The fact that you're reading a review of a movie called The Killer Shrews means that you keep an open mind. You're giving an unknown, ridiculously titled film the unlikely chance, as I did, that it will turn out to be something you like. Well, now you can be the first guy on your block to tell everyone about The Killer Shrews. You can be the cool kid who says, "I liked that movie before anyone else knew about it." Or, if you aren't a teenager living in the nineties, you can just have a good time with a movie that will pull you in either with its wonderfully silly special effects or its surprisingly strong direction. I'm serious.

Captain Thorne Sherman has arrived at Dr. Marlowe Craigis' private island with a shipment. He decides to stay the night, despite the signs of danger -- the doctor's assistant, Jerry Farrell, carrying weapons; the doctor's daughter, Ann, jumping at the slightest sound; general talk of some expected assault on the compound. Eventually we learn that Craigis is experimenting with genes in a too-serious attempt to make humans physically smaller so that they will eat less, thus delaying the problem of overpopulation. Somehow, some of the shrews he experimented with mutated and grew to enormous sizes (exactly the size of large dogs dressed in cheap rat costumes). These were let loose on the island, somehow, and now reproduce and eat everything they can with huge fangs and ferocity. It is figured that when their food supply runs out, the critters will come after Craigis and gang, and then each other, until they wipe themselves out. It just so happens that this attack happens tonight.

Throughout the plot, you might actually find some commentary which seems to be either anti-Darwinian or pro-conservationist or both . . . or neither. The shrews are so physically advanced, that their race is doomed to extinction simply because the population of their prey will be eaten faster than it can multiply. It is interesting and important that Dr. Craigis wants to make mankind smaller in order for the race to last longer, but that idealism is contradicted by the fact that his meddling with nature has caused such havoc and that Sherman, the seaman who admits knowing nothing of science, is the hero of the day.

But it's one thing to have an interesting plot and another to execute the telling of the story well. Perhaps the most surprising thing about the quality of the film's directing is how skillfully it is paced. From the beginning, even through the hints of a storm before Sherman arrives on the island, we are given little details that gradually make us more uneasy, and we are kept in the dark as to just what is going on for a good portion of the film. The facts are disclosed at exactly the right moments to keep us nervous. We are first shown the killer shrews outside the compound in an incident mostly unrelated to the compound. Later, one makes his way in. Then, eventually, we are holed up like our friends in Alfred Hitchcock's The Birds, with intrusions imminent everywhere. The tension really builds as well as you can want.

There are also little touches throughout the film that simply make it a pleasure to watch. There is one wonderfully choreographed scene in which the alcoholic Farrell pours himself a drink. Sherman takes it out of his hand while talking to someone else. A moment later, Farrell merely adds liquor to another drink. Then, they both drink at exactly the same time. I admit, it doesn't sound interesting on paper, but it almost comes across as a sort of dance on the screen, like the situation has created a sort of unacknowledged camaraderie between the two, who are otherwise nothing but enemies the entire movie. Then there is Farrell, the macho, gun-toting assistant who, despite his engagement to Ann, has drank himself to alcoholism, presumably out of boredom, and is constantly proven to be no physical match for Sherman. Watching him constantly stand up to Sherman and constantly be bested almost becomes a joke of the film.

Did I mention the giant rats are obviously dogs dressed in rat costumes? Cheesy 1950s effects at their best. Director Ray Kellogg was wise to always either hide them behind things or only show them briefly because if you can ignore the fact that they have long legs and paws and act just like dogs (quite happy dogs, in fact), the costumes are actually fairly creepy, and in the close-ups, all bets are off: You get real fake giant rat heads with fangs and all!

There are a lot of reasons to like this movie. It is fun for its fakeness, and its story is well told. It says something about the directing that the transparent special effects do not topple the building tension. It might also be the only sci-fi plot I've seen that is simultaneously absurd and intelligent. Looking for a good sci-fi film that no one knows about? Look no further.