Oh, the weather in the Himalayas is frightful, but firearms are so delightful, and since we’ve no place to hide, for the love of God almighty, let us go! Let us go! Let us go! Unfortunately for the audience of the classically horrendous (not just cause of the abominable monster) The Snow Creature, it doesn’t show signs of the movie stopping for your sanity. Rushed into production with the ‘ripped from the headlines” attitude of the day after Lieutenant-Colonel Charles Howard-Bury’s expedition led to photographic footprints of the Yeti the Wilder family got an even wilder idea this could make for a great movie. However, much like the infamous adventure, this was much ado about nothing. Now, I’ve bought some corn for popping and if you’re not scared, we’ll turn the lights down low to watch a little mutiny on the bountiful mountainside of death and gloom!
In reflecting on this little adventure lark, I can’t help but think Steven Spielberg and George Lucus watched the beginning of the film before they embarked on Raiders of the Lost Ark (Yeppers, I said the original title, none of this Indiana Jones and… crap). The film is filled with stock footage of planes, trains, and automobiles in front of geographical maps and does something other films of this kind can’t, which makes this cheap film look like they spent some real money (which they didn’t). At least I felt they did until they showed the yeti! Having said this though, I will give the film credit for not being a massive white shag carpet monster. Wilder instead went for the traditional (at least something in this movie is) brown sasquatch look, except this time around it’s Bighands instead of Bigfoot. Once the stories came out about the Howard-Bury expedition there were several screen attempts to capture the elusive creature, and this film seems to be a greatest hits compilation from K-Tel presents “Cryptid Boogie”. It’s as if Wilder bought stock plots, ripping from science fiction giants like King King and Them! among others. Other highlights are the acting, which is pretty good for these sorts of films (including being respectful in the portrayal of the sherpas for this time), and cinematographer Floyd Crosby (High Noon, The Pit and the Pendulum) creates a unique landscape of shadows and light. Yet while the movie keeps going it appears the fire making them is starting to die, so start saying goodbye to your hopes the film gets better (although it’s quick, so should be painless).
Dr. Frank Parrish (played very well by Peyton Place veteran Paul Langton) is leading a special scientific group up the mighty mountains of the Himalayas to study plant and botanical life. Along the way, the local Himalayans speak of a wretched beast that captures their woman who roams the mountains with a killer case of athlete’s foot. Dr. Frank waves his hand at such nonsense until they all see it attacking the camp! At first Dr. Frank and his colleagues want nothing to do with this, they have to change their minds when their weapons (and worst of all, alcohol) are taken by force by the sherpas (yep, Wilder even stole from classic literature). The group eventually finds the family of Yeti hiding in a cave. But can we leave them there in peace? NOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOOO! We gotta bring it back to the people (and scientists) to gawk and aww at! While inside a random refrigerator (that they magically conjured up in the mountains somehow) the politics by immigration (sound familiar) step in, but not in time to stop the creature from defrosting as it kills in the streets (or sewers) of America! Will Dr. Frank and his plant-loving hippies find a peaceful solution to the madness or will they just let the Yeti go! Yeti go! Yeti go!
Snowflaking your way at a melting sixty-nine minutes, and directed by W. Lee Wilder (who also helmed such monsters as Killers from Space and Bluebeard’s Ten Honeymoons), the Wilder family production company was Planet Filmways where Wilder created a lot of low-budget yarns like these written by his son Myles Wilder (who later wrote for such a wide range of TV shows from The Flying Nun to The Dukes of Hazzard). You won’t have to be trapped in a blizzard on the side of a mountain to find this little rock, as it is wedged in the cave walls of the public domain, which means you can dig it on YouTube or Tubi. So when the movie is done and you finally kiss your lover goodnight, stay close and don’t go out in the storm or you’ll hold each other tight out of fear the Yeti outside will drag you back to his home… or lair! Oh no! Oh no! Oh no!
