Entry 91: Snowbeast (1977)

Snowbeast (1977)

Dir: Herb Wallerstein

"An unknown terror stalks a ski resort!"

How does that song go..."Baby, it's cold outside/I gotta go away/Baby it's cold outside/Holy shit!  There's a goddamn Yeti trying to rip my fucking arms off?"  Well, here in the northland it certainly IS cold outside, so take off that jacket, grab a hot cup of coffee and join me in the Basement for the seasonally-appropriate 1977 telemovie Snowbeast!  

As the movie opens, shit's not going so well for Gar Seberg.  The former Olympic Gold-medalist skier is broke, out of work and hasn't been up on his skis in years.  At the end of his rope, he packs up his reporter wife Ellen (Yvette Mimieux, The Time Machine, The Black Hole) and heads to celebrated Rill Lodge to beg a job off of his former rival, Tony (Robert Logan, TV's 77 Sunset Strip).  To make matters worse, Tony was once Gar's romantic rival for Ellen, and seeing him again brings her old romantic feelings bubbling to the surface.  Oh yeah, while all this is happening, a rampaging Yeti-type monster is killing off skiers at the lodge, a fact that owner (and Tony's grandmother) Mrs. Rill (Sylvia Sidney, God Told Me To, Beetlejuice) insists on covering up so as not to endanger the tourist dollars brought in by Rill's 50th anniversary winter carnival.  Ordinarily, this would be a problem, but Gar is played by Bo-goddamn-Svenson (Breaking Point, Walking Tall Part 2), a genre icon so manly that he can deliver the most mundane of expository dialogue while looking like he's fully prepared to beat the living shit out of somebody.  After the creature attacks Rill's gymnasium during a performance by a high school marching band, Gar straps those skis back on, reignites the fire in Ellen's loins and kills the shit out of the Snowbeast using skiing poles during a Mano-y-mano final battle!

The way I see it, there are three kinds of people in the world: those who love Snowbeast, those who've never seen Snowbeast, and those I have no use for.  This movie-of-the-week hits all the right marks: knockoff of a popular theatrical blockbuster (Jaws), a cast of B-listers and slumming A-listers and ties to then-popular cultural phenomena (Bigfoot, inspirational sports stories).  It's also really well-made (director Wallerstein conjures genuine suspense and dread and the POV stalking scenes predate the slashers that would make them cliche by a couple years) and effectively acted.  Of course, I'm slightly biased; this was a staple of the Turner networks when I was a kid and is one of my earliest horror movie memories; as such, it's at least partially responsible for making me the unfortunate and depraved individual I am today.  Oh, did I mention this picture was written by Joseph "Psycho" Stefano?  Snowbeast is available in it's entirety on YouTube, check it out; you're welcome.  One last thing-Caligula fans take note: this movie features an advertisement for "Longines" ski equipment!