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.
