The Abominable Snowman (1957)

the audience applauded

Powerful

Don't Believe the Hype

I think this is a new genre that they're all sort of working their way through it and haven't got all the kinks worked out yet but it's a genre that works for me.

Right around the time this film came out, I would have been a kid voraciously reading anything I could get my hands on regarding fabled creatures like the Loch Ness Monster, The Abominable Snowman, and it's American cousin Bigfoot/Sasquatch. Their names still pop up from time to time, and Bigfoot even had his own TV series on Animal Planet. It must be some primordial urge in Man to keep these mythical beasts going from generation to generation, and if you ever see one, let me know.Considering the subject matter, this was a pretty decent flick from the Hammer folks, showing up on one of my cable channels as "The Abominable Snowman of the Himalayas". More adventure film than horror, once the thing gets going most of the fear factor is supplied by the power of suggestion. One cool element in all this had to do with the idea that the remote mountain location where the Rong-Kuk Monastery was located gave it's head Lhama (Arnold Marle) some sort of clairvoyant power to see events in the future and warn Dr. John Rollason (Peter Cushing) not to venture forth for a creature that didn't exist, lest it lead to disaster.I was surprised to see Forrest Tucker top billed over Peter Cushing here since he wasn't a Hammer mainstay, but then again, Hammer Productions was just starting out. It turns out that Tom Friend (Tucker) had a prior reputation as a huckster, passing off mental defectives as Indian Wolf Children, so it didn't seem to matter much to him that the expedition's capture of a Himalayan langur monkey would have served his purpose well enough. That was a bit of a let down for me at that point in the story because other members of the team correctly identified it, and Friend should have realized he'd be harming his reputation once again.Director Val Guest did the right thing here to tease the appearance of the yeti creatures, revealing only an arm of the one shot by Ed Shelley (Robert Brown), and later when Rollason was confronted by two of the giants in the cave, their features were hidden in shadow. This is one picture where it was convenient to let the viewer's imagination take over instead of going for cheesy monster effects. Especially after the dead Yeti was described as ten and a half feet tall and weighing six hundred fifty pounds. There's a lot of room there for the imagination.If you go for this stuff, maybe you'd like to try a 1954 film with the same subject matter going by the name of "The Snow Creature". It's a lot goofier than this one, in fact, this picture plays almost scientifically plausible by comparison. It's only the grand Lhama who brings things back to reality at the end of the story when he tells Rollason - "It is not possible to bend the destiny of Man."

I really wish the TV channels here would show more films like this in the ghetto slots rather than the cheap American TV movies that are usually screened. For me then this was a rare chance to see an early Hammer Horror movie and the great Peter Cushing's first of many with the studio, into the bargain.I liked many aspects of the movie, not least the unexpected ecological strain to the narrative culminating in a neat plot twist at the end. Sure, the five man team hunting Bigfoot are reduced to one as per horror tradition but interestingly not one of them is ripped from limb to limb or eaten alive as might have been expected. Neither is the Yeti posited as the unthinking eat-now-ask-questions-later creature I was expecting but is instead portrayed as almost "homo-superior" with the hunting homo-sapiens in an interesting deviation from the norm, shown as being the barbarians.The appearance of the Yeti itself is artfully shielded from the viewer, even after the team kill one with its looming close-up at the climax not shown full-face. Instead therefore, of rooting for the humans in pursuit, it's the innocent Yeti with whom we're meant to feel sympathy with the obvious comparison with modern-day man, as then, either seeking to capture rare beasts for commercial exploitation or more brutally just vaingloriously hunting them to extinction, giving the story relevance today, with our world of ever-diminishing creatures.There's a nice ambiguity in the final scene where the viewer isn't quite sure if last-man-standing Cushing is willingly or unwillingly covering up the Yeti's existence.I was impressed with the conveyance of the snowy mountains of Tibet, even if I was always aware of the set-bound nature of the close-up shots. The acting too was very good, with Hammer's usual mix of American and British actors trying to get them a toe-hold I would imagine in both English-speaking markets. Cushing is best as he's the only principal who avoids occasionally hamming it up, but by and large the ensemble playing is very good. Val Guest's direction includes plenty of atmospheric dread and cleverly puts suspense before horror in moving the story forward.I really must keep a weather eye out for more Hammer films of the era, especially if they're of this high standard.

(42%) Much like a certain amount of these early Hammer flicks this has more up its sleeve than what you might at first think. Without wanting to ruin the plot at all I will only say that it's not simply about a man in a big hairy suit chasing Himalayan explorers around a wobbly set filled with fake plastic snow. Actually some of the location work is very good, certainly better than even most modern movies set in extreme conditions. This honestly is not recommended for everyone, as it is showing its age in places, but Hammer fans should certainly give it a look as it is quite well made, and better than most B-movies from this period.

It is a strange thing about fans of horror films.The worse the film the more they praise it,particularly if it was made by Hammer.The first disappointing aspect of this film is the monster.Hammer who were so good with their monsters really seem to have no imagination in this case.A sort of large brown gorilla with a misshapen face.Why brown hair in a snowy waste?Then we have the deaths of the various characters,all very forced.After all how can someone with a bad foot go dancing off over the peaks.Peter Cushing gives his usual fine performance but Forrest Tucker is truly wooden and a feeble villain.All in all one for the Hammer fans alone everyone else better find a quieter mountain.