geminiredblue Review of Snowbeast

Snowbeast (1977 TV Movie)

Just When You Thought It Was Safe To Ski!!!

[5/10 · 26 April 2011]

JAWS, a monumental horror movie brought to us by none other than Steven Spielberg himself. It taught everybody to fear what lurks beneath the ocean. I put it to you, mention the JAWS theme song and at least one person will start singing "duh-duh, duh-duh, duh-duh!" In its wake, rip-offs were inevitable. In '77, along came this made-for-TV movie called SNOWBEAST. Just substitute the beaches off Amity for the ski lifts of Colorado, and the shark for a yeti, and it's the same basic story. Good solid acting by a cast of veteran character actors, however, can't make up for a lack of oomph! Most of the violence happens off-screen (understandable for a made-for-TV movie) but perhaps this film would've fared better as a theater movie where violence could be shown. It's talked about the yeti ripping people apart, but we don't even get to see a severed hand! Even JAWS, which is rated PG, allowed us that! Plus, most of the movie, we get the Yeti's point-of-view shots. Only once do we actually see the creature, and when we do, it looks like a man in a white gorilla suit. As is usual in monster flicks like this, the monster eventually attacks at a local event. But even then, all we see are a group of people running around, screaming. The lack of seeing the creature actually hurts the movie in this case. At least in JAWS, we're given glimpses of the shark. So that when we finally see the shark in full, it works. And that's what is so sad with this film, you can see where it could've been a great monster film instead of a mediocre made-for-TV movie! However, not all is lost, get some friends together and enjoy mocking it. That, you can raise your beer bottles to!