The Alaska Territory, 1947… it’s cold… real cold… it’s also up to it’s ass with an unreasonable amount of Yeti-committed murder.
Among the possible victims of the beast’s absolutely ape-shit rampage are an adventurer, Hollis Bannister (William Sadler, Bill & Ted’s Bogus Journey, The Shawshank Redemption, Tales from the Crypt: Demon Knight), and an oil magnate by the name of
Merriell Sunday Sr. (Corbin Bernsen, The Dentist and it’s sequel, the Major League franchise)… the son of which, Merriell Sunday Jr. (Eric Nelsen, 1883), assembles a rag-tag group of adventurers, including Bannister’s estranged daughter Ellie (Brittany Allen, The Boys), to bring ’em back alive… or get their ass handed to them by a crazed cryptid!
Co-writers/Directors Gene Gallerano and William Pisciotta really go for the gold with The Yeti cats n’ creeps!
What could be a standard creature feature becomes anything but under their guidance as we are thrown into a pulp fantasy adventure starring a Doc Savage and his Fabulous Five-style team of scientists and specialists who’s ranks include a psychotic alcoholic hillbilly demolition expert, Daniel ‘Dynamite’ Hewitt (played by the aforementioned Gene Gallerano), Booker (Jim Cummings, Halloween Ends), a military communications expert haunted by his involvement in the bombing of Hiroshima, and Coates (Linc Hand, Revenge), a badass soldier who wears a half-mask prosthesis to cover his scarred visage.
While obviously flawed (a major factor in the narrative’s more dramatic moments)… the team are introduced with a bombastic faux-news reel that introduces them all as the stalwart heroes they sort-of are minus their various skeletons in the closet… and this adds even more world building and the entire arcane affair would easily fit on a bill with other pulp-inspired flicks like 1975’s George Pal Doc Savage adaptation and 2004’s ambitious Sky Captain and the World of Tomorrow.
Differing from those film’s more action oriented vibes, The Yeti instead goes a horror route as the screen is often filled with practically-realized gore and bloody mayhem… and while that is always appreciated ’round these parts, the creature effects kick ass even harder as they are realized via an impressive monster suit that always slapped a grin on my face 666 miles wide whenever it was on screen!
The only negative I have here lies not with the picture at hand, but rather with this disc’s lack of bonus features (only a trailer is present)… I would have loved to hear how the story developed and how it was brought to the screen.
Full of imagination, heart, and a ton of killer effects work; The Yeti is a pulpy creature feature gem that absolutely shouldn’t escape the notice of your eerie eyeballs!
