Classic Horrors Club

The most notable thing about The Snow Creature (1954) is that it’s often cited as the first film to feature the Yeti, or Abominable Snowman. It’s more accurate to call it the first American film to feature it. Finland released Pekka ja Pätkä lumimiehen jäljillä a few months earlier, although it was a comedy. Going further back, Georges Melies made A la conquete du pole in 1912, although his snow creature appeared before the term, “Abominable Snowman” was coined by Lt. Col. Charles Howart-Bury in 1921. (If you ask me, the first “real” film to feature the Yeti was Hammer’s The Abominable Snowman in 1957.)

The most notable flaw in The Snow Creature isn’t the fact that there’s a lot of human walking and talking. Instead, it’s a clip of the creature used repeatedly… over and over again… and again. In the clip, the creature steps out of the darkness and moves toward the camera, then steps back. It’s used whenever the creature appears, regardless of time of day or location. It becomes comical, and the more I saw it, I wondered if it wasn’t even just a shot of it stepping forward, then played in reverse to show him stepping back. It has that sort of regimented flow… forward, back… forward, back.

This isn’t because they don’t show the creature in other shots. We get many clear shots of it. From a distance, it’s not bad, even though this Yeti dispels the rumor that Yeti are white in color. This one is dark. The Yeti suit suffers most in close-ups of its body. For example, when it’s sedated in the Himalayas, it begins to wake and its hand reaches out from under the tarp. It looks like a big, fuzzy, Muppet paw… a mitten with no fingers

It also moves in an uncharacteristic way… human with no energy or purpose. There are one or two scenes where the beast is unleashed, and it packs a powerful punch, but the knockout scene looks sped-up rather than a natural arm swing. The most compelling thing about the creature is the nature of its existence itself. It’s a point merely mentioned but would be interesting had the movie developed it. Is the Yeti man or beast? A character comments that it’s not human, yet newspapers describe it as a “snow man.” It’s suggested that the answer to this question will determine its fate.

Part of the plot is familiar, but I won’t mention the name of the far superior movie in which a monster is hunted in the wild, then brought back to civilization where it wreaks havoc. The setup isn’t bad, though. Dr. Frank Parrish (Paul Langton) is a botanist, simply looking for new plant life to study. At first, he doesn’t even seem to have any interest when the creature abducts Subra’s (Teru Shimada), a sherpa and leader of the expedition, wife. Subra leads a mutiny to search for his wife. Parrish and his photographer, Peter Wells (Leslie Denison), are forced to join.

Even with its other flaws, the worst thing about The Snow Creature is that there’s no suspense. Here’s where a movie could use a trope because there’s not even a damsel in distress for the men to rescue. We must credit the creators, proving that talent doesn’t always run in the family. It was directed by W. Lee Wilder, the great director Billy Wilder’s son, and written by Myles Wilder, his nephew. The Blu-ray from Vinegar Syndrome Labs looks beautiful, which contributes to the fact that I did enjoy it. Nevertheless, rating it average is a compliment.  

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