Shriek of the Mutilated

Just a note of warning: The Retromedia DVD of "Shriek of the Mutilated" is missing one of the highlights of the movie...the use of the '70s syntho-pop instrumental hit "Popcorn" during the party scene early in the movie. I assume Retromedia couldn't get the music rights, so they dubbed in some unremarkable new background music. There also appear to be some cuts in the dialogue (for instance, when the St. Claires arrive at the party, Retromedia has removed a student's sarcastic remark about their presence). In its original form, this movie is a hysterical classic of bizarre filmmaking...so track down the out-of-print Lightning Video VHS release if you can.

In other words...a must see! Five minutes into this epic genre masterpiece you'll forget that wannabe horror films like PSYCHO and THE EXORCIST even exist. SHRIEK truly is the one.

Four college students are invited by a professor to go to a secluded island to investigate reports of a killer Yeti/Abominable Snowman. But First they attend a happenin' 70s party complete with groovy music, fashions and that legendary disco instrumental "Popcorn," which sounds like a bunch of kernels popping. A guy walking in accidentally bumps his head on a low-hanging ceiling light! Another professor from the college warns the four students not to go, but his wife nags him and wants to leave. When the couple return home he cuts her neck open with an electric carving knife!! He jumps into the bathtub fully clothed and cracks open a beer, when his still-alive wife crawls in the room, throws in a toaster that isn't even plugged in and electrocutes him!

The four students decide to go anyway and are attacked and killed by an awful white creature that looks more like THE SHAGGY DOG than a Yeti. The filmmakers decided it would be best to blur out of the face of the monster so we never even get a good look at it. But wait! There's more! The monster is actually (surprise!) a guy dressed up, and the island is home to a cannibal clan who want the students as dinner. Wow!

Full of hilariously awful acting, dialogue, FX and editing, this effort from the untoppable husband and wife team of Michael and Roberta Findlay is a laugh riot that deserves a cult following. It belongs with PLAN 9 FROM OUTER SPACE at the top of the so-bad-it's-good genre. More people should see it. For fans of this stuff, it's a classic.

(Quality) Score: 1 out of 10 (And I mean that in a good way!)

I saw this movie originally in the theaters when I must have been about 6-7. A babysitter took me, and it quite literally made me afraid to walk in the woods alone for many years. I ran across it again when I was about 20 and couldn't believe it had scared me so. The costumed "monster" looked like he had been adorned with bathroom throw rugs to resemble not so much a yeti but more like an overgrown Pekingese. The out-of-focus close-ups on the beasts slavering mouth as he bit at his victims only served to accentuate his lapdogness. Still, the movie made for good fun as my friends and I took great pleasure in predicting which of the students would fall next or how bad the next cannibal joke would be. For an amusing if not forgettable night, pick this up wherever fine foods are served.

In between porno projects, the Findlays found time to dabble in horror like the infamous 1976 release Snuff and their Yeti movie Shriek Of The Mutilated, with Michaeldirecting and editing and Roberta on camera duties. Yet even their non-sexploitation films have a very similar feel - they merely play like porn films without the porn. So prepare yourselves for a frustrating experience - bad library music, bad sets stacked with bad furniture, filled with bad actors with bad haircuts and worse comb-overs yelling the most pointless exposition and wretched dialogue that at best can be described as "florid". I repeat: BAD. And that doesn't begin to describe the joy of how appallingly wonderful the film is.

Shriek... begins with a group of college kids at a party preparing for a field trip set up by their obsessed professor Dr Prell to bag a real-life sasquatch. Amidst the general boogying to that hideous 70s song "Popcorn" and popping corn, an ex-teacher and now janitor grabs a bottle of vodka and goes nuts relating the story of how his last group of students were torn to pieces by an unspeakable abomination. "They said no more field trips!" he spits out, before going home and carving up his girlfriend with an electric knife. Why? She dropped his second bottle of vodka. Nuts, I tells ya.

Undeterred, the kids press on, and wind up at the country estate of Prell's associate Dr Werner, an odd duck in a turtleneck whose interest in Native American folklore extends to employing a Red Indian hatchet manservant named Laughing Crow. Not that Laughing Boy ever cracks a smile, particularly when the kids start getting picked off one by one by what appears to be a car seat cover with plastic Dracula fangs or the first screen appearance of Chewbacca, take your pick. Which thrills Dr Prell no end, as it proves the Yeti exists, and he uses the classmates' bodies as bait, much to the horror of young Karen who screams her disapproval to anyone within earshot: "You're a madman!" and a thousand variations on that theme.

Of course, something more sinister is at work, and the revelation upon revelation in the final ten minutes add up to one of the nuttiest endings I can remember from ANY horror movie, Seventies or otherwise. And that's really saying something. To get to that moment, however, you have to endure some of the most excruciating brow acting from the doctors, two unmitigated hams who are convinced the angle of the eyebrow is in direct correlation to each scene's level of intrigue. Be glad it's NOT one of the Findlays' porn efforts, or you'd see them raise more than an eyebrow.

To cap an extraordinary career, Michael Findlay's death was like a bad B movie ending: on his way to demonstrate his new 3 D camera, he was decapitated by a helicopter's blades (and don't you wish his 3-D camera was rolling at the time). Such is the karmic nature of the Beast. Then again, if he'd made kids films, he would probably have been torn to pieces by homeless alcoholic Santas. In the overall scheme of things, there should be no forgiveness for films like this one - a porno in a boiler suit, a gore film without a money shot, a bad film but still a GREAT bad film.

If you can get past the premise of a killer yeti dwelling in some guy's back yard, this isn't THAT bad of a movie. I think it was well intentioned, but misses it's mark with amusing results. In fact, it has become one of my favorite time wasters. Indeed it has all the markings of a good bad movie, including incredible dialogue, cheesy makeup (the yeti looks like a fluffy half man ape wearing fuzzy cowboy chaps and I believe if you stop frame the scenes, he is wearing white tennis shoes!). All this combined with the most gullible group of college students in film (all right, one of the most gullible). The closing "breakfast" scene offers some genuine creeps. Watch for scenes changing from day to night and sunny to rainy and then back again! Cult material deluxe. Watch this with your favorite beverage and ENJOY!