MCBASTARD'S MAUSOLEUM: The Giant Gila Monster (1959) + Bonus Film The Killer Shrews (1959) (Film Masters Blu-ray Review)

THE GIANT GILA MONSTER (1959)

+ Bonus Film THE KILLER SHREWS (1959) Blu-ray

Label: Film Masters

Region Code: Region-Free

Rating: Unrated

Duration: 64 Minutes 39 Second (The Giant Gila Monster), 68 Minutes 43 Seconds (The Killer Shrews)

Audio: English DTS-HD MA 2.0 Dual-Mono, Dolby Digital 2.0 with Optional English Subtitles

Video: 1080p HD Widescreen (1.85:1) and 1080p HD Fullscreen (1.33:1) (Both)

Director: Ray Kellogg (Both)

Cast: Don Sullivan, Fred Graham, Lisa Simone, Shug Fisher, Bob Thompson (The Giant Gila Monster), James Best, Ingrid Goude, Ken Curtis, Gordon McLendon, Baruch Lumet, "Judge" Henry Dupree (The Killer Shrews)

The newly minted cult-classic label Film Masters deliver a drive-in era schlock double-feature of no-budget howlers from director Ray Kellogg (The Green Berets) and big-time Texas radio personality turned low-budget producer Gordon McLendon. That's right, here we have a 1959 double-bill of The Giant Gila Monster and The Killer Shrews newly restored HD! In The Giant Gila Monster small town hot-rod teens are terrorized by a Gila monster of unusual size, actually for the film they used a Mexican beaded lizard but I guess The Giant Mexican Beaded Lizard didn't sound quite as cool... the flick opens with teen couple necking in their car on a secluded stretch of road when they are attached by the creature which sends the car into a ravine, killing them. Some teen hot-rodders lead by 30-something teenager Chase Winstead (Don Sullivan, The Monster of Piedras Blancas) end up finding the empty car and yank it out with a tow truck, no bodies are found. The local sheriff (Fred Graham, Rio Bravo) starts to hear reports of a giant lizard in the area but doesn't give it much thought, that us until more teens go missing and the it derails a train, before attacking the sock-hop being held at a local dancehall. A super cheap teen flick designed to pull in the teens with it's youth cast, hot rods and giant creature, it feels every inch as schlocky as you might have heard, but I have always had a fun time with this one, I love the shoddy miniature work of the trainwreck and the dancehall, the lizard hissing and flicking it's tongue, and later we have Chase charging the creature with a souped-up hot rod chock full of nitroglycerin. It's cheap, shoddy, threadbare and woodenly acted but if you're a monster-kid who loves 50's schlock there are few schlockier, and it's plenty entertaining, even Sullivan's constant crooning, including the memorable awful “Laugh, Children, Laugh”, will send a shudder down your spine.

Next up is The Killer Shrews (1950), a film I actually like quite a bit more than The Giant Gila Monster, which this was shot back-to-back with. In it boat captain Thorne Sherman (James Best, Rolling Thunder) and first mate Rook (Judge Henry Dupree) are delivering supplies to a research compound on a remote island where scientist Marlowe Craigis (Baruch Lumet, The Wild Party) is carrying out scientific experiments meant to address the issues of world hunger. He is assisted by his research assistant Radford Baines (producer Gordon McLendon!), his daughter Ann (Ingrid Goude, The Big Heat), her fiancé Jerry Farrel (Ken Curtis, The Searchers), and a servant Mario (Alfredo de Soto).

With an approaching hurricane approaching Throne decides to anchor the boat offshore and stay the night on the island, much to the dismay of the island inhabitants. Right away he can sense tension, it seems that Ann and Jerry are on the outs after a spat, and when Rook goes missing while securing the boat by himself The captain attempts to leave the fenced in island compound only to have Ann stick a gun in his face and tell him he cannot go outside. Craigis explains that his experiment involved breeding mutant shrews which expectedly grew into ravenous wolf-sized shrews with extraordinary appetites, which have onto the island escaped because of Jerry's drunken negligence.

Out in the island alone poor Rook unaware of the nocturnal predators ends up being chased by a pack of killer-shrews who run him up a tree, but he eventually fall victim to the creatures, leaving nothing behind but a bloody shirts, eating him right down to the bone! Back at the compound things get more tense as the hurricane blows towards the island and the killer shrews start burrowing underneath the security walls, making their way into the basement of the dilapidated house where they attack both Mario and Radford, the latter of whom confirms that the shrews have a toxic venom that's spread through their saliva, even a small scratch proving to be deadly.

This half of the double-bill is better acted with a bit more depth to it, bit not too deep nor well-acted, just better. The creature this time around are brought to live with a combination of large dogs in shit-looking shag carpet and elongated tails thrown over them or with hand-puppets. The dogs in disguise schtick was later uses in a killer rat film I loved as a kid, Deadly Eyes, and it doesn't really work that much better in the 80's either! The survivors hatch a plan to weld 50-gallon chemical drums together, flip them upside down and sort of Chuck Berry duckwalk their way to the beach and make their way to the boat from there. While it's pretty easy to see that the shrews are dogs in shit costumes I still get a howl out of this one; the toothy fanged shrews illicit a disturbing array of chirps and shrieks that is near constant, especially in the final reel of the film, and the gnashing teeth do provide a modicum, of menace. I wouldn't want to oversell it's effectiveness for the uninitiated, but I find it an fairly entertaining bit of no-budget schlock, I love the melodrama and competing 50's masculinity as Throne and Jerry quarrel over Ann - whose smitten with masculine Throne - and the best plan to escape the island.

Audio/Video: Both The Giant Gila Monster (1959) and The Killer Shrews (1959) arrive on region-free Blu-ray from the newly minted Film Masters in 1080p HD, both films given the option of theatrical 1.85:1 or full frame 1.33:1 aspect ratios. The widescreen presentation is cropped from the 1.33:1 cutting off information on the top and bottom, but doesn't look too cramped. The black and white image offers pleasing depth and contrast, the source is in good shape or has been restored as such, and grayscale is solid. Shrews looks the worse of the pair, while Gila's source looks pretty immaculate the source for Shrews has some more evident blemishes that really pop-up in the final reel, but even still, it's looks pretty great compared to previous SD editions. Film grain is evident throughout and had an organic

texture to it, fine detail is also evident in the close-ups. This is certainly the best I have seen either of these schlocky drive-in classics ever look on home video.

Audio for both flicks come by way of either uncompressed English DTS-HD MA 2.0 dual-mono or lossy Dolby Digital 2.0 with optional English subtitles. Both of the uncompressed

tracks are in good shape and sound great. Dialogue is never hard to discern, and the hissing of the titular Gila and shrieks of the shrews have some oomph to them, both sound their low-budget vintage, but deliver the goods. Likewise the score from Jack Marshall (TV's The Munsters) on Gila and Harry Bluestone & Emil Cadkin (Night of the Living Dead) on Shrew come through quite nicely.

Extras on Gila include a 93-min Archival Audio Interview with star, Don Sullivan, conducted by author Bryan Senn in 2009; a new Audio Commentary by Larry Strothe, James Gonis, Shawn Sheridan and Matt Weinhold from The Monster Party Podcast, plus the two-minute Original Trailer.

Extras for Shrews come by way of a 16-min Ballyhoo Motion Pictures produced doc Ray Kellogg: An Unsung Master, a Ballyhoo Motion Pictures, which was written by C. Courtney Joyner and narrated by Larry Blamire, a new Audio Commentary of The Killer Shrews by professor and film scholar Jason A. Ney; and 13-min of Vintage Radio Spots for The Giant Gila Monster and The Killer Shrews.

The 2-disc Blu-ray set arrives in a standard dual-hub keepcase with a single sided sleeve of artwork featuring The Giant Gila Monster artwork with a small blurb inserted about The Killer Shrews. Inside there's a glossy-finish 20-Page

Illustrated booklet with essays by both Don Stradley and Jason A. Ney that dig into the life and times of storied producer Gordon McLendon, as well as an appreciation of The Killer Shrews. It's a handsome packaging presentation with a colorful warp with a bold lettered spine, which only includes The Giant Gila Monster, which stands out quite nicely with the unique lettering type.

Special Features:

Disc One: The Giant Gila Monster

- Archival interview with star, Don Sullivan, conducted by author Bryan Senn in 2009 (92:52)

- Commentary of The Giant Gila Monster by Larry Strothe, James Gonis, Shawn Sheridan and Matt Weinhold from The Monster Party podcast

- Original Trailer for The Giant Gila Monster (1:40)

Disc Two: The Killer Shrews

- Ray Kellogg: An Unsung Master, a Ballyhoo Motion Pictures documentary written by C. Courtney Joyner and narrated by Larry Blamire (16:12)

- Audio Commentary of The Killer Shrews by professor and film scholar Jason A. Ney;

- Vintage Radio Spots for The Giant Gila Monster and The Killer Shrews (12:43)

- Full-color, inserted booklet with essays by Don Stradley and Jason A. Ney

This schlocky double-dose of no-budget creature-features is an excellent initial offerings from Film Masters, this pair of B&W drive-in howlers from the 50's have never looked better on home video and the extras both on-disc and in the booklet offer a treasure trove of information about these two wonderfully low-budget flicks that add a lot of value to the presentation. Be on the lookout for the next few releases coming from Film Masters, we're getting the horror flick Beast From Haunted Cove (1959) with bonus film Ski Troop Attack (1960) on Oct. 24, followed by the drama The Scarlett Letter (1934) in November, and based on this initial offering both are sure to be lovely editions.

Screenshots from the Film Masters Blu-ray:

The Giant Gila Monster (1959)

Top: Fullscreen (1.33:1)

Bottom: Widescreen (1.85:1)