Abominable |
  • USA • 2006 • 94m •   • Directed by: Ryan Schifrin. • Starring: Matt McCoy, Haley Joel, Christien Tinsley, Karin Anna Cheung, Jeffrey Combs, Natalie Compagno, Michael Deak, Jim Giggans, Paul Gleason, Ashley Hartman, Lance Henriksen, Rex Linn, Phil Morris. • Music by: Lalo Schifrin.      It has been sighted 42,000 times in 68 countries. A creature of myth and legend known by several names; Yeti, Sasquatch and the infamous Bigfoot! We've hunted it for years, but what happens when it decides to hunt us? "Abominable" centers on a man recovering from a mountain climbing accident, trapped in a remote cabin in the woods, who sees the legendary beast, and must convince someone to believe him, before the monster goes on a bloody rampage.
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As the film begins, farmer Billy Hoss and his wife Ethel awake in the middle of a snowy winter's night night to discover something killed their horse. Their dog Sparky runs off into the woods and we hear a yelp and a snarl, signaling Sparky's untimely demise and the arrival of the movie's monster. Whatever it is, it chases Mr. and Mrs. Hoss back to their house where they hide out until it goes away. When it's gone, Billy and Ethel come outside to investigate after a breather, they find giant footprints in the snow...
The following day, Preston Rogers is being brought back home to Flatwoods after months of rehabilitative therapy following a climbing accident at the infamous (and poorly named) Suicide Rock, an incident which killed his wife and has forever cost Preston the use of his legs; he is a paraplegic, confined to a wheelchair. His doctors have placed him in the care of Grade-A dickweed Otis Wilhelm, a sort of male nurse kind of guy (and if Otis wasn't such an asshole I'd fully recommend slashing him and Preston!). Preston really doesn't want to be here, or anywhere, really, as he is depressed over his wife's death and such. The fact his house is in the shadow of Suicide Rock isn't helping his wounded psyche any.
When Otis leaves to run to the grocery store, a bored Preston decides to do some birdwatching with his binoculars when some college girls - Amanda, C.J., Karen, Tracy and Michelle - drive up to occupy the rented cabin across the road for the weekend. With little else to do that doesn't remind him of his wife, Preston alternates between watching the girls and watching the woods. And when Karen wanders off to call her boyfriend on her cell phone away from the others, Preston sees, out of the corner of his eye, something big and hairy swoop in and snatch her, and by the time he brings the binoculars up again, Karen is gone leaving only her phone behind.
Preston sends a frantic E-mail off to the local sheriff's office but is told not to send prank mail. Otis returns around this time and naturally doesn't believe Preston.
Meanwhile, Billy Hoss and a couple of other shotgun-toting rednecks head off into the woods as night falls to hunt what the owner of the local gas station believes is a Yeti. Hearing a noise, the doubtful Ziegler Dane heads off to investigate the woods alone (this after he just got explaining what the Darwin Awards were to his comrades) and discovers the dying Karen, who has just enough time to warn Ziegler, "It's coming back!" before it does, indeed, return, and Karen and her would-be rescuer wind up as Yeti chow in short order, with Ziegler loosing the famous Wilhelm Scream as his death cry. Billy and the gas station guy follow suit.
Preston keeps insisting he saw (kind of) a monster, causing tension to build between him and the already dickish, impatient Otis, culminating in Otis attempting to sedate him after the understandably hysterical Preston further witnesses Tracy get pulled through the bathroom window across the street, which, incidentally, was far too small for her. One snapped back later and the four remaining girls have dwindled to only three.
So anyway Otis tries to sedate Preston, only for his charge to grab the syringe and jam it into Otis' neck, sedating him instead. Otis will spend most of the remainder of the film lying around on the floor.
Without his overbearing nurse hindering him any further, Preston begins making lengthy attempts to warn the other girls, culminating in the monster finally appearing fully (and it is indeed a Yeti, or at least a Bigfoot; the movie does offer a pseudo-science explanation for what a Yeti is doing in the United States, but it doesn't quite fly).
But what's a guy who can't use his legs anymore going to do against a gigantic monster we've seen flip over cars and kill experienced hunters? Well, all I'll say is it involves an axe and a station wagon...
Abominable is not a groundbreaking film by any means, and the effects aren't that great (the monster costume makes the Yeti look like what someone aptly described as "an angry Brian Dennehy that wants to rape someone"), but it is well-directed and has some really wonderful suspenseful moments, making excellent use of the claustrophobia of Preston's house and the deep, impenetrable darkness of the woods without.
Scenes such as the one at the beginning where there Hoss family hides in their house while something big, unseen and nasty skulks around outside is the stuff of nightmares, and Preston's reaction to his first glimpse of the monster, which is to freeze up and slowly start wheeling his chair back inside the house (no easy task given how his arms are locked up with terror) is also really great. As for gore, well, just you wait 'till you see what happens to Otis when he finally wakes up!
Abominable is a really good effort, and although it isn't great, it still stands out as a diamond in the rough amidst a sea of crappy horror films to come out in the last several years. The fact it debuted on the Sci-Fi Channel, which is a dumping ground for various crappy low-budget horror crapfests, makes the fact it's actually good even more surprising.
Review by Koosh_King01 from the Internet Movie Database.
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