Abominável

Six months after a climbing accident in Suicide Rock in which his cable snapped and his wife died, the crippled Rogers (Matt McCoy) returns to Flatwoods on a wheel chair nursed by Otis Wilhelm (Christien Tinsley) as part of the treatment prescribed by Dr. Rainer. They lodge in Preston's cottage and sooner Preston sees a pair of huge red eyes in the woods. He tells Otis, but he believes Preston is paranoid. Later he sees his blonde next door neighbor Karen Herdberger (Ashley Hartman) vanishing in the woods and he tries to tell her friends, but the girls believe he is a pervert peeping them. Without phone lines, Preston uses his Internet through satellite to communicate with the police, but they do not give credit to his words. In despair, Preston tries to communicate with his neighbors. Meanwhile Ziegler Dane (Lance Henriksen), Billy Hoss (Rex Linn) and their friend (Jeffrey Comb) are hunting the animal that is killing the cattle in Hoss's farm. When Ziegler finds the wounded Karen in a cave, he realizes that his friends and he are in danger.

The B-movie "Abominable" is a funny entertainment that uses the idea of "Rear Window", i.e., a man confined to his home that witnesses that there is something out there but he is not able to move or to communicate with other people, associated to the legend of the Bigfoot a.k.a. Sasquatch. This is the type of a good "bad movie", with many flaws, silly situations, naked woman etc. that is enjoyable in the end. My vote is five.

Title (Brazil): "Abominável" ("Abominable")

The movies that the Sci Fi Channel premieres on Saturday nights are a decidedly mixed bag -- "mixed" meaning "bad, but watchable enough because it's free on TV". That said, Abominable is probably the best one yet and one of the few that I wouldn't have minded paying for as a rental or even in a theater (well, matinée price). Basically, it's a monster movie spliced with Rear Window, with an "abominable" man-beast as the menacing killer -- a simple story wonderfully executed with quick pacing, a strong cast of character actors, and gloriously gruesome effects. You'll appreciate it all the more next week when Boa vs. Python vs. Komodo vs. Gerbil comes on.

Matt McCoy (perhaps best known as Commandant Lassard's nephew, from the last two "Police Academy" sequels) plays Preston Rogers. A paraplegic widower, whose wife died six months before the opening credits, in a mountain-climbing accident. This has left him with agoraphobia (fear of the outdoors), which his psychiatrist has ordered him to face, head on, at the old mountain cabin.

Accompanying him is Otis, a somewhat patronizing physio-therapist. And, while he goes shopping for some non-allergenic milk, five gorgeous young women arrive at the ritzy cabin next door, for some kind of bachelorette party weekend.

Wouldn't you know it? That's when the local Bigfoot arrives, as well. And, the first victim it takes is Karen, the blonde who's more addicted to cellphones than that spokes-guy in the commercials.

Pres doesn't know it was the Monster until he sees its glowing red eyes. The first time: peering at him from the edge of the woods. The second time: peering at him right through the glass of his own backporch window, after he's been forced to tranquilize the disbelieving Otis!

Finally, we get to see the Monster full-scale. And, that's where my two-point deduction comes in. The movie's title kind of described the prosthetic Bigfoot costume! Sorry, Mr. Deak. But, that get-up made you look like a Jack Elam impersonator, with hypertrichosis, more than anything else.

Even so, the rest of the movie was very suspenseful. I empathized with Pres' self-doubt; so much like William Shatner's, in the classic TWILIGHT ZONE episode, "Nightmare At 20,000 Feet." I loved the fairly big-name cameos by various SF veterans (especially, Lance Henriksen). And, there was only one gratuitous nude death-scene, among the five women. Thank you, SciFi Channel!

Practice is finally making perfect, with your made-for-TV movies.

Just a couple nitpicks, before I go. With all due respect to that "crypto-zoologist" interviewed on the Internet? Yetis and Bigfeet are supposed to be one-and-the-same things! Just separated, geographically.

And, the name of the nearby town; Flat Woods? Written as one word, that's the name of the actual West Virginia town that had the first-ever reported case of a 4th-class close encounter. In September of 1952 (five years and two months after Roswell)!

Kudos to writer / director Ryan Schifrin for doing his part in keeping monster movies alive: this is actually a pretty good horror film in general, and one of the better efforts in the "Bigfoot / Sasquatch / Yeti" sub genre. It benefits from some good shocks *and* suspense, solid atmosphere, a real sense of isolation, and a formidable monster.

Schifrin is able to put a spin on his film by crossing it with "Rear Window", in which the protagonist is a paraplegic (ever-likeable Matt McCoy as Preston Rogers), who's able to tell early on that something scary is going on. He's returned home to his mountain cabin, in the company of a jerk caregiver named Otis (Christien Tinsley, also the films' creature and makeup effects designer), and notices that some attractive young women have taken up temporary residence in the cabin across from him. However, he realizes that a monster is in the area, and has to rely on his own wits since any attempt to contact authorities is met with disdain.

Veteran monster actor Mike Deak plays the creature, who's given an appropriately ugly visage by Tinsley. This particular Bigfoot is VERY nasty, and very stealthy. One of the best moments occurs when Preston looks out his window, and the creature is looking in at him. Another unqualified highlight is a characters' demise around the 77/78 minute mark. Gore hounds will laugh in appreciation.

The film isn't free from flaws, or the usual quota of truly dumb characters, but overall it's definitely enjoyable. One of its main assets is a spooky score by veteran composer Lalo Schifrin (the directors' father), and it DOES have a sense of humor to go with the chills. (Lance Henriksen, playing a hunter, tells a story of a Darwin Award winner, and then proceeds to make the classic dumb horror film mistake of wandering off on his own.)

McCoy gives a creditable, low-key performance in the lead role, and Schifrin populates his story with guest appearances by a variety of familiar faces: Jeffrey Combs, Paul Gleason, Rex Linn, Phil Morris, Tiffany Shepis, Dee Wallace. Schifrin himself can be glimpsed as a gas station attendant. For a guy who's usually not an actor, Tinsley is quite amusing in his portrayal.

Good fun from start to finish, with a priceless final shot.

Seven out of 10.

Up until recently i was always disappointed in the lack of true monster movies, some of my best early memories were of staying up late to watch such films as "Snowbeast", "the abominable snowman", the hammer movies, abbot and Costello and a little more recently "the howling" and "Dog Soldiers".

Todays monster movies (i.e "cursed" and "the relic") are little more than a barrel of poor cgi effects and some throwaway supernatural plot, Long gone were the days of prosthetics and make up effects. Monsters that you could reach out and touch and not soon to be dated computer generated beasties.

But just a few weeks ago i discovered "Abominable" and was genuinely excited at the prospect of a yeti tearing around a mountain side resort.

The story taking on a more unconventional form of viewing, revolves around a crippled ex mountain climber "Preston" released from a mental institution and left in the care of orderly "Otis", Together they stay in Preston's mountain home not far from the mountain were he was crippled and his wife killed in a climbing accident.

Naturaly Preston unable to leave his accommodation due to his condition starts to witness the grisly acts of the local yeti, with Otis naturally believing him to be a nut job and trying to sedate him.

This is were the film works best, with our hero unable to leave his home he as to find resourceful ways of warning his neighbours ( a house full of nubile young ladies. Yummy.) and nearly all the action taking place from his perspective out of his window.

The film is enormous fun through-out and has great twist ending ( maybe a little predictable, but if you plan on taking a monster film seriously, you shouldn't be watching one) The film as some great cameos from the likes of Lance Henricksen, Jeffrey Combs and Dee Wallace Stone and is directed by Ryan Schifrin son of Lalo Schifrin (The man behind the Enter the Dragon theme) who also provides the excellent score to the film.

So if you miss the good old days of monster movies give "Abominable" a whirl and relive those classic monster memories!