The first part of this movie starts off like a "Wonderful World of Nature" type travelogue then quickly descends into awfulness.
A plant-hunting expedition sets out to explore the Himalayas. After trekking for two gruelling, tedious days they set up base camp. That night the head guide's wife is taken from his home village by a Yeti. Villagers cover the ground the expedition took two days to cover that same night - in the dark. Anyone think these scientists hired the wrong guides? The head guide takes the white scientists' guns and they trek endlessly around the mountains, past the same bunches of rocks time and time again. Yep - they hired the wrong guy. Eventually they find a cave. Inside they find a huge Muppet - sorry, Yeti family. The male Yeti, suddenly surprised in his own home by gun wielding Sherpas, decides to remodel the cave and causes a rockfall which knocks him unconscious and kills his mate and child. In the confusion the white guys get the guns back and, now that the natural order is restored, force the 'natives' to abandon the search for the Guide's wife (who, for all they know is somewhere in the cave, they just found her necklace after all) and cart the drugged Yeti back to Civilisation "Where he belongs." Back in town the scientists decide not to press charges against the Sherpas (Thank you, B'wana! Me glad not to be in gaol for trying to rescue my wife) and are allowed to take the Yeti away without even filling out any forms. Hello white people, please abuse our countrymen, abandon our women to die on mountainsides, and steal our national treasures. It's a pleasure to be abused by you, thank you. Do come again. Bring tanks next time.
The Yeti is shipped to LA via a long series of stock shots.
The head scientist arrives and is reunited with his wife, then gets into a dispute with the local immigration people about whether the Yeti is a man or an animal. As they debate the matter in a series of master-shots the Yeti escapes. The police are soon on the scene in the shape of a Lt. Dunbar an man who's screen presence is enhanced by the actor having an uncanny ability that enables him to actually upstage himself! Several times he needlessly turns his back to the audience before delivering lines and then occasionally, as a bonus, waits for other people to get between him and the camera before speaking. Maybe he was expecting there to be other takes - everything is shot in one wide take there are no other angles in any scene, or maybe he realised he was in a real stinker and was trying to hide, either way it is a genius performance.
The police search for the escaped Snow Man Beast Muppet thing using a variety of stock shots, sequences lifted from other movies, and sticking three push pins into the smallest map of L.A the producers could find.
All to no avail, the Yeti appears to be moving round the city with impunity. How is he getting about? Our scientist looks out of the window and sees a street sweeper sweeping garbage into a drain. Hmmmm. He wonders, Didn't he remember something about all rampaging monsters due to be let loose in the LA area being issued with maps of the storm drains a while back? The police wander around the storm drains (or to be more precise our leads and three extras in uniforms, wander around three or four yards of storm drain shot from at least, oh I'd say - two different angles). Endlessly they wander up and down the same three bits of drain hoping the audience don't notice because it is so dark. Suddenly they trap the Muppet in a net - and shoot it dead.
Stupid denouement - The End
This film was made so cheaply it hurts. The Mountain sequences alternate long tedious climbing sequences (shot without sound) followed by night-time sequences, for the most part in small tents, in which the story, such as it is, is progressed. The shots of the Snow beast looming into the camera and then retreating are repeated so often, and towards the end, so randomly, that it looks like the thing is doing the Hokey-Pokey. The same alley way is shot from the same angle over and over again and is the setting for the best, weird shot of the whole thing. A slow pan left to right of the empty alley, a scream, the camera stops and pans BACK across the still empty alley before revealing an altercation in a doorway we've never seen before.
On the positive side it is only 71 minutes long.
A plant-hunting expedition sets out to explore the Himalayas. After trekking for two gruelling, tedious days they set up base camp. That night the head guide's wife is taken from his home village by a Yeti. Villagers cover the ground the expedition took two days to cover that same night - in the dark. Anyone think these scientists hired the wrong guides? The head guide takes the white scientists' guns and they trek endlessly around the mountains, past the same bunches of rocks time and time again. Yep - they hired the wrong guy. Eventually they find a cave. Inside they find a huge Muppet - sorry, Yeti family. The male Yeti, suddenly surprised in his own home by gun wielding Sherpas, decides to remodel the cave and causes a rockfall which knocks him unconscious and kills his mate and child. In the confusion the white guys get the guns back and, now that the natural order is restored, force the 'natives' to abandon the search for the Guide's wife (who, for all they know is somewhere in the cave, they just found her necklace after all) and cart the drugged Yeti back to Civilisation "Where he belongs." Back in town the scientists decide not to press charges against the Sherpas (Thank you, B'wana! Me glad not to be in gaol for trying to rescue my wife) and are allowed to take the Yeti away without even filling out any forms. Hello white people, please abuse our countrymen, abandon our women to die on mountainsides, and steal our national treasures. It's a pleasure to be abused by you, thank you. Do come again. Bring tanks next time.
The Yeti is shipped to LA via a long series of stock shots.
The head scientist arrives and is reunited with his wife, then gets into a dispute with the local immigration people about whether the Yeti is a man or an animal. As they debate the matter in a series of master-shots the Yeti escapes. The police are soon on the scene in the shape of a Lt. Dunbar an man who's screen presence is enhanced by the actor having an uncanny ability that enables him to actually upstage himself! Several times he needlessly turns his back to the audience before delivering lines and then occasionally, as a bonus, waits for other people to get between him and the camera before speaking. Maybe he was expecting there to be other takes - everything is shot in one wide take there are no other angles in any scene, or maybe he realised he was in a real stinker and was trying to hide, either way it is a genius performance.
The police search for the escaped Snow Man Beast Muppet thing using a variety of stock shots, sequences lifted from other movies, and sticking three push pins into the smallest map of L.A the producers could find.
All to no avail, the Yeti appears to be moving round the city with impunity. How is he getting about? Our scientist looks out of the window and sees a street sweeper sweeping garbage into a drain. Hmmmm. He wonders, Didn't he remember something about all rampaging monsters due to be let loose in the LA area being issued with maps of the storm drains a while back? The police wander around the storm drains (or to be more precise our leads and three extras in uniforms, wander around three or four yards of storm drain shot from at least, oh I'd say - two different angles). Endlessly they wander up and down the same three bits of drain hoping the audience don't notice because it is so dark. Suddenly they trap the Muppet in a net - and shoot it dead.
Stupid denouement - The End
This film was made so cheaply it hurts. The Mountain sequences alternate long tedious climbing sequences (shot without sound) followed by night-time sequences, for the most part in small tents, in which the story, such as it is, is progressed. The shots of the Snow beast looming into the camera and then retreating are repeated so often, and towards the end, so randomly, that it looks like the thing is doing the Hokey-Pokey. The same alley way is shot from the same angle over and over again and is the setting for the best, weird shot of the whole thing. A slow pan left to right of the empty alley, a scream, the camera stops and pans BACK across the still empty alley before revealing an altercation in a doorway we've never seen before.
On the positive side it is only 71 minutes long.