Yeti

A football team is flying over the Himalayan Mountains when their plane crashes in desolate territory. Bodies are searched for food and lighters in order to survive. But the team has bigger problems than the cold: they have landed in the vicinity of the legendary yeti, and he's plenty hungry.

This made-for-TV movie directed by Paul Ziller and written by Rafael Jordan, neither of whom have offered anything noteworthy thus far in their careers. I'm not sure that this will really boost either of their careers, as it, too, is nothing noteworthy. In fact, it's a largely pointless endeavor. Even the cast is pretty much a group of unknowns, with the minor exception of Crystal Lowe, whom you're unlikely to have heard of unless you follow movies closely.

What makes me curious is whether this film is intended to be bad, or is just plain bad. That makes a difference, as I can forgive a film's badness if the intent was self-deprecation. For example, the star quarterback's name is Peyton Elway. Now, I'm not a fan of the NFL -- I don't even know the names of my local team's starting lineup, but I do know who Peyton Manning and John Elway are. So the reference was about as obvious as can be. Please tell me this was intended as a bad joke and not as a poor attempt to be clever.

I have to say the airplane animation was not needed, and the same with the yeti. The airplane looks especially cheesy while crashing, and I felt the point was made adequately from just the interior shots. The yeti, which required an elaborate costume, repeatedly is shown jumping and running as a cartoon. Why? Did the crew have no faith in the costume? If they can show it close up, surely it would look fine at a distance -- I mean, it's not as bad as "Raptor Island", but still.

The one thing this film has going for it, besides a decent survival narrative (which, ironically, is ruined rather than strengthened by the yeti), is a brief limb-beating scene. It's close to the end, so you'll have to sit through plenty of bull first. And, sadly, despite a football team -- with women -- on a plane, no mile high club (see "Snakes on a Plane", or better yet, don't).

Conclusion: The Maneater series has some decent entries ("Croc") and some not-so-decent entries ("Blood Monkey"). This one falls somewhere in the middle. Interesting enough to hold your attention, but not interesting enough to recommend to friends or watch a second time. And since the disc comes with no special features, there's no good reason to spend more time on this one than the 87 minutes of running time.

i remember seeing the reel for this on the soup and thinking that it might be worth checking out. i give a nod to any horror director that attempts to do something creative and interesting. Obviously this movie focuses on the elusive yeti (which i am surprised so many people never heard of lol) so it already has a lot of creature backstory developed. you may think from the somewhat decently pulled off fake plane/flight cgi and expect to see some cool detailed gory killings.... but you won't. 9 out of 10 times i prefer to see some cool oldschool prosthetic based creative effects (A la 90's Fulci, Raimi, Jackson) However, in this movie that was clearly not a good direction for them.

Clearly there was not much budgeted for the yeti as it is almost contrived to look simply ridiculous and borderline humorous (although it's kind of sad when you think of the people that are employed to do "just this" got paid by whatever production company, and now it sits on their resume.) Whatever actor was hired to put on the yeti suit clearly did not research the creature much as it would be more likely to "shamble" around using its legs and its paws... at least that would be what id do. He just flails around with his arms up in the air while running like a person in a yeti costume would. And it is what it is :p

Don't expect cool gore killings or deaths which would have offered some more redeeming value... they just aren't there for some reason. Overall, it's really kind of like a bad remake of "Alive" except one of the supporting characters happens to put on a yeti costume and eat the others.

Plus they ate a squirrel. That's messed up.

First off, I'm not here to dog this movie. I find it totally enjoyable in spite of the poor production quality. The acting herein is about as abominable as the monster stalking them, although the monster itself is quite well done...impressively well done, at that. He actually looks kind of other-worldly, like an alien family on vacation landed in the Himalayas and while dad was out taking a ... attending to nature's call, Spot got loose and they just didn't have time to hunt him down. That, or he's the Caucasian brother of the Wishmaster. I haven't decided which.

Actually, this seems to have been filmed somewhere in snow country, yes, but more likely Canada somewhere than China anywhere. The trees and vistas say Canada to me, and it's okay that the set area never takes on the look or feel of uber-coldness one might expect to find in the Himalayas of China. It's a Sci-Fi Channel movie, so we can forgive the lack of location.

Further, apparently (as we have just established) Sci-Fi directors do not travel often, as they are not aware that commercial planes fly above weather like what is featured herein and the subsequent crash actually would not have happened. But as I said, it's a Sci-Fi Channel movie so we must forgive a few things.

The movie is pretty graphic at times, and rotates between "Alive" about the Donner Party, "Predator" about the alien in the woods, and any bad wushu movie where they fly about on wires. The Yeti apparently can leap about like Spiderman...or Super Mario...remember? "Run faster! Jump higher! Live longer!"

Also, the Yeti has missed his teddy bear. He's searched high and low for it, but cannot seem to make a cadaver work. Poor Yeti! You can't help but feel sorry for it. It has survived and evolved thousands of years only to succumb to severe teddy bear loss. He's missed his bear. Or maybe it wants to mate, but that thought is BANISHED! Do ya hear me? Well, it does seem to be an unmated male. REBANISHED!

And it's superhuman. Well, it's not human...it's super-Yeti! But then again, what's normal-Yeti? I don't know, but he has a definite Michael Meyers quality that is completely unsettling. And he's got this fabulous way of cleaning his fur. FABulous Dahlink! It's spotlessly white at times when it SO shouldn't be. He's fastidiously superhu-...super-Yeti.

All in all? This was a lot of fun to watch, has some great kills and a few honest plot elements. In spite of the horribly gravel-like production style, this is actually quite entertaining. I can't help wondering if they're planning on another one?

It rates a 6.0/10 on the M4TV Scale.

It rates a 4.4/10 on the Movie Scale from...

the Fiend :.

When you mix the story from "Alive" and you mix it with a cliché man-eater monster, you end up with "Yeti: Curse of the Snow Demon".

From the intro to the end sequence, everything is so bad, so terrible it's laughable.

Everything you can ask from some cheesy bad horror flick is here.

The Yeti goes from cheap costumed actor to bad CGI from scene to scene, the Himalayan mountains looks like Slovenia, the characters are stupid and terribly played, the dialogues are hollow and predictable, and there are uses of low quality stock-shots.

Special mention to the acting, absolutely atrocious and the musical score, probably coming from some generic music banks or royalty free database. Exceptional!

So grab something to eat and drink, take off your shoes, switch on your sense of humour and relax with this terrible movie but great intertainement!

This movie embodies everything needed for an all-out laugh riot, although it's not supposed to be scary. Plot, acting, effects and stereotypes were so bad, me and my husband were hoping the yeti would kill everyone in this rotting POS of a movie.