Snow Beast

Quite some runtime has focus on the daughter and father, on their dysfunctional relationship. Will they fix their relationship? Well guess - you won't get it wrong.

A yeti runs amok, killing senselessly, most likely because the characters aside from our main four blatantly don't matter, and don't contribute much aside from... actually, with most kills occurring offscreen the "body count" characters don't really add anything and receive little screen time.

An unambitious creature feature, "Snow Beast" has nothing for anyone with experience watching creature features.

In the Canadian wilderness, furry white "Snow Beast" attacks a young man while snow-boarding. Unaware of the precise danger, animal researcher John Schneider (as Jim Harwood) arrives to investigate. When the next attack occurs, you'll know before it happens. Also predictable is the subplot involving Mr. Schneider and his ungrateful teenage daughter Danielle Chuchran (as Emmy)...

Schneider handles the acting assignment well. However, all is lost when he appears to forget all about his friend Paul D. Hunt (as Rob) and leaves him in a cave. Making this particular scene even worse is the fact that Schneider momentarily wants to save a dead woman over his living friend. In a serious story-telling error, the hatred for Mr. Hunt's very likable character is never explained.

** Snow Beast (10/4/11) Brian Borough ~ John Schneider, Danielle Chuchran, Paul D. Hunt, Jason London

"Snowbeast" is a 2011 TV remake of the 1977 TV film of the same name. This one stars John Schneider.

The titular monster is a yeti, basically a bigfoot that lives high in the snowy mountains. In the original film the snowbeast was hanging around Crested Butte ski resort, Colorado, which is where the film was shot; this remake largely takes place around a posh cabin in the Canadian Rockies. A ski resort is nearby but you'll barely see it. The original movie ripped-off the plot of "Jaws" verbatim and just relocated it to a ski resort while this remake throws out most of the "Jaws" similarities.

The yeti in the original looked quite good for a TV film from 1977, nice and malevolent. I suppose it helped that you hardly got to see the creature. Less is more, as they say.

Which brings us to the main problem with this remake: The yeti is fully seen early on and continues to appear throughout the rest of the film. This wouldn't be a problem if the monster costume was convincing, but that's not the case. The head and face look good, especially the eyes and mouth - very monstrous - but the rest of the costume looks really fake. The body of fur just doesn't look real or lived-in. In fact, it looks like the beast just came from the dry cleaners. Couldn't the producers have spent another grand on the title creature's appearance?

But the cast is good and likable. John Schneider plays a scientist studying lynx in Canada. He brings two colleagues and his daughter from Florida. Meanwhile, the local police department investigates a couple cases of missing persons that, of course, lead to the beast.

For some reason, Schneider is perfect for these types of roles. He's just an all-around quality protagonist. Jason London is also on hand as one of the policeman.

Another big plus are the two women: Danielle Chuchran, who plays Schneider's teen daughter Emmy, and Kari Hawker, who plays Schneider's young brunette colleague, Marci, with whom he seems to have a (mutual) interest. Each is totally gorgeous in different ways.

The snowy Rocky Mountain locations are another plus; very scenic.

CONCLUSION: Both films are about the same quality, although the original version loses points for being a wholesale rip-off of "Jaws." Each were made as traditional monster movies and are therefore pleasantly derivative. In other words, don't look for originality or cutting edge cinema, just enjoy them for what they are. The only major flaw of this remake is the fake-looking fur suit of the creature, which engenders laughs more than frights (although, again, the head & face look good). The plot is much thinner than the original, but the story is somehow less boring, which indicates solid storytelling or maybe they hooked me in with the likable cast. Probably both.

GRADE: C+ or B-

SNOW BEAST is the low-budget remake of a '70s creature flick I saw and enjoyed years ago. The difference being that the 1970s version was a proper film, whereas this is a shamelessly silly B-movie that lacks a proper script and the kind of money to make a film that even slightly resembles the earlier version.

Instead, we're bogged down in SyFy Channel territory, with only a handful of cast members and a film that takes place in a single location for the most part. While I enjoyed the icy Canadian backdrop of the story, for the most part this film focuses on a father/daughter relationship which includes one of the most irritatingly obnoxious characters ever...can't we ever have one normal, friendly teenage character in a film for a change?

Spliced into these shenanigans are some tame kills committed by some kind of yeti, although when you see the costume (which looks like something somebody would wear at Halloween) you'll be laughing rather than screaming. The PG-13 rating hurts this one a lot, and you'd hardly be tuning in just to see the cast, either. John Schneider has form battling monsters (having appeared in LAKE PLACID 2, which, while bad, was a lot better than this) but the appearance of Jason London (JASON AND THE ARGONAUTS) makes you wonder what happened to the guy's career for him to be forced to appear in this dreck.

There is a wise lesson to be learned from this movie. Whenever you are in some precarious or dangerous situation, you should never let some hollywood actor take control and make the decisions. He is bound to do exactly the opposite of what is sound.