El terror del Himalaya

"The Snow Creature" (1954) is a black & white picture notable as the first film to address the topic of Bigfoot or, in this case, Yeti. The atmospheric beginning segues into a relatively dull story about a fake-looking Yeti brought to America from the Himilayas, which ends up languishing in customs while officials debate whether or not the creature is a passenger or cargo, i.e. animal or human. I'm not making this up. Then the creature gets loose in the city a la "King Kong."

"The Snow Creature" is worthwhile only for historical reasons or as an interesting period piece and people smitten with the Sasquatch legend.

The film runs 71 minutes and was shot in Bronson Caves, Bronson Canyon, Griffith Park, Los Angeles, California, USA

GRADE: D+

I suppose you should approach this stuff with an open mind, but I have difficulty doing that. Those words written, my expectations for this were, quite frankly, pretty low. I knew that it was a 1954, low-budget production. Therefore, I was prepared to tolerate the cheap old costumes and over-abundance of no-action dialogue. I wanted to subject myself to this fillage of time. Sure, some of the responses were totally unrealistic. But, looking past all the negatives, I still found some pros that, in my opinion, offset the anticipated cons. Some of that dialogue, to me, actually represented a try. Maybe I give it a (barely) passing grade because even this simpleton could follow the extremely UNcomplex plot: Scientist captures living snow creature in Himalayas and is able to return it to LA, where it escapes. Perhaps I would feel ripped off if I spent too much money to purchase a tape of this movie. But having seen it on satellite TV - which I think of as a more-INdirect flow of my dollars - my concern was mostly for my time, which I did not find totally wasted.

This film really isn't all that bad. The photography is moody and atmospheric. The music is sometimes quite good. Director W.Lee Wilder occasionally shows some visual flair. The cast is at worst adequate. The snowman is another story. It it simply a very tall man wrapped in what looks like rabbit fur. Granted, director W. Lee Wilder tries to keep the snowman hidden in the shadows most of the time. But when he is seen full view it looks amazingly unconvincing. Had this film not employed such a poor snowman costume, it probably would have been regarded as a slightly better than average low budget early fifties monster picture.

Some of the Himalayan scenes are interesting. There is a conflict as to who is running the show. It's typical of Westerners to try to run roughshod over their "inferiors." Anyway, the Yeti is out there and if we bring him (or her) back, we can make a bundle. Everything works out pretty well and they order his refrigerated box. The problem is the customs guys don't know whether he's human or not. In most respects he is. He lives in a family setting. He has tools. He walks upright and is built pretty much like most homo sapiens. What are his rights? Nobody says anything about just barging into his domain and killing off his family. So, like every good monster movie (or bad one), the "guy" gets loose in the city and wastes a couple of people. What should he do? He's trying to survive. While there are issues that keep this interesting, it doesn't sustain itself very well. There are unanswered questions that are forgotten as soon as the Yeti escapes from his box. A film with some courage might have gone beyond what it does, but money or talent got in the way. The monster looks pretty much like a man with a beard (we never get a good look at him in daylight). Pretty poor with a few perks.

Most viewers and reviewers can't think of bad enough things to say about this film, and some of their barbs are justified: the film does take too long to get going, and the title creature (when he finally appears) is not an inspired creation. However, the film does offer certain rewards to patient viewers. The black & white photography is much better than one would expect, particularly the clever use of light and shadow during the film's second half. The use of the soundtrack shows imagination also. Case in point: the scene where the creature pays a late night visit to a cold storage warehouse, and is glimpsed briefly moving between the hanging sides of beef. There's no screaming or loud background music, only faint street sounds. Somehow, the silence of this scene makes it much more unsettling than it would have been otherwise.