Winterbeast

This is quite simply the most terrible film I have ever seen in my life. That being said, I have seen it several times. Winterbeast is the story of a claymation class project that someone tried to turn into a full-length movie (or at least this is how I understand it). I am not really sure what the plot was, it just seemed to be an excuse to hook together several otherwise unconnected claymation short films. The opening scene must be seen to be believed. This is not even in the "so bad it's good" category, but in a relatively unique category: "must be seen to be believed, and then told about in hushed whispers at parties until you convince other poor buggers to watch the thing."

I rented it on a lark at a video store in Maine, I was not expecting much, but what I got was something very terrible. I sat and watched the opening scene several times in awe of the terrible editing and worse special effects. I still am not entirely sure what happens in the first few minutes, but I do know that it is incredibly fun to watch your friends see it for the first time. From then on, you will simply laugh or gape in amazement at the horrible majesty that this film surrounds itself with. This is the great grandson of Ed Wood, and is possibly even worse than anything produced by the great master of schlock. Don't try to follow the plot, it may make you go insane.

All that being said, if you are a connoisseur of terrible films, you cannot rest without seeing this movie. Force yourself through it, if only be able to claim that you have done so. Then make your friends who think that they are hip enough to like "films so bad they are good" watch this film and sit back and enjoy the reactions. Alcohol is a good way to do this, because it will numb you to the disaster of the film, yet allow you to enjoy your friend's reactions even more thoroughly. This is one of the few films where it is more fun to watch the audience than it is to watch the film.

"Winterbeast" is the kind of movie you watch and just want to meet the cast and crew of immediately, and learn more about the making of it. I'm not sure where to even start, so I guess I'll just lay out the story. After a strange nightmare-sequence opening (where we are treated to our first experience of the quirky and horrendous stop-animation special effects) we meet Rangers Whitman and Stillman at the Rangers Station up on a mountain somewhere. Whitman is an intense and brooding character who takes his Park Ranger job with the utmost seriousness. The sunglasses-wearing Stillman is a pure ape, and would rather sit in the station and read his porn-mags than do any kind of community liaison. Which is tough, because one of their colleagues has gone missing, and pretty soon, more people at the mountain resort begin to go missing, too. Whitman decides it's time to shut down the resort. Stillman could care less. The hub of this resort is the local inn run by the camp, nasty and highly eccentric Dave Sheldon (What a performance from Bob Harlow. More on him later), but he is having none of it, and hampers their efforts to close the mountain down. But fairly soon, missing people begin to turn in to dead people, and it comes to light that there are ancient spirits out in the woods responsible for the carnage, manifesting themselves in monsters and possessed Totem poles.

The special effects, first of all. Absolutely diabolical. But unique! These guys did not give a hoot. "Winterbeast" was made (half-heartedly) over a number of years between 1986 - 1989 and my understanding of it is that by the end of it, original footage etc. had been lost or ruined and so Christopher Thies just ran what he could through and filled the gaps with stop-motion animation. All the action and dead scenes are made from clay and are absolutely hilarious. The acting is atrocious, for the most part. Tom Morgan is extremely rigid and awkward as Sergeant Whitman, but he is a joy to watch. Bob Harlow is actually very good and is the best thing about the film. What a nasty and menacing character he creates. His arguments with Whitman over the closing down of the inn are terrific. They really go at it in these scenes! It was like something you'd see in your day-to-day life, with Harlow's pitch getting louder and louder and the tendons in his neck nearly bursting out until the two are literally unrestraint and screaming at one another. It's terrible acting, of course, but by god it is entertaining.

As I mentioned earlier this was made over a number of years and as a result it gives the impression of a project that was passed from one film-student to another. The film varies in quality and changes sometimes in mid-scene. The best example of this is, I think, during one of the aforementioned bust-ups between Whitman and Sheldon. The camera angle suddenly changes and the footage goes from the normal-looking cheap kind to a sepia-grain tone. Made me wonder if perhaps half of that scene was filmed in '86 and the rest of it was added in years later, maybe after the original reel was damaged or what not. To sum it up, "Winterbeast" is like "Plan 9 to Outer Space". Highly deplorable film-making from a technical point, but highly enjoyable. However, "Winterbeast" is extremely obscure and thus not as accessible as "Plan 9...". It simply faded into celluloid-sludge obscurity along with a mass cohort of similarly low-budget, straight-to-VHS, horror flicks from this time, that are now a joy to seek out. The majority are unredeemable, but you do find the odd gem like "Winterbeast".

Winterbeast is a 1992 horror movie about many monsters coming alive and killing people and SOME of the monster are cool looking and not all and I feel like it should have been called Winterbeasts because there is multiple and some of the monsters and effects are cheesy and especially when they kill people and it just feels bad.

I'm not sure how this movie is averaging just over four stars, I had to do all I could to make it through the first four minutes.

I got sucked in because of the not so terribly awful rating, but should've known after the first few minutes this movie was just terrible. No name actors, most of which this was their first and last film role, just as bad special effects and a storyline that Christopher Columbus could not navigate.

So the next time your channel surfing, trying to kill a couple of hours, do your diligence and avoid this film. There are much better alternatives out there, the first one is Wendigo that comes to mind.

An amateur misconjecture devoid of anything recognizable as production values, WINTERBEAST is sure to win the hearts of all bad movie masochists fortunate enough to track it down.

The spindly story involves a woodsy resort town cursed by ancient Native American demons which manifest as wobbly totem poles, a giant chicken, and a goofy rubber spinal cord thingie with a big, grimacing head. The resident lawmen launch a bumbling investigation of several recent disappearances in the area, and gradually become aware of the mounting danger. In predictable B-horror fashion, they motion to alert and evacuate the area despite the resistance of the creepy mayor and some greedy local business owners who fear a loss of tourism revenue.

WINTERBEAST boasts clay stop-motion effects which appear to have been lifted from some tragic Third-World GUMBY knockoff, and intendance at every phase of production is catastrophically all-thumbs. Staggering, hilarious, and almost psychedelic in its diversiform inelegance, this is a lovable wonderwork of unsung schlock majesty which is surely a cult-film in wait.

5/10.