Starting with the 50’s horror theme of the blog this month for Halloween, we have The Killer Shrews. The title may be stupid, but you can’t deny the fact that it got your attention.
The story involves a small team of genetic scientists who made a species of giant, psychotic, poisonous, killer shrews that end up getting loose. The main character is a ship captain that goes to the island for… reasons I don’t remember, but whatever. He gets stuck on the island with the scientists when a hurricane strikes. From then on, it’s the people trying not to get eaten by the shrews.
Firstly and most importantly, the monsters…. the shrews are just dogs in stupid looking costumes. However, when it’s a close-up of the face, or whenever one of them dies, it’s a prop. They are the bare minimum of what could be considered ‘special effects’. They do not look even the least bit threatening. But looks can be (somewhat) deceiving, because these things are vicious little suckers. They have a poisonous bite that can kill a person within moments, and are some of the most determined rodents I’ve seen. There was even a good jump scare in there, too. They’re surprisingly okay monsters that do their job well. They only look stupid.
What moderately surprised me was how annoying the human characters weren’t. None of them were necessarily stupid. The only part that seemed off was the beginning, when everyone was suspicious about everyone else. For the most part, the actors and the characters they played were alright. Heck, even most of the dramatic scenes were well done for a movie of its kind. The best part about the captain character was how creative he got when the survivors had to get to the ship without getting killed by the shrews. He gets a bunch of empty oil drums, cuts eye holes in them, and ties them together so they can all duck walk to the shore without getting bit!
As dumb as that idea sounded, it actually worked! In horror films these days, the characters would never come up with an idea like that! The only way it would happen in a modern horror movie is if it was some joke in a parody. But people back then had imagination in (somewhat) intense, life threatening situations.
For the type of film it is, the writing is okay. The biggest issue is that there’s barely any build up to the monster reveal. Usually, in the movies where the scientists create a monster, they wait until after its first big onscreen attack to explain what it is. Here, the girl flat out tells the captain what’s going on long before they attack… and he takes the news of insane shrews pretty well! He goes along with it like it’s just another bit of odd news for the week. I thought he wouldn’t initially believe it, but he sure proved me wrong! The more I think of how he simply accepts the fact that giant killer shrews exist, the more I want to pi$$ myself.
In conclusion, the Killer Shrews is an okay horror movie. It’s not too horrifying, but it is entertaining in how stupid it is. If anything, you should watch it just so you can say “I watched a movie called the Killer Shrews”. It’s not as bad as others, but not as good as some. It falls somewhere in between.
FINAL RATING: 17 / 50
STORY: 2 / 5
ACTING: 3 / 5
CHARACTERS: 3 / 5
EFFECTS: 0 / 5
HORROR: 1 / 5
SOUNDTRACK: 2 / 5
TONE: 2 / 5
ENJOYABILITY: 3 / 5
REWATCH VALUE: 1 / 5
OWNING VALUE: 0 / 5
I know the theme for this month is ‘50’s horror movies’, but the one exception is going to be Dracula Untold. Let’s see how that turns out, shall we?
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