Yeti - Il gigante del 20° secolo

LOL! Not a bad way to start it. I thought this was original, but then I discovered it was a clone of the 1976 remake of KING KONG. I never saw KING KONG until I was 15. I saw this film when I was 9. The film's funky disco music will get stuck in your head! Not to mention the film's theme song by the Yetians. This is the worst creature effects I've ever seen. At the same time this film remains a holy grail of B-movies. Memorable quotes: "Take a tranquilizer and go to bed." "Put the Yeti in your tank and you have Yeti power." I remember seeing this film on MOVIE MACRABE hosted by Elvira. There is one scene where it was like KING KONG in reverse! In KING KONG he grabs the girl and climbs up the building, but in this film he climbs down the building and grabs the girl (who was falling)! Also around that year was another KONG clone MIGHTY PEKING MAN (1977) which came from Hong Kong. There is a lot of traveling matte scenes and motorized body parts. This film will leave you laughing. It is like I said, just another KING KONG clone. Rated PG for violence, language, thematic elements, and some scary scenes.

I can understand Italian producers wanting to cash in on the publicity Dino De Laurentiis' remake of KING KONG generated, but seeing the end results here I am utterly perplexed as to why these particular Italian producers thought they could make a passable clone with such little money and lack of technical know-how! How bad are the effects? Well, in many cases when you see the giant yeti (the size of which keeps changing throughout the movie!), you can *see through him*, because of the cheap way the effects artists combined two separate shots! The shoddy effects also add to such already bizarrely hilarious moments like the fish skeleton and the shot of the yeti's nipple (you read that last one right!)

As you can probably guess, this is a remarkably goofy film, especially since it seems aimed at a family audience because of two child characters central to the action, as well as the scientist character acting somewhat clownish. What's surprising is how violent the movie is, with several graphic deaths (not all caused by the yeti!) At least these scenes help wake you up, because despite all the incompetence, it all becomes pretty tiresome quickly. Some Canadians may be interested in how it was extensively shot in the Toronto area, and even taking place there instead of being disguised as an American location. Though upon watching it, they'll soon see why they haven't heard of it before! If you want to see a more successful Italian movie shot in Canada (and also taking place there!), check out "Strange Shadows In An Empty Room", which was shot around the same time.

I'd read somewhere that seventies was the lost decade to film industry, who wrote it wasn't necessarily wrong, making a simple research we can see it, nevertheless for a die hard cinephiles, it doesn't matter at all, including myself, those trash pictures from this period of time fits perfect with ours tastes, meanwhile a weak Italian production a kind King King's cute, where a giant frozen Yeti is found on a melting glacier, comes to life by electric discharge (my God!!), a true friendly monster is taking to serve as freak spectacle on a stadium to promote sales to a powerful enterprise, the results all us already known by previous picture, not quite.... this one has a slight variance, beware for a unexpected surprise !!!

Resume:

First watch: 2014 / How many: 2 / Source: DVD-R / Rating: 5

If you watch this thing, do yourself a favor and don't ask too many questions. Just sit back and enjoy this train wreck for the campy schlock it is. I think this movie would be even better if the people making it hadn't taken it as seriously as they did. Some of the other reviews have gone into more details, but I don't think that's necessary. This thing has to be experienced to be believed. Give it ten minutes and you'll know whether you can stand the rest of it. For B-movie fans, it's a rare and amazing treat. For the rest, it will be a hideous, head-shaking, mess that will have them constantly asking "WHY??" Watching this with one of them will make the movie even more fun. No one will be the same after watching this. It's a little like taking a reality-altering drug.

"Yeti - Giant of the 20th Century" is more than just a film. It's a phenomenon. And rather than just be watched, it should be studied and analyzed!

Being one of the worst movies ever made, and simultaneously also being one of the most popular crowd-pleasing movies at festivals, is quite an accomplishment. Sitting through this two-hour "experience" evokes a truckload of sentiments and impressions, varying from massively entertained onto deeply annoyed. "Yeti" superficially appears to feature all the characteristics of a raw and gritty euro-exploitation flick, but deep down it desires to be seen as an endearing and Disney type of family movie. Every aspect is shamelessly copied from somewhere else. The music is a rip-off of Carl Orff's Carmina Burana, the script recycles the plot of the "King-Kong" movies, the young-kind-and-his-dog element comes from "Lassie", and the Yeti himself blatantly imitates Tina Turner's mega-mullet haircut.

The grandchildren of megalomaniacal business tycoon Morgan Hunnicut discover a completely intact but deep-frozen Yeti that apparently drifted from the Himalayas to Northern Canada over the course of a few million years. After a lengthy thawing process, which inexplicably includes hanging underneath a helicopter in an oversized phone booth, the loudmouthed Hunnicut comes up with the brilliant idea to transport the Yeti to New York for a sensational commercial stunt. Meanwhile, the furry giant fell in love with Hunnicut's 16-year-old niece (the big perv!) and evil business competitors attempt to destroy it by turning off the air-conditioning. So cruel!

The highlights - or lowlights if you wish - are too numerous to list. Beautiful Antonella Interlenghi makes the creature's nipple hard, there's a romantic interlude featuring a fishbone, the Yeti turns a skyscraper's elevator into a toy, and the titular primitive dude's height changes continuously. The last half hour is so exaggeratedly sentimental and sappy that it nearly ruins all the fun, and the "miraculous" return of Indie is a twist that even Disney would find too childish.