L'Abominable homme des neiges

This film lacks just about everything. A good story, a cool monster, a decent actor--all are absent from this baby! It is really a test of endurance to see if you can get through it. I picked it up because A. It was cheap and 2. it had a snow monster! Snow monsters are my personal favorite, which is tragic considering that nobody makes movies about them. In fact, the best screen Yeti yet is the Wampa from Empire Strikes Back . .. and it wasn't even a Yeti! The special effects are so terrible that the cornball director used the same exact shot of the monster over and over and over again. Nevertheless, three scenes stand out in my mind: 1. An attack on a female victim in a black alley 2. The monster seen weaving in and out of cattle carcasses in a meat plant 3. Coolest of all, this scene shows the monster trying to break out of the container that brought him to the US from the so-called Himilayas. Check out Wilder's Phantom from Space for a better time.

I suppose you should approach this stuff with an open mind, but I have difficulty doing that. Those words written, my expectations for this were, quite frankly, pretty low. I knew that it was a 1954, low-budget production. Therefore, I was prepared to tolerate the cheap old costumes and over-abundance of no-action dialogue. I wanted to subject myself to this fillage of time. Sure, some of the responses were totally unrealistic. But, looking past all the negatives, I still found some pros that, in my opinion, offset the anticipated cons. Some of that dialogue, to me, actually represented a try. Maybe I give it a (barely) passing grade because even this simpleton could follow the extremely UNcomplex plot: Scientist captures living snow creature in Himalayas and is able to return it to LA, where it escapes. Perhaps I would feel ripped off if I spent too much money to purchase a tape of this movie. But having seen it on satellite TV - which I think of as a more-INdirect flow of my dollars - my concern was mostly for my time, which I did not find totally wasted.

The Snow Creature, half man, half monster. The snow creature monster's costume is a bad attempt to make him look scary and half monster. All it really does is make it look like a man going out trick or treating on Halloween. I think most of the acting was ok. It had a couple of small twists that were unexpected and I think that the second half of the movie outdid the beginning. I rated this movie a 5 but it barely made that 5. If I could, I would have called it a 4+. I bought this dvd expecting it to be a bad movie and was surprised to find that it was actually better than expected. I thought it was going to be worse. While looking back at the whole movie, I must say that I liked it.

The Snow Creature (1954)

* 1/2 (out of 4)

Two American explores are tracking up the mountains near Tibet when their guides decide they'd rather chase the mythical Yeti. At first the Americans think that the locals are just being silly but once they have proof of the creature they decide to capture it. Once captured, the two bring it back to America where it escapes so the hunt is on.

THE SNOW CREATURE was the first film dealing with a Yeti so that might get some people curious enough to check it out but sadly this film is pretty darn bad. Director W. Lee Wilder really had zero to work with here because it appears the budget was so low that they couldn't actually shoot on location, which is expected but what makes this film so bad is the fact that the budget appears to be so low that they did nothing but add dialogue scenes.

The majority of the 71 minute running time simply has characters sitting around in fake looking caves or silly looking offices talking about the snow creature. They talk about whether it's real or fake. Whether they should kill or capture it. Whether it's man or beast. They've got so much dialogue packed into this thing I really do wonder how big the screenplay was. What's worse is the fact that none of these conversations are interesting and they're certainly shot in a poor way. There's no energy or power to be found in any of these scenes.

The costume of the snow creature certainly isn't anything great but it at least looks decent in the few scenes that we see it. Since they did have a costume, all the dialogue scenes are even more shocking. I mean, I'd understand a monster movie not having too much of the monster because they couldn't afford the effect but THE SNOW CREATURE has a costume yet instead of more monster footage it's just all dialogue. THE SNOW CREATURE could have been much better than what it is.

"The Snow Creature" (1954) is a black & white picture notable as the first film to address the topic of Bigfoot or, in this case, Yeti. The atmospheric beginning segues into a relatively dull story about a fake-looking Yeti brought to America from the Himilayas, which ends up languishing in customs while officials debate whether or not the creature is a passenger or cargo, i.e. animal or human. I'm not making this up. Then the creature gets loose in the city a la "King Kong."

"The Snow Creature" is worthwhile only for historical reasons or as an interesting period piece and people smitten with the Sasquatch legend.

The film runs 71 minutes and was shot in Bronson Caves, Bronson Canyon, Griffith Park, Los Angeles, California, USA

GRADE: D+