Abominable

Right around the onset of the 2020 pandemic I was at a Walmart with some friends browsing the DVD section where I first laid eyes on the intense cover art of this movie. All intensity stopped there. I expected an action packed adventure movie against a ferocious yeti in a barren landscape. Instead, this movie drones on and on with personality-less characters talking to each other in low murmurs that you can barely hear sometimes. On top of that, the camera work is shoddy, often times actors have the tops of their heads cut out of frame, and only half of the footage is color graded. Some scenes will look cinematic, on par with a T. V. movie and some look like raw footage shot by an amateur. The yeti effects look cool, but only in small amounts. In jaws you barely see the shark, in monster movies the makeup is dim lit to hide any flaws. But this movie hold the camera on the yeti for way too long in broad daylight, revealing the monster to be a rubbery costume in an obvious way. Don't get me wrong, there were some good things about the film, such as a few standout performances by Katrina Mattson as our heroine or Robert Berlin who is goes all in and chews on the scenery, in a really great way. But then you see other performances like the character "Pete" (Justin Moy) and you wonder how this movie even got released. I saw this with a friend and at one point "Pete" blurts out a whole sentence so fast that it's all incomprehensible, causing my friend to yell at my T. V. and say "did the director yell cut after take 1 ?" which is a fair question. There's some decent performing here, and some potential with this story, but the lackluster camera work/editing/lighting leads me to believe that this production simply hired the wrong director for the job.

I knew this was going to be a great experience when I immediately saw 2 random people wandering in the background of the "opening kill"... .

Abominable doesn't really have anything going for it. But I would argue that this is a "so bad, it's good"-movie. There's so many things wrong with it that I honestly had a smile on my face throughout the entire viewing.

Characters give weird exposition and try to build some story while I'm sitting there, wondering why the time of day changes 3-4 times over the course of 10 seconds. Scenes that were obviously supposed to be filmed during dusk or night are filmed in broad daylight but the characters act like it's dark as hell.

Random kills that add nothing. Plastic guns. Weird, hand-held camera movements that confuse the hell out of me.

I honestly enjoyed this movie. But is it bad in nearly every regard? Absolutely.

Now I love a bad horror movie, but this is just bad. "Old Snow" she says by tasting it... and I'm pretty sure at one point one of them said the wrong line, then corrected themselves and they left both in 😂 something along the lines of "Strict orders, I mean Direct orders".

It's almost like someone watch Anaconda 2 and thought "Hmmm a plant that cures illnesses, I'm going to copy this but instead of snakes in a tropical jungle I'll make it a Snow movie with a Yeti who can't blink or close his mouth".

I don't know what Viktir Ackeev did to the editor, but his name was the only one not in capitals. Poor bloke.

The movie itself is low budget so expectations should be in line with that I always think when trying to do a fair review.

Photography was decent enough and did not look like a film student made it as one of the other reviewers has suggested and the gore scenes particularly the chin ripper scene was actually quite well done....however....

Unfortunately the thing that makes this movie hard to watch are the overdone music/sound effects they are very intrusive and sometimes dominate entire scenes and dialogue; its as if the director heard the sequence and was so impressed he decided to use the same musical sequence over and over again in every scene.

Add to that the poor acting, plodding pace and dull script this one is a bit of a lame turkey!

"Abominable" is really low budget and a lot of the continuity seems muddled with poor production choices. I never like to come out and say a movie is bad, A lot of work and heart goes into movie making, even the low budget projects so I feel every film deserves a once over.

With this one, it was hard to get into the story, and the story isn't a bad one. A science team seeking to uncover the miracles of a special plant, reminiscent of the classic "Werewolf Of London". A yeti that is guarding the location and vicious enough to kill any and all who trespass. It is a cool story. Unfortunately there is just a lot that goes wrong.

Poor editing, the sound effects, and really bad shots of the creature that shows the suit is way to big for the actor wearing it. Now minus the "gamer" level CGI, I do give props to some decent practical effects moments. But there just isn't enough going on in "Abominable" that works out right.