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Skipper Thorne (James Best) and mate Rook (Judge Henry Dupree) arrive
on a godforsaken island on their boat to deliver supplies, but find the
islands population - scientist Dr Craigis (Baruch Lumet), his daughter
Anne (Ingrid Goude), his assistants Jerry (Ken Curtis) and Radford (Gordon
McLendon) and his butler Mario (Alfredo De Soto) - being in an incredibly
tense mood, and Anne would like to leave the island right away, which is
prevented by an oncoming hurricane.
So, while Rook looks after the boat, Thorne has himself invited to
Craigis' house, and soon enough learns that the good Doctor has grown
little rodents, the titular shrews, to wolf-like proportion, and somehow
these giant shrews got out of their cage. And since shrews have to eat
three times their bodyweight every day, everybody on this island is in
terrible danger. Fortunately, Thorne is in the house witht he others,
Rook, who eventually disembarks the boat too, has to learn the hard way -
and these beasts even eat his bones.
Soon though, even the Doctor's house is under attack, and it's not at
all helping that Jerry, a hopeless and even violent drunk, suddenly grows
jealous of Thorne because he has caught the eye of Anne. Jerry even tries
to kill Thorne on a couple of occasions.
Eventually the shrews even find a way to enter the house, and soon
enough Mario and Radford are goners, the others find a last refuge walled
in court ... but that won't hold for long, so Thorne comes up with an idea
to build a walking tank out of empty barrels and this wa make it to the
sea ... this way, he at least gets Doc Craigis and Ann to safety, Jerry on
the other hand, blinded by jealousy, thinks he has more of a chance on his
own ... but soon becomes shrew food ...
Given the tiny budget, that wouldn't allow for too convincing special
effects (the giant shrews are actually dogs in unconvincing disguise) or
too good actors (some of the performances really lack depth or come off as
rather wooden), this is a rather decent piece of sci-fi-horror, profiting
from a good premise (very contrary characters locked together in a
desperate situation) as well as some quite atmospheric shots, that easily
balance out the films shortcomings.
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