'See Yeti..... Die.'
Welcome back to my Dark Corner of this Sick World.
‘He’s watching us right now.’
Last year we reviewed Hammer’s excellent The Abominable Snowman for Dark Corners Streaming –
it’s easy miss this stuff if you don’t subscribe –
and we mentioned it was one of the first films to deal with the Yeti.
‘More beast than man.’
Man Beast is one of the few that precedes it and is the directorial debut of Dark Corners regular Jerry Warren.
And it starts as it means to go on...
Introducing star Rock Madison, who doesn’t even exist,
and whose name was added to flesh out the cast list.
‘If Jim’s out there then I’m going to find him – dead or alive.’
Love triangle, Connie, Hudson and Steve are searching for Connie’s brother Jim who came here with the expedition of Dr Ericson.
‘His purpose is to capture one of the abominable snowmen’
Do you wanna catch a snowman?
‘Connie this is stupid.’
and they strike out into.
‘The mysterious Himalayas’
The mystery being, why does it look so much like California?
Thank God they’re roped together, it’s easy to get lost around Bronson canyon.
Given the budget it’s a little mean to beat them up for the fact that this is not the Himalayas,
but I am going to beat them up for the wardrobe.
Even after they hit the snow, no one has a big coat, a woolly hat.
They’re not even wearing gloves,
yeah, blow on your hands, that’ll sell it.
And the extreme cold seems to affect their peripheral vision.
They meet up up with Professor Ericson’s expedition.
‘But I believe it’s human’
But Jim has gone on ahead.
The good news is that his guide was Varga, the greatest guide in the mountains.
‘Everyone always hires him’ ‘Then something always happens, someone always gets killed’
Despite a somewhat iffy track record.
The bad news....
‘He took some experimental injections back in the states. After he left the doctor told me, that if he didn’t return from high altitude at once he would die.’
Why the hell did he go yeti hunting while on drugs that reacted badly to high altitude?
‘This altitude factor was revealed only after Jim left.’
You see, my doctor tells me possible side effects beforehand,
rather than taking the Russian roulette approach of ‘I’ll give you the shot, let’s see if you do the wrong thing’
‘But you’ve got to admit that it doesn’t make much sense.’
They find the remains of Jim’s camp but it seems that only super-guide Varga has survived.
‘I’ve tried to take other parties over there but they didn’t like the climb’
Again.
‘You yourself said that theres has been one person lost on every expedition he has led’
Despite what seems like a disturbing pattern, the expedition knows who to blame.
‘You believe the Yeti got Jim and Varga?’
‘Is there any other explanation?’
Because no one has ever gone missing on a mountaineering expedition.
It’s really very safe.
But now they find footprints leading to an ice cavern, and…
‘There!’ the cavern is filled with Yeti because we definitely have more than one costume
and Varga seems to be colluding with them.
Hudson is killed, removing the inconvenient third point of the love triangle.
Though it wasn’t looking good for him.
‘This trip has proved we’ll never get along.’
If your relationship can’t survive a Himalayan expedition then what hope is there?
Connie takes a day off while Varga, Steve and Ericson go back to catch a Yeti.
But on their way up Steve is hit in the face by an avalanche.
While Varga and Ericson take shelter, the borrowed footage matching up seamlessly.
Although it seems that Steve has somehow survived.
And if you’re expecting that to be explained then you’ve never seen a Jerry Warren film.
That said, despite the cheapness and overall stupidity, the stock footage is well used.
The abominable snowman looks good.
You may recognise the costume from White Pongo.
and, to this point, the film lacks an essential Jerry Warrenness.
‘You see, we are quite human after all’
That’s better, Varga is part Yeti, and…
‘It’s obvious to me what you plan is; to breed out the Yeti strain’
he’s kidnapping women for illicit Yeti sex.
Now I’m getting Warren.
Despite the fact that he did seem to be alive, Steve makes no attempt to help Ericson.
Perhaps we will meet again in some other incarnation.
#gun shot#
But does save Connie on the lower slopes,
where the snow has receded to be replaced by sand.
Jerry Warren did make worse films than this…
And that seems to be the end of my sentence.
This whole trip was a blunder.'
Thanks for watching. To see more Jerry Warren reviews, click here.
What are the best films of renowned bad movie makers like Warren? Let us know in the comments below.
'Take me away from here Steve, take me away.'