Has anyone done this one, yet? What the hell, I'll give it a go, anyway. As we’re once again in the throes of winter, I thought this might be a good time to review
Yeti. It’s a Syfy original movie, so badness is guaranteed.
I actually did a “blow by blow” live commentary on this when it was first broadcast. You can see it at
on my blog if you’re interested.
CharactersThis movie is so low budget that it doesn’t even have an IMDB entry, which makes it nigh impossible to find the names of the highly forgettable characters, so no dramatis personae. Sorry.
The PlotWe begin with a prologue in which a couple of mountain climbers are in a spot of trouble. They’re climbing in the Himalayas, and it’s getting dark out. The decide to take shelter in a cave they find. One of them has heard rumors of a “Demon Cave” in the mountains. Well, we know where that’s going. Sure enough, the two are soon killed and eaten by the Yeti to establish it ferocity and carnivorousness.
Flash forward a few decades to a passenger jet full of highschool football players and cheerleaders. Seems they’re going to Japan for a bowl game of some sort. Strangely, they’re getting there by flying over the Himalayas instead of crossing the Pacific via Hawaii. A storm comes up, and the pilots decide to fly right through it instead of changing course or altitude. As you should expect, the storm causes trouble, and the plane crashes, breaking in half on the way down. As you should also expect, only the high school kids survive.
The team quarterback soon distinguishes himself as hero material by leading the rescue effort. The coach even manages to give him a pep talk before dying. Meanwhile, another player is busy establishing himself as the “Jerk Jock” by insisting they’ve “gotta go”, despite the fact that none of them have any idea which way to go to find civilization.
From a dying pilot they manage to learn that most of the useful stuff, like food storage and the spare radio, was in the back half of the plane, which came down miles away. Two of the football players – woefully underdressed for the task – set off to try to get the radio. The others start looking for something with which to start a fire (since no one bothered to start one from the pieces of burning wreckage before they went out). The QB’s girlfriend spots something (the Yeti), but no one believes her. As the movie progresses, some of the frozen bodies of other passengers start disappearing, but no one connects that with the siting. The Jerk Jock finds a flare gun with two flares!
Meanwhile, the Himalayan Rescue Service learns of the crash and dispatches a rescue team consisting of two people. Despite the clear sky, the rescue helicopter can’t get all the way to the crash site, so the rescuers will have to spend hours hiking all the way to the crash. If only there were high performance helicopters that could operate at high altitudes in cold weather…
The two guys who went in search of the radio find the tail section and retrieve the radio, but night is approaching, so they decide to take shelter in… you guessed it… the Yeti cave. One is quickly dispatched, but the other proves surprisingly elusive, even if he does get lost in the cave as a result. He eventually spots an exit and tries to climb out, but falls and breaks his leg. Undaunted, he splints his own leg and completes the climb. The Yeti comes after him again, but loses him in an avalanche.
Back at the front half of the plane, Jerk Jock finally gets around to suggesting cannibalism (bet you never saw that coming). The QB dodges it by taking his girlfriend to go hunt squirrels, and they even get one (his hot girlfriend is deadly with a makeshift javelin), but that’s not enough, so after a bit of fighting, they finally decide to snack upon their fallen comrades. Distressed by what they’ve done, one of the other survivors decides to burn the remaining bodies so they won’t resort to cannibalism again.
Not long after they hear something approaching. Jerk Jock breaks out the flaregun fires, only to find that he’s shot the poor guy who has managed to get back from the radio-retrieval expedition. “Thanks, JJ, I’ve splinted my own leg and escaped the Yeti to warn you, only to have you shoot me in the face.”
The Yeti picks this time to really show up. The Yeti, who has been using the human-cicles as a convenient food supply (as usual, a Syfy movie monster’s appetite is never satisfied, no matter how many people it consumes), is offended by the destruction of his pantry. A violent Yeti tantrum ensues, and a few of the remaining survivors stop surviving. The Yeti then grabs the QB’s girlfriend and leaps away into the night.
Did I mention that it’s an unrealistically powerful leaper?
The rescuers finally arrive in the aftermath and agree to help QB and his friends rescue the girl before heading down to meet the helicopter. All over the objections of the Jerk Jock, of course.
The manage to find the Yeti cave again, and they set a trap at the entrance before entering in search of the hot chick. The Yeti’s been spooning with her, but she manages to sneak away and meet the rescuers, but the Yeti is soon in pursuit. As it exits the cave, however, it gets shot (the rescuers are armed) and falls into the trap. The gunshot triggers an avalanche, which buries it while the rescuers and rescuees hide under a rocky overhang.
Since the Jerk Jock is still alive, it’s a sure thing that the Yeti isn’t dead, and we soon see it digging itself out and looking for revenge. It catches up with the survivors and rescuers, and finally takes care of the Jerk Jock by using him as a bullet shield, something that was hardly necessary, since bullets barely faze it anyway. It soon slaughters the two rescuers and leaps in pursuit of the remaining survivors. Given its prodigious leaping abilities, it must have a lousy sense of direction, since it takes forever for it to catch up with ill-equipped teenagers staggering through the snow.
QB tries to save the others by tackling the Yeti over a cliff. He’s moderately successful, too. Both go over, QB grabs an exposed tree root, and the Yeti grabs his foot. Fortunately the hot chick still has the makeshift javelin, which they convert into a makeshift harpoon by tying it to a big rock with some rope from the rescue team. She then spears the Yeti and they push the rock over the cliff, dragging the Yeti to its doom.
The survivors can now “get to da choppa”. All but the poor backup QB who splinted his own leg and then got shot in the face, but still lived. Oh, but it sucks to be him…
Things I Learned From This MovieAsia is full of giant man-ape fossils.
Yeti are carnivorous.
Flying east around the world is the best way from America to Japan.
There’s a Himalayan Rescue Service.
There are no helicopters that can fly to high altitudes in cold weather.
Stuff to Watch For(0:11) Coach, if the oxygen masks have dropped, it’s not just a little bit of turbulence: you’ve lost cabin pressure.
(0:44) Dude, I don’t expect you to live, but props for determination.
(0:55) Impressively bad costume.
(1:19) Frying human smells like chicken.
(1:23) Not the face!
(1:38) Ew! Yeti spooning!
RatingI give this one two slimes.