Captain Thorne Sherman and first mate Rook Griswold deliver supplies by boat to a group on a remote island. The group, consisting of scientist Marlowe Cragis, his research assistant Radford Baines, the scientist's daughter Ann, her recent fiancee Jerry Farrel, and a servant Mario, welcome the captain and his first mate. They also subtly resist the visitors staying overnight, even though a hurricane is approaching. Thorne goes with them to their compound, and Griswold stays with the boat, saying that he will come ashore later. The situation in the compound is less than safe. During cocktails, Thorne becomes aware of a life-threatening situation to all of them: Marlowe Cragis has been performing well-meaning research on serums and uses shrews as test animals. The doctor's purpose is to shrink humans to half their size in order to reduce world hunger because being smaller, humans will consume less food in a world with a limited food supply. Unfortunately, the doctor's experiments have created mutant giant shrews that have escaped and are now reproducing in the wild, growing larger and more voracious by the day. The group must now barricade themselves inside their compound every evening before the sun sets, so that the shrews will kill each other once they have eaten every other living animal on the island. Thorne and Ann begin to be attracted to each other, causing Jerry to become jealous, despite ruining his relationship with Ann. The giant shrews have run out of smaller animals to hunt and devour. When Griswald comes ashore, the mutants attack and kill him. After closing in on the compound and killing the available livestock, one of the mutant shrews breaks a window and hides in the basement. Mario and Thorne go downstairs when they hear the noise. Mario discovers the mutant and shoots at it, but not before it bites him. The giant shrew is immediately killed by Thorne. Mario quickly expires from the mutant's bite. Radford later discovers a highly toxic venom in the dead shrew's saliva, the result, it turns out, of the poisoned bait he had placed in the wild to kill them off. Another mutant shrew is able to get in, and it bites Radford. As he dies, Radford records the symptoms on his typewriter, right up to the moment of his death. As the giant shrews begin to chew through the compound walls, the group makes impromptu armor by lashing together empty 50 gallon oil drums. Now crouched down inside them, they duckwalk towards the beach shoreline. Due to his claustrophobia, Jerry remains behind, isolating himself on the roof before watching the mutants chase after the lashed-together drums. He attempts to flee but is cut off and killed by another group of shrews. Thorne, Ann, and Marlowe manage to reach the shoreline and swim out to the boat. Safely aboard and confident that the giant shrews will eventually die out from consuming one another, Thorne and Ann share a long kiss.
Principal photography took place outside of Dallas, Texas. Special effects were provided by first-time director Kellogg, who served as the head of 20th Century Fox's special effects department throughout most of the 1950s. Close-ups of the shrews were filmed using hand puppets, and for the wider shots, coonhounds were costumed as the shrews. This low-budget feature was regarded as one of the more successful "regional films". Unlike other regional films, it received national and even foreign distribution.
Release
Home media
A colorized version of The Killer Shrews was released on DVD by Legend Films as a double feature set with the creature featureThe Giant Gila Monster. The satirical TV show Mystery Science Theater 3000 riffed on the movie in an episode during its fourth season. MST3Ks version of The Killer Shrews was released on DVD by Rhino Home Video as part of the show's Volume 7 boxed set. The gags were focused on the movie's main flaws: the lack of conflict in its first hour, the silly appearance of the shrews, and how most of the dialogue was difficult to understand due to the regional accents of the actors.
Reception
On Rotten Tomatoes, The Killer Shrews holds an approval rating of 50%, based on, with a weighted average rating of 4.6 out of 10. Leonard Maltin awarded the movie 2.5 out of 4 stars, calling it "an inventive but silly sci-fi tale". Despite mixed reviews, the movie was a commercial success. Unlike many American creature features of the time, it was released internationally adding to its profits.
Sequels and remakes
The sequel Return of the Killer Shrews was produced in 2012, again starring Best as Thorne Sherman. Bruce Davison took the role of Jerry. The movie also stars John Schneider and Rick Hurst, Best's co-stars in The Dukes of Hazzard. The length of time between the original movie's release and the sequel's release is one of the longest time periods in movie history between sequels. The parody/remake Attack of the Killer Shrews was released in 2016 by White Lion Studios. Directed by Ken Cosentino, it was filmed as a horror comedy with "deliberately awful...horrible shrew puppets" and a different cast of characters.
