Format: DVD from personal collection on The New Portable.
Every now and then, it’s fun to jump into the shallow end of the pool. You’re not looking for anything too difficult or that asks any real questions. You don’t want to be challenged that much, and your need for entertainment is relatively low. That’s when a movie like The Killer Shrews, bad enough that it was featured on Mystery Science Theater 3000 but not so bad that they were willing watch it, fills the bill. With a running time just under 70 minutes and a paper-thin plot, sometimes it’s all you need when you’ve had a crappy day.
The high concept here is not going to be surprising. Boat captain Thorne Sherman (James Best, most famous for playing Sheriff Roscoe P. Coltrane on The Dukes of Hazzard) and his assistant Rook Griswold (“Judge” Henry Dupree) show up at a remote island with a cargo of supplies for the people who live there. However, they’re not ready to unload the ship any time soon—there’s a hurricane brewing. They encounter the people who live on the island and discover that it’s a sort of research facility. There is a doctor named Marlowe Cragis (Baruch Lumet), his daughter Anne (Ingrid Goude), lab assistant Radford Baines (Gordon McLendon), Anne’s former fiancé Jerry (Ken Curtis) and, natural, Mario (Alfred DeSoto), the help.
