Mario and Thorne go downstairs when they hear the noise. Mario discovers the mutant and shoots at it, but not before it bites him. The giant shrew is immediately killed by Thorne. Mario quickly expires from the mutant's bite. Radford later discovers a highly toxic venom in the dead shrew's saliva, the result, it turns out, of the poisoned bait he had placed in the wild to kill them off. Another mutant shrew is able to get in, and it bites Radford. As he dies, Radford records the symptoms on his typewriter, right up to the moment of his death. As the giant shrews begin to chew through the compound walls, the group makes impromptu armor by lashing together empty 50 gallon oil drums. Now crouched down inside them, they duckwalk towards the beach shoreline. Due to his claustrophobia, Jerry remains behind, isolating himself on the roof before watching the mutants chase after the lashed-together drums. He attempts to flee but is cut off and killed by another group of shrews. Thorne, Ann, and Marlowe manage to reach the shoreline and swim out to the boat. Safely aboard and confident that the giant shrews will eventually die out from consuming one another, Thorne and Ann share a long kiss. Principal photography took place outside of Dallas, Texas. Special effects were provided by first-time director Kellogg, who served as the head of 20th Century Fox's special effects department throughout most of the 1950s. Close-ups of the shrews were filmed using hand puppets, and for the wider shots, coonhounds were costumed as the shrews. This low-budget feature was regarded as one of the more successful "regional films". Unlike other regional films, it received national and even foreign distribution. A colorized version of "The Killer Shrews" was released on DVD by Legend Films as a double feature set with the creature feature "The Giant Gila Monster". The satirical TV show "Mystery Science Theater 3000" riffed on the movie in an episode during its fourth season. "MST3K"s version of "The Killer Shrews" was released on DVD by Rhino Home Video as part of the show's Volume 7 boxed set. The gags were focused on the movie's main flaws: the lack of conflict in its first hour (which was mostly focused on the "living room" of the island's compound, as the characters talked back and forth to each other), the silly appearance of the shrews (coonhounds dressed up in long hair wigs), and how most of the dialogue was difficult to understand due to the regional accents of the actors.