Thursday, April 19, 2018
The Snow Creature!
Found The Snow Creature in a cheap collection buried in a bin at a local discount store. It was one of those packages in which it's hard to see what's really in it, but since it was a mere three bucks, I though the damage was pretty insignificant. Even if I hated everything, there were monster movies I hadn't seen. The real draw was this one though.
It's the same plot pretty much as King Kong, Gorgo, and several other monster flicks. An expedition runs across a dangerous monster/creature and struggles to capture it in order to bring it to civilization where it promptly escapes and causes some measure of damage. In the case of this "Monster", the damage is pretty minimal. The creature, a ragtag costume which is mostly hidden in the shadows of the night, caves and later the sewers is stunningly bad.
That said, there are some redeeming factors in this earliest Yeti movie. The Sherpas are somewhat more fully realized characters with motivations beyond being servants to all-knowing white explorers. Also there is a brief discussion of what the Creature might be, and how human it could be considered. But all that goes out the window when it breaks loose and wanders around inflicting a lot of panic and some mayhem and murder.
I cannot really recommend this one, it's pretty weak, but for any fan of vintage monsters movies, this one is a nifty primordial example of what would develop in the 50's.
Rip Off
I picked up a DVD a few years back entitled “The Capture of The Yeti”. It purports to be a “lost 1947 documentary” on the box, but if you watch it - it’s obviously not. I think it’s actually a not-so-clever public domain rip-off of at least scenes from this old Snow Creature movie. Has the Himalayas reconstructed on bad sets, Sherpas and the creature making its way to America where it characteristically ends up running amok. Think I would have preferred watching the film you mention here.
ReplyDeleteIt would be easy to do. I at first thought this was a bogus documentary when it started. Then it grinds into becoming a mere monster movie.
DeleteRip Off