KILLER SHREWS-1959-Private boat skipper Thorne Sherman (James Best) and his second mate Griswold arrive on a tiny island with supplies for it’s occupants. They are a rather odd group lead by biologist Dr. Craigis (Yiddish actor Baruch Lumet; father of Sidney), his daughter Ann (Ingrid Goude; Miss Universe of 1957) who’s Swedish accent is never explained, her kind of boyfriend and fellow scientist Farrell (Ken Curtis) who besides being a trigger happy idiot, is also a coward and a drunk, the disconnected Dr. Baines (executive producer Gordon McLendon) who’s too clinical for his own good and Mario, the all purpose Latino servant.
It would be a nice cozy boring love triangle of a story if not for the fact that the eggheads have created giant bloodthirsty poisonous shrews (they are actually dogs with rugs thrown over their bodies and bad fanged dummies). The group gets trapped in the small compound, as the shrew gang gets hungrier. Farrell freaks out a few times and gets beat up by Sherman. A lot of drinking goes on as the shrews close in. Some empty metal oil cans provide a means of escape for the survivors in a very implausible ending!
The same producers, director (Ray Kellog) and writer (Jay Simms) that gave us THE GIANT GILA MONSTER also created this silly horror movie around the same time. Star James Best was a busy actor in the late ‘50’s and was in Sam Fuller’s VERBOTEN! the same year. He later became active in TV as an actor, producer and director. He often “threatened” a KS sequel but it never materialized. Best died 2015.
"Money will not make you happy and happy will not make you money"-Groucho Marx
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