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PierceMcginley
Reviews
Snowbeast (1977)
A middle-of-the-road spectacle of quasi-hilarity.
Me and my fellow Brit have just concluded the viewing experience of "Snowbeast" on our very own Horror (that's a backwards R, folks) channel. It was monumentally poor, very slowly paced and played out as something of a cross between "Murder, She Wrote" and "Snowbeast". If you're of the type that likes to watch Z-grade movies of the kind that are entertaining by right of their unintentional badness, you're in for a treat. Although I will add that the body count and overall gore quotient are very low. There is something endearing about how tame the general tone of the film is, especially when compared to such tour de force contemporary entries to the genre like the brilliant "The Descent". It makes a refreshing change (in its own awful way, I hasten to remind you) from the deluge of sex/violence/expletive-ridden horror that occupies our local video stores.
Thunderbolt and Lightfoot (1974)
Thinking man's buddy movie
Anyone who dismisses this as a badly paced action film just isn't looking closely enough. Cimino's inherent intelligence as a director was more clearly stamped on "The Deer Hunter"; it's more elusive here, but the sly subtext of a 70s-bound generation gap (as examined in the relationship between Jeff Bridges and George Kennedy) is compellingly mixed into the script amidst the more conventional plot elements.
Eastwood and Bridges make for an incredibly charismatic pairing, and each complement the other without any apparent clash of egos. The nuances of human interaction are studied in such a way as to make the dialogue-led scenes more interesting than the straight-up action sequences. Exuberant comedy is often at the centre of the exchanges of speech, offset by the vague sense of foreboding near the end, concluded by a searing poignancy. An excellent multi-genre piece, and testament to the golden years of filmaking that was the 70s.