Wednesday, December 5, 2012

Snowbeast (1977, Herb Wallerstein)

"Snowbeast" is as unoriginal as they come, but still not the worst you can subject yourself too when dealing with low-budget Sasquatch-themed films or 70s made-for-TV horror. It's got it's 'pluses', but at the end of the day it's basically just a "Jaws"-on-land type of thing...

A ski resort is holding some kind of winter carnival where a ferocious yeti just so happens to be lurking around the nearby woods. When skiers start getting plucked off the slopes, the sheriff, a retired ski champion, his wife and her ex are pressured by the resort owner to hunt down the creature and kill it.

There's a few fairly tense moments involving POV shots of the beast spying on doomed skiers and the formula - though obviously familiar - is entertaining enough. That said, there are too many drawn out scenes of people skiing and a sub-plot showing a ridiculous love-triangle between the three central characters. The beast isn't shown a lot aside from it's claw latching onto people and a few very brief glimpses of it's face, such as in a scene where it smashes it's way into a gymnasium full of unsuspecting resort guests which is a disappointingly short burst of Bigfoot action.

Overall, like I said, you could do worse than "Snowbeast". If you like this type of shit - "Jaws"-ish movies like "Grizzly" - you might get a small kick out of this one.