Le Démon des Neiges

A football team is flying over the Himalayan Mountains when their plane crashes in desolate territory. Bodies are searched for food and lighters in order to survive. But the team has bigger problems than the cold: they have landed in the vicinity of the legendary yeti, and he's plenty hungry.

This made-for-TV movie directed by Paul Ziller and written by Rafael Jordan, neither of whom have offered anything noteworthy thus far in their careers. I'm not sure that this will really boost either of their careers, as it, too, is nothing noteworthy. In fact, it's a largely pointless endeavor. Even the cast is pretty much a group of unknowns, with the minor exception of Crystal Lowe, whom you're unlikely to have heard of unless you follow movies closely.

What makes me curious is whether this film is intended to be bad, or is just plain bad. That makes a difference, as I can forgive a film's badness if the intent was self-deprecation. For example, the star quarterback's name is Peyton Elway. Now, I'm not a fan of the NFL -- I don't even know the names of my local team's starting lineup, but I do know who Peyton Manning and John Elway are. So the reference was about as obvious as can be. Please tell me this was intended as a bad joke and not as a poor attempt to be clever.

I have to say the airplane animation was not needed, and the same with the yeti. The airplane looks especially cheesy while crashing, and I felt the point was made adequately from just the interior shots. The yeti, which required an elaborate costume, repeatedly is shown jumping and running as a cartoon. Why? Did the crew have no faith in the costume? If they can show it close up, surely it would look fine at a distance -- I mean, it's not as bad as "Raptor Island", but still.

The one thing this film has going for it, besides a decent survival narrative (which, ironically, is ruined rather than strengthened by the yeti), is a brief limb-beating scene. It's close to the end, so you'll have to sit through plenty of bull first. And, sadly, despite a football team -- with women -- on a plane, no mile high club (see "Snakes on a Plane", or better yet, don't).

Conclusion: The Maneater series has some decent entries ("Croc") and some not-so-decent entries ("Blood Monkey"). This one falls somewhere in the middle. Interesting enough to hold your attention, but not interesting enough to recommend to friends or watch a second time. And since the disc comes with no special features, there's no good reason to spend more time on this one than the 87 minutes of running time.

As the opening credits roll, a flashback establishes the presence of a big ugly monster in the Himalayas. Named "Yeti" in the title, it makes a man scream bloody murder… Sometime later, in the "Present Day," an airplane carrying a college football team crashes in the cursed area. The survivors struggle to stay alive while the monster lurks. Making the task very difficult, the predatory "Snow Demon" feeds on people and as an affinity for gore. Handsome blond Marc Menard (as Peyton Elway) and beautiful brunette Carly Pope (as Sarah) head up the cast. The best supporting parts go to sneaky Adam O'Byrne (as Ravin) and sensitive Elfina Luk (as Kyra) – one wants to start eating the dead almost immediately, the other would rather eat Chicken (as Rabbit) until they are rescued...

The lessor supporting roles go to rescue team Peter DeLuise (as Sheppard) and Ona Grauer (as Fury). The latter sports Vulcan eyebrows. They wisely send their helicopter pilot home and decide to simply walk around the Himalayas looking for the plane crash. When they spot fire they don't radio for help – preferring to walk several days, instead. This kind of stupidity runs rampant in the movie, credited to Mark L. Lester and Rafael Jordan and assigned to director Paul Ziller. The survival story is obviously swiped from "Alive" (1993), with the "Yeti" monster throw in as the environmental predator. There's stiff competition for silliest scene, but it may be "Yeti" snuggling up with Ms. Pope in a cave. At least, the end shows filmmakers knew we would be laughing at this lunacy.

*** Yeti (Curse of the Snow Demon) (5/18/08) Paul Ziller ~ Marc Menard, Carly Pope, Adam O'Byrne, Elfina Luk

i remember seeing the reel for this on the soup and thinking that it might be worth checking out. i give a nod to any horror director that attempts to do something creative and interesting. Obviously this movie focuses on the elusive yeti (which i am surprised so many people never heard of lol) so it already has a lot of creature backstory developed. you may think from the somewhat decently pulled off fake plane/flight cgi and expect to see some cool detailed gory killings.... but you won't. 9 out of 10 times i prefer to see some cool oldschool prosthetic based creative effects (A la 90's Fulci, Raimi, Jackson) However, in this movie that was clearly not a good direction for them.

Clearly there was not much budgeted for the yeti as it is almost contrived to look simply ridiculous and borderline humorous (although it's kind of sad when you think of the people that are employed to do "just this" got paid by whatever production company, and now it sits on their resume.) Whatever actor was hired to put on the yeti suit clearly did not research the creature much as it would be more likely to "shamble" around using its legs and its paws... at least that would be what id do. He just flails around with his arms up in the air while running like a person in a yeti costume would. And it is what it is :p

Don't expect cool gore killings or deaths which would have offered some more redeeming value... they just aren't there for some reason. Overall, it's really kind of like a bad remake of "Alive" except one of the supporting characters happens to put on a yeti costume and eat the others.

Plus they ate a squirrel. That's messed up.

Mr Yeti and his ugly brother (at least I hope that's not Mrs Yeti) live in a cave in the Himalayan mountains where recently trees (just like in Canada, coincidentally) started growing, not knowing it is far too high up for them. The Yetis eat the occasional stupid explorer or tourist, but since the last ones came around in 1972, they became really hungry. Fortunately, a plane full of bad TV actors crashes nearby, and they are obviously unable to survive (I mean, they start making a tiny fire to save them from the cold while the flames on the crashed plane's wing are still five feet high, see 0:14:39 PAL runtime).

Well, this monster movie has a few (unintended) funny moments, but gory effects make it unsuitable for a younger audience, while it is altogether too annoying for a mature audience, so at the end of the day, it's a cheap flick nobody really needs to watch.

Ah yez, the Sci Fi Channel produces Yeti another abominable movie. I was particularly taken by the scenes immediately following the crash where, as the survivors desperately searched for matches, at least a half dozen fires burned – with no apparent reason – at various points of the wreckage. Fire seemed to be a predominate theme throughout. They searched corpses for lighters and matches, and finally finding a box built a fire every day for, apparently, 12, but no one ever gathered wood. Then when the vegan (hah) burned the bodies, what did she use for an accelerant? I mean these guys were frozen – well maybe not. Despite the apparent low temperature everything the yeti ate, bled. Maybe it's just me, but even in a totally unbelievable tale (none of the survivors had ever heard of a yeti, or an abominable snowman, until the very end), if you take care of the little things the bigger deals become more acceptable. Oh, what did the prologue (1972) have to do with the remainder of the movie? And the revolver, warm enough to hold in his hand, froze up and wouldn't fire. Gimme a break. Well, at least we have Carly Pope, another eminently lovely Canadian lass. And, with little irony, Ed Marinaro as the coach.

Well I might as well add, the rabbit they ate (despite it looking like chicken) is not a rodent, but a lagomorph. Now if it had been a squirrel (or a rat) it would have been a rodent, but it still looked like chicken. And the writers missed a real chance to have someone note "It tastes just like..."