An expedition braves the Alaskan wilderness in 1947 and encounters the titular creature in William Pisciotta & Gene Gallerano’s highly disappointing slog The Yeti, now on Shudder.
The Yeti, premiering on Shudder August 7th, starts strong. A scene in the 1947 Alaskan wilderness at a trading outpost gets a knowing serial feel, heightened reality, ending with a woman covered in blood and a man ripped in half over an awesome title card. The William Pisciotts & Gene Gallerano written-and-directed film immediately follows up with a grand newreel introduction for the characters and plot, throwing back ala Rocketeer, Phantom, Atlantis: The Lost Empire (especialy in the character set), and the like; gaining the spirit of high flying adventure (with horror) as the adult children of the men in the opening, those men being “names for the poster” William Sadler and Corbin Bernstein, head to the wilderness to look for the missing dads. Britany Allen leads as Ellie Bannister, with notable indie director and actor Jim Cummings (see his The Wolf of Snow Hollow or his role in the awesome Last Stop in Yuma County – seriously go watch that now) leading the cast.
Then it falls on its face almost instantly. It’s not long before the energy dissipates to a flatness. It becomes incomprehensible garbage of questioning movies and choices. Of characters flailing about with little to go on, but boy do the actors try: especially Allen and Cummings. Tension is as elusive as the Yeti. Have you ever accidentally pushed the “zoom” button on your physical media player remote and, for a moment, until scrambling to fix everything is too close and awkwardly staged? That’s how Joel Froome shoots The Yeti, with the addition of a heavy blue light over everything meant to make it stylish but instead is annoying. The staging is unnatural and awkward. So much of the film is framed for character-centered and large, yelling one another names to someone else in a too-close shot to try to hide the glaringly obvious soundstage.
“Now, Bob,” you say, “just recently you praised The Galactic Ghoul for its purposely artificial old serial choices.” You’re right, random reader. But that worked, landing the tone. The Yeti doesn’t hit the tone. I’m wholly unsure if it wanted to have the tongue-in-cheek self-awareness or was going out seriously. It sure seemed to be the former in the first few scenes, yes. But after that, it’s a forced slog that takes on the latter. The choices of the opening sequences are just not found in the rest. It’s a disappointment to lose that as it elated me. Right up my alley to begin, but descending into baffling choices by the filmmakers, turning the entertainment from the style to the “how dumb is this going to get next?”
The Yeti is filled with so many dumb little moves that remove any care for the audience to continue. If the characters seem only barely concerned that an 8-foot creature with huge claws is killing their friends, why should we? They saunter away from a gory gut ripper (okay, the practical effects are on point. I’ll give it that), as if they aren’t in any sort of danger. But then again, the Yeti itself does the same: shrugging off the rest of the group until the next time the plot needs him or it’s been a few minutes since the last poorly shot kill. Seriously – at one point, when we’re down to two people and one of them is climbing a radio tower, the other, who is supposed to be our competent lead (but never is rather competent, but no one is), puts on HEADPHONES and dances to the music. 
A decent Yeti suit, seen briefly (as most monster movies should) and some nice gore sporadically filled in make some decent points, but the remainder of the 93 minutes feels like a lifetime. The Yeti disappoints after a solid opening. Shame, as I like the “dude in a suit rips apart campers” on the whole. It’s a primal thing to enjoy a Bigfoot movie. For a worse but more enjoyable one, check out the MST3K Cry Wilderness. For a good one, try out John Portanova’s underseen The Hunting Grounds or Bobcat Goldthwait’sWillow Creek. But not The Yeti. The Yeti is now on Shudder.