman and threatens him, but Sherman’s no wimp and easily turns the tables on the drunken assistant. They find the boat abandoned and decide that Rook must’ve been eaten. Jerry panics and runs, and then won’t open the gate for Sherman, who climbs over. Sherman then beats the crap out of Jerry, who totally has it coming. He’s about to throw Jerry over the fence, but changes his mind when he sees Ann watching him.
A shrew runs in and nips Baines, who quickly collapses and dies. Jerry, in the meantime, wastes all their ammunition by shooting the wall. The shrews get inside, so everyone moves out to the courtyard and barricades the walls. They find big metal water tanks that Sherman thinks they can use as individual “tanks.” He welds four of them together so they can leave as a group.
Jerry refuses to go and climbs up on the roof. Dr. Craigis, Ann, and Sherman get into the “tank” and open the gates. The shrews cannot get them inside the metal tanks. After the tanks have gone, Jerry climbs down, thinking the coast is clear. It isn’t.
Ann whines about not being able to make it, but they eventually hit the beach. The shrews don’t follow them into the water. The three swim to the boat, which is in good shape. They leave. Dr. Craigis says that within a day or two all the shrews will have starved to death.
Commentary
How did an invasive species from Alaska show up on an isolated island first? The voiceover in the very beginning says they’re from Alaska, but the rest of the film says otherwise.
The shrews here are all hand puppets or dogs in costume. It’s not a ridiculous plot; the funny part is the atrocious creature effects and the fact that they’re basically just mutated mice. Of all the killer animals they could have chosen for this, why… shrews?