To Catch a Yeti

In 1994, Meat Loaf fiercely attempted to end his acting career by playing Big Jake Grizzly, a hunter who tries to catch a yeti.

Okay, brace yourselves, here it comes: the mighty yeti is about 20 inches tall and looks like the furry result of a disastrous love affair between a Gremlin and a Monchichi. Yikes.

The Yeti escapes to the big city and hides out with an American family. The whole thing is of course reminiscent of E. T. and ALF... if you subtract the homesickness drama and all the humor. The frazzled teddy doesn't talk, he just stares super cutely. He hardly ever moves, just squats around or is carried. The puppet animation is just lousy, so that there is no sympathy for the annoying sit-down monster.

This movie is so stupid that you wonder how something like this could ever be filmed. It thankfully only ran on TV and was released on VHS, but my goodness, real people watched this! The makers should be prosecuted for this.

Amy Bristow (Chantellese Kent) has just found something cute and furry in her bedroom. Guess what? It's a yeti that her father accidentally brought back from Nepal in his backpack. No, not all yetis are giant size, in case you were wondering. Trouble is, there are two men who have also recently returned from climbing the same mountain and they have concluded that the yeti they were chasing has ended up in the Bristow family home. It seems a spoiled rich boy demanded a yeti and his father will pay the trackers a tidy sum for finding one. Can the bad boys manage to get the yeti back? No, this may not be a family movie to rush out and get at once. Still, this viewer found it an enjoyable watch. The actors are attractive and capable, the yeti is sweet looking, and the setting nice. Meat Loaf does a quality job as the main heavy. For those who like the unusual, stumbling across this film at the video store or library would be a good catch for family fun night, complete with popcorn and hot chocolate.

I don't know why I thought this might be good. Turns out it's virtually comedy free and full of plot holes. There was one only funny moment in the entire movie. The best joke was when they were in the train station and they announced the last train to Clarksville, but it wasn't funny enough to make me laugh. You might like this if your are 8 years old but anyone older won't enjoy this for a minute.

Ever look at a ratty stuffed toy and wish that its eyes moved around a little and its mouth sort of opened and closed? Well, have I got the movie event you've been waiting for! For the rest of us unfortunate enough to watch this piece of poo, you'll want to kill yourself just like the police in the small town will apparently do if you told them someone stole your yeti! Yes, the makers of this film thought lets make a film about a crummy looking stuffed toy and have the most horrifically obnoxious characters ever interact with it and for reasons that still baffle me, they thought Meatloaf was some sort of real super strong badass who could portray a hunter...

The story, Big Jake and his traveling companion fatboy or lard guy or something along those lines are in Nepal searching for a yeti that is not at all like you would expect as it is not large, but rather looks like a scraggly piece of rodent roadkill. It eludes capture by hiding in a bag of a person camping and he somehow does not notice it as he packs his bags and heads home where his daughter unnaturally leaves a piece of pumpkin pie outside the bathroom door for her father and this seemingly unnatural act is the first of many as when the creature is discovered the girl proudly says that she found its penis, thus, she knows its a boy! Meanwhile, Big Jake keeps tracking it and never breaks out in song while we see the most obnoxious portrayal of a kid ever! The only way I made it through this drek is that it is featured on Rifftrax and even then the jokes made at the movies expense could not make this film so bad its good...

The only 'actor' of note is musician Meatloaf who was kind of trying to do acting during this time. The makers of this film apparently thought he was a tough guy, but I remember him most for singing a song and getting axed by Dr. Frankenfurter from Rocky Horror! I have never pictured him as anything but a dude who would most likely grow tired and pass out after a few seconds in a fight. The yeti looks horrible, some other reviewer thought that thing was cute, but I have seen decomposing animals on the side of the road that looked more alive and less ratty than the thing in this film. Also, it apparently starts to die when it overheats, so shouldn't it have died like when it was in the dude's bag for like the longest time ever?

So if you wish to torture yourself and watch a ratty toy go on an adventure, this is the film for you! For everyone else, I implore you to never lay your eyes upon this most foulest of crap! It is an excruciating film to watch as you watch people act unnaturally as people who have sons that purposely electrocute maids do not buy them a yeti, they send them to military school or therapy!

It doesn't get much worse than this folks. To Catch A Yeti is bad in every respect, beginning with the creature itself. The bug-eyed gooning animatronic representing said beast is an insult to cinema, with movement literally restricted to the thing being dragged along, on a poorly disguised sled, through the snow. Similarly the annoying coos which emanate from the Yeti's static plastic face are an annoying as they are bizarre.

Beyond that the production values are below par from children's television, never mind a movie, and its star, one Meat Loaf, though tasked with the difficult job astonishingly manages to be the worst feature in the entire film, proving once and for all that rock music saved many a movie audience from his bewilderingly insensate acting style.

Plot and characters, in as much as they exists, are instantly forgettable, and quite honestly you'll spend the entire film being obsessively irritated by the Yeti. Yes, it really is that lamentable.

Arguably children might get something out of this on a Saturday morning while mom and dad enjoy a lie in, but an enjoyable family film this isn't.