Drive-In Sci-Fi: The Killer Shrews (1959)

Now i had to look up in dictionary and apperently word Shrew means "evil woman". Right form the first words we get told that there was a new species on earth - giant killer Shrews. wow so much for not spoiling the movie right? some sailor going to carry suplies go isolated island together with his sidekick that he dont seem to love that much. well the guy is black, and back then the racism was still not inquisitioned like it is today, so the movie may try to play on that, though there is no outright racism here. they meet with scientist, his aid and whoese, scientists daughter, antoher egghead woman. how come in movies EVERY scientist has a daughter that follows him around like a dog? It is instnatly clear that something is not right here. the scientists all carry heavy weaponry, house is boarded with planks, the daughter wantsto get off the island. they are also out of communication so they are pretty much solo game in there. the scientists in that fortress are wierd in their own way. a setting is good, we will see where it goes from there.
The doctor explains some theiry about humans being 2 times larger means 2 times longer lifespan. then the captain decides to inform him to open all the windows becasue huricane is coming. that myth seems to be rather old it seems. mythbusters did test it and figured out that its better to keep them closed, its both safer, warmer, dryer and often less likely to make your hosue a mess. if the wind is high enough to breake your wall, thne opening wont help.
well the hurricane hits them and the scientists goes into showing the captain his mouse and explaining about his research. Typircally the black guy that stayed near the boat gets attacked by something that looks like group of very large rats. typically black guy dies first. Though we dont actually know what is hapening, we hear him screem and movement behind bushes, thats about it. apperently this is what a shrew is, and there is plenty of them out there. the bastards get into the house and thne attacsk them. it manadges to bite the mexican aid but gets shot. apperently mexican is bad because the shrews have manadged to become poisonous.
They live to see the dailight and tw of them decide to make it for the boat. they figure that the black guy is dead now. but the evil hamsters are back for more. the sailor and one of the scientists also get into a fight over the daughter. the sailor obviuosly wins and almsot throws the guy out for shrews. you know i may have to make a saying of it, /;thorw it out for shrews" it sounds good. they seem to solve all troubles with drinking more alcohol once again. but the shrews are inside the house and once again gets shot. but once agian i manadges to poison somone else. before death he manadges to write (instead of say) all the symptoms of the poison reaction. More shrews get in and they use sofa to stop them. how inovative is that. the thing can eat through bricks but sofa is going to stop him, right. apperently the only thing it cant eat is wood, strange. they manadge to wield a... whatever out of empty chemical barrels. apperently its a thing to get inside and hide from rats. but jerry gets amd and climbs on the roof. they just leave him there and walk away with newly built machine while jerry tries to make it the old way, and, obviuosly, get eaten. their machine works though and they get to the water, the shrews cant swim, so isntead of taking a rest they decide to swim for the boat, and suceed too. another happy ending, what will happen to the shews? gona nuke em?


Story: 7/10. It was pretty decent, stuck in isolated island with mosnters outside. i liked the way story unfolded in this one.
Acting: 4/10. Above the usual but still not good.
Sound: 2/10. The usual bad bad soundtrack.
Sci factor: 7/10. Beside some factual problems the science of overpopulation, starvating and the way they invented things to get out was pretty good. altrough it could have been better it still wasnt that bad there.
Lasting Appeal: 7/10. This one i will remmeber for a while at least. the shrews were not what i expected, but it sure worked.
Overall rating: 6/10.

Actually a shrew is a tiny little mouse-looking mammal, but are not closely related to the rodent family. Despite their tiny size, shrews are extremely territorial and will fight quite fearlessly to guard what they own.



Their extremely aggressive behavior lead the great literary artist William Shakespeare to use the name in reference to a bitchy woman in his work "The Taming of the Shrew" and for a great time after, "shrew" was used to describe such women and is still listed in many dictionaries today as a major definition of the word.



Hope that helps explain it a little for you.

sure does, thanks.

Where on earth do you watch these old movies?????

Well of all the people here you probably know the best the way i obtain movies.

lol

WoogieMonster wrote: