An unbalanced professor leads a gaggle of not-so-bright college students off on a field trip to find the yeti.
Stumbled upon this odious mess as a teenager back in the days when late night weekend TV aired horror films that you had never heard of (and in this case, wish you had never heard of). It is bad enough that pretty much every element of the film is inept, but what makes the film stick out like a sore thumb is that the film feels low rent and downright sleazy - even without any notable sex or nudity.
The entire concept is absurd. Alan Brock is the professor, who seems cursed with questionable ethics and more than a tad unhinged right from the start. His performance leaves a lot to be desired, so we will speak no more of it. The thought that a gaggle of students would follow this guy across the street much less onto an isolated patch of land known as Boot Island requires a major suspension of belief. We never get a good idea of where this Boot Island supposedly is, but it looks suspiciously like northern New York. Who knew that was a stomping ground for a yeti?
Even more stupid is that the students are made aware from the start that the professor's first foray to find "the yeti" seven years earlier resulted in the deaths of all the students involved save one. A drunken wretch who just so happens to show up at the parting party to ramble incoherently and warn the students of impending doom and to not trust the professor. The students are too busy listening to the 70s kitsch class Popcorn to pay attention. This charmer is escorted out by his suitably embarrassed wife. Most film's would have allowed them to exit the action, but instead we follow the couple home where the drunk attacks his wife with a knife before staggering into the bathroom to take a bath fully clothed, where his still alive beaten bloody wife crawls in moments later to drop an unplugged toaster into the tub to electrocute him...yes, the toaster is unplugged, but it still electrocutes him.
The group heads off on their jaunt into the wilderness. They include Brock, studious bland Michael Harris, his innocent girlfriend Jennifer Stock, her dorky friend Darcy Brown, and wise-cracking dude Jack Neubeck. Although Boot Island is purportedly "off limits" they seem to have no problem accessing the island and moving into their accommodations, which are already inhabited by pony-tailed doctor Tawm Ellis who exudes sleaze and mute Native American Laughing Crow (Ivan Agar) - who looks about as Native American as the albino assassin in The DaVinci Code. From there, it is just a matter of time before the "yeti" makes its appearance and figuring out which of the students will be the first to go.
The film has uneventful stretches and the writing is ludicrous. Ellis insists that although he has found footprints and heard the howl of the yeti in the night, he has never actually seen it. Then shortly thereafter he tells a story of being watched from the woods by the yeti, which is shown in flashback with Ellis giving such a detailed description of the beast that it contradicts what he initially said about never seeing it and none of the students gainsay him. At about the one-third mark, the film completely changes course and ceases being about a yeti, but about a gaggle of cannibals. The change in focus does not improve things.
The film looks like it cost about $1.95 to make on someone's home camera. The yeti is laughable looking like a cross between a chubby guy in a costume and a slobbering chihuahua. The film is not overly gory, but the subject matter and the look and feel of it have the unhealthy miasma of a grind house film. The fact that the professor starts carving up the bodies of the beast's victims to use as bait and the remaining survivors do not immediately head for the door or find suitable weapons to protect themselves from the "yeti" AND the professor and his cohorts is astonishing.
With the technical aspects a wash-out, the acting does not fare much better. The actors playing the villains come across as unsavory from the moment they enter the action, so their revelations as such are no surprise. Harris and Stock are not especially winning as the main couple. She spends most of the running time either looking blank of face or in an over-the-top palsy of prostration. For someone purportedly crazy about her, Harris wanders off repeatedly leaving her to fend for herself. His character seems eternally clueless and by the time the credits roll what little sympathy he may have generated is completely gone.
And let's not even get into the grotesque downer ending. No doubt meant to be darkly humorous, it comes off as just depressing and gross, punctuated by a crummy one-liner and a lingering shot of Harris' blank face uncontrollably drooling. Just yuck!
Stumbled upon this odious mess as a teenager back in the days when late night weekend TV aired horror films that you had never heard of (and in this case, wish you had never heard of). It is bad enough that pretty much every element of the film is inept, but what makes the film stick out like a sore thumb is that the film feels low rent and downright sleazy - even without any notable sex or nudity.
The entire concept is absurd. Alan Brock is the professor, who seems cursed with questionable ethics and more than a tad unhinged right from the start. His performance leaves a lot to be desired, so we will speak no more of it. The thought that a gaggle of students would follow this guy across the street much less onto an isolated patch of land known as Boot Island requires a major suspension of belief. We never get a good idea of where this Boot Island supposedly is, but it looks suspiciously like northern New York. Who knew that was a stomping ground for a yeti?
Even more stupid is that the students are made aware from the start that the professor's first foray to find "the yeti" seven years earlier resulted in the deaths of all the students involved save one. A drunken wretch who just so happens to show up at the parting party to ramble incoherently and warn the students of impending doom and to not trust the professor. The students are too busy listening to the 70s kitsch class Popcorn to pay attention. This charmer is escorted out by his suitably embarrassed wife. Most film's would have allowed them to exit the action, but instead we follow the couple home where the drunk attacks his wife with a knife before staggering into the bathroom to take a bath fully clothed, where his still alive beaten bloody wife crawls in moments later to drop an unplugged toaster into the tub to electrocute him...yes, the toaster is unplugged, but it still electrocutes him.
The group heads off on their jaunt into the wilderness. They include Brock, studious bland Michael Harris, his innocent girlfriend Jennifer Stock, her dorky friend Darcy Brown, and wise-cracking dude Jack Neubeck. Although Boot Island is purportedly "off limits" they seem to have no problem accessing the island and moving into their accommodations, which are already inhabited by pony-tailed doctor Tawm Ellis who exudes sleaze and mute Native American Laughing Crow (Ivan Agar) - who looks about as Native American as the albino assassin in The DaVinci Code. From there, it is just a matter of time before the "yeti" makes its appearance and figuring out which of the students will be the first to go.
The film has uneventful stretches and the writing is ludicrous. Ellis insists that although he has found footprints and heard the howl of the yeti in the night, he has never actually seen it. Then shortly thereafter he tells a story of being watched from the woods by the yeti, which is shown in flashback with Ellis giving such a detailed description of the beast that it contradicts what he initially said about never seeing it and none of the students gainsay him. At about the one-third mark, the film completely changes course and ceases being about a yeti, but about a gaggle of cannibals. The change in focus does not improve things.
The film looks like it cost about $1.95 to make on someone's home camera. The yeti is laughable looking like a cross between a chubby guy in a costume and a slobbering chihuahua. The film is not overly gory, but the subject matter and the look and feel of it have the unhealthy miasma of a grind house film. The fact that the professor starts carving up the bodies of the beast's victims to use as bait and the remaining survivors do not immediately head for the door or find suitable weapons to protect themselves from the "yeti" AND the professor and his cohorts is astonishing.
With the technical aspects a wash-out, the acting does not fare much better. The actors playing the villains come across as unsavory from the moment they enter the action, so their revelations as such are no surprise. Harris and Stock are not especially winning as the main couple. She spends most of the running time either looking blank of face or in an over-the-top palsy of prostration. For someone purportedly crazy about her, Harris wanders off repeatedly leaving her to fend for herself. His character seems eternally clueless and by the time the credits roll what little sympathy he may have generated is completely gone.
And let's not even get into the grotesque downer ending. No doubt meant to be darkly humorous, it comes off as just depressing and gross, punctuated by a crummy one-liner and a lingering shot of Harris' blank face uncontrollably drooling. Just yuck!