Killer Shrews, The

2044. THE KILLER SHREWS (1959-usa). With James Best, Ingrid Goude, Ken Curtis, BARUCH LUMET, GORDON McLENDON. As one critic noted, “No, this isn’t about an attack of nagging wives.” it is a hair-raising combination horror-science fiction chiller, which opens with a scary lesson in mammalogy: Those who hunt by night will tell that the wildest and most vicious of all animals is the tiny shrew. The shrew feeds only by the dark of the moon. He must eat his own body weight every few hours or starve and the shrew devours everything-bones, flesh, marrow- everything.” The tension slowly builds as the scenario tells of the invasion of a “new speciesÑthe giant killer shrews.” The cause of all the tumult is Dr. Marlowe Craigis, a well-meaning scientist (played by Baruch Lumet, actor-father of the esteemed director Sidney Lumet). Craigis resides on a remote island where he and an egg-headed colleague have concocted a formula, which allows for the transformation of shrews into rabid wolf-sized monsters. Small boat skipper Thorne Sherman innocently delivers supplies to the island. What he does not know is that he will quickly find himself immersed in the evil wrought by Craigis and his colleague. He also becomes the chief ally of the doctor’s sultry but troubled daughter Ann (played by Swedish actress Ingrid Goude, who was Miss Universe of 1957). The film’s climax is an extended sequence in which the humans go head-to-head against the shrews. It is especially terrifying. 69 minutes. Horror