Directors: Gene Gallerano and William Pisciotta
Writers: Gene Gallerano and William Pisciotta
Stars: Brittany Allen, Jim Cummings, Corbin Bernsen
Synopsis: Merriell Sunday Sr. and Hollis Bannister vanished in Alaska. Ellie and Merriell Jr. mount a search, but an ancient threat stalks their expedition into the wilderness, hunting them as they seek the truth behind the disappearances.
The Yeti begins on a silly note. Before we are introduced to our main characters, we see a group gathering at a remote cabin in Alaska as they play games and drink. The scene cuts to a short while later, showing a man on a ladder trying to fix something, and a woman approaches to hit on him. Then a mysterious noise thuds from the rooftop, and he is pulled by a fierce creature, followed by the woman being absurdly sprayed with blood as she screams. Given how this sounds, one might expect The Yeti not to take itself too seriously. But one would be incorrect.
The movie has all the window dressing of a silly B-grade horror movie. A string of characters with exaggerated personalities and characteristics. Even the marketing title font has the personality of a cheeseball Ed Wood production. However, for a movie with a Yeti gruesomely murdering a search crew in Alaska, the film has a blistering cold identity crisis.
Written and directed by Gene Gallerano and William Pisciotta, the film centers on Ellie Bannister (Brittany Allen), the daughter of a famous adventurer, Hollis Bannister (William Sadler), who has been recruited to lead a rescue expedition in Alaska. The search is for a missing oil tycoon and businessman, Merriell Sunday Sr. (Corbin Bernsen), with his son, Merriell Sunday Jr. (Eric Nelsen), assembling the world’s grittiest team for the expedition. At first, the film leans into silliness, showing black-and-white footage of each team member as a fast-talking 1940s-style announcer narrates. The voice introduces characters like “Dynamite Daniel Hewitt (Gene Gallerano)” and adds, “because sometimes the only way through is with a fistful of powder.” Other key players on the expedition include Margaret Lamb (Christina Bennett Lind), Leander Coates (Linc Hand), a soldier with a partial prosthetic face; and Booker Marchmont (Jim Cummings), a radio specialist who witnessed the bombing of Japan.
From the outset, it’s hard to decipher whether the film is intentionally rushed or if large sections of the plot were removed. In our first scene with Ellie, she comes across as the reluctant hero. Ellie refuses to take part in the expedition, whether or not she might find her father. And to seal her refusal, she hands the recruiter a compass and says, “You might need this.” Then, in an abrupt case of whiplash, we cut to the next scene, where Ellie has shown up at the press gathering for the expedition and reclaimed the compass. Even more disorienting, the scene that follows throws viewers straight into the Alaskan wilderness, where the party already seems to be in conflict for unclear reasons. Tensions are high, and a few have already turned on Ellie as the navigator. It’s implied that they have been traveling for a few days, and Dyamite Dan keeps referring to Ellie as the nickname “slow walk.” The execution makes it feel as if an entire scene (or scenes) were removed, leaving the viewer confused about why there is hostility towards Ellie.
The practical effects done by Ali Gordon and Tate Steinseik are impressive. The Yeti looks as nasty and real as some of Rick Baker’s early work, especially when the monster has to kill one of the film’s vast array of one-dimensional characters. It’s one of the few things the film gets right. Unfortunately, none of the sequences in The Yeti have any sense of stakes or suspense. Due to the rushed setup, we hardly have an opportunity to understand the characters. In Kurt Vonnegut’s rules for writing, he says, “every character should want something, even if it’s a glass of water.” Beyond the desire for the plot to move forward, I could not begin to explain what anyone wants on a deeper level in this movie, except maybe Jim Cummings as Booker, who speaks about the unspeakable brightness of the Hiroshima bomb. Booker never says exactly what he wants, but it’s the way Cummings handles the character that shows he’s done his homework. His character and Ellie share one moment of humanity in the film before it devolves into a strange, uninspired mess of monster attacks and overly sluggish, melodramatic scenes.
The film also features one of the worst character deaths ever written for any film. The Yeti begins walking around the cabin, attempting to kill the characters inside. One character shouts, “Back away from the window.” A few seconds later, the same character unwittingly stands directly in front of the window, perfectly positioned for the creature to skewer him like a shish kebab. A scene like this would be perfect as a spoof or a comedy. But the scene that follows involves a tender exchange between Ellie and Booker, signaling a confusing tonal shift for the viewer. One moment, we might feel the need to laugh at the absurdity of a character’s stupidity, and the next, we are expected to mourn Ellie’s struggle as a navigator in the shadow of her father’s legacy.
By the time The Yeti reaches its climax, it offers an interesting commentary on the theme of man vs. nature. The reasons the creature is killing are recontextualized, giving viewers a chance to reconsider as the film takes a final lap. The ideas are not terrible; they simply deserve a far better film to support them. The film’s photography is not half bad either. Cinematographer Joel Froome gives segments of the movie a soft glow, a look commonly seen in pictures from the ’40s and ’50s. There is a version of this film that might’ve actually looked decent in black-and-white. Unfortunately, The Yeti fails to function as either a campy B-movie or a serious horror flick; by trying to be both, it succeeds at neither. The characters are one-dimensional, extremely unintelligent, and lack depth. The monster looks great, but it’s not scary whatsoever because there’s no one to root for. By the end, you’re mostly left cold and aggravated, like The Yeti himself.
