Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century

source: Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century

Moviecut—Yeti: Giant of the 20th Century

There's nothing really to say about this 'movie'. I do enjoy the occasional 'bad movie' but this is an absolute dog... I would gladly gnaw my own arm off to escape this puerile insult to film-making.

I guess every country has to have their KING KONG rip-off at one stage or another. Thus the Danish gave us REPTILICUS, the Japanese GODZILLA, the British KONGA, the Chinese THE MIGHTY PEKING MAN, and finally the Italians with their wacky family movie YETI, THE GIANT OF THE 20TH CENTURY. Yes, this movie - made a year after the Hollywood KING KONG remake of '76, to cash in no doubt - is as bizarre as any Italian production you will see, with plenty of tacky special effects and far too much time spent on mundane characters chatting and discussing predictable stuff we've heard a million times before in creature features. It's also highly silly, silly enough to offer a scene of a villain having his neck broken between two of the Yeti's toes, and to rip off a Lassie movie with the slow-motion shot of a dog - previously knifed in an earlier scene but here returned to full health - running through a cornfield to be enveloped in the arms of a cute young boy. It's enough to make you retch. The Yeti itself is an impressively big beastie (wait, I'm not sure that the real-life "abominable snowmen" are supposed to be THAT big), his size achieved via some okayish back-projection work. It's certainly better than the atrocious back-projection in the second instalment of THE UNCANNY, a British horror anthology made in the same year, anyway. Unfortunately, as the shaggy creature is just an actor with a wig and an ape costume, he isn't quite so impressive, and Mimmo Crao plays it all wide-eyed and wondrous to pretty much disastrous effect. The destructive sequences in which the Yeti wrecks toy cars and plays yo-yo with a lift are poorly done and only enjoyable in a so-bad-it's-good kind of way. The human elements of the cast fare little better, and the predictable "ruthless businessmen" are here that pop up time and time again in giant monster films, instantly ready to exploit the creatures for their own purposes and always getting killed or discredited by the end of the movie. It's no different here, although to complicate matters there are two rival organisations, one of which has murder in mind. The chief villain is played by former heart-throb Tony Kendall, here aged a little and thus relegated to being the villain (there is no young male lead here, aside from the annoying kid). In fact he fits the bill rather well although he isn't nearly slimy enough as he should be. Antonella Interlenghi is "Jane" (har har), the object of the Yeti's affections, and is forced to gratingly emote a lot too, more's the pity. The only other familiar cast member - at least to this fan - is Donald O'Brian, who appears briefly as a butch policeman. Yet YETI, THE GIANT OF THE 20TH CENTURY is worthwhile for a number of reasons. The toy helicopters and matchbox cars that make up the "special effects" element make this instantly watchable for bad movie lovers, so we have that field covered. The combination of bone-breaking violence and kiddie entertainment (lovey-dovey Lassie dog, Yeti-human bonding) doesn't exactly sit together well which is a little odd. It's like the film-makers tried to combine the action genre with the monster and family genres and the result is a very strange combination - even stranger still is the "Yeti Theme", as performed by the "Yetians", a simple rip-off of Carl Orff's music in THE OMEN if you listen carefully. Nothing I wouldn't expect from an Italian Z-movie, that's for sure...

Others have said it already, but this is definitely one to check out. I bought an English version of this from some guy in Brazil (subtitled in Portuguese), but I saw it several times before on Saturday afternoon TV (Captain USA really did it up when he showed this -- even singing the Yeti song during the breaks!) My favorite things about Yeti: He looks like a hippie -- coincidence? He keeps changing in size -- hanging under the helicopter, he appears to be about 10 feet tall. Later, laying on his back in the warehouse, his foot is about 10 feet long! Great movie line -- listen for the background extra during the Toronto rampage scene who yells, "Look out! He's got a tree!" It turns into a crime movie -- honestly, I never saw it coming. So check this one out -- you'll never look at fish bones without thinking of the Yeti!

Most yeti pictures are fatally undermined by a grave paucity of energy and enthusiasm. Not so this gloriously bent, batty and berserk over-the-top Italian-made shot-in-Canada kitsch gut-buster: It's a wildly ripe and vigorously moronic ghastly marvel which reaches a stunning apotheosis of righteously over-baked "what the hell's going on?" crackpot excess and inanity. A freighter ship crew discovers the body of a 30-foot yeti that resembles a hirsute 70's disco stud (complete with jumbo wavy afro) perfectly preserved in a large chunk of ice. They dethaw the beast, jolt him back to life with electric charges, grossly mistreat him, and keep the poor hairy Goliath in an enormous glass booth. Before you can say "Hey, the filmmakers are obviously ripping off 'King Kong'," our titanic abominable snowdude breaks free of his cage, grabs the first luscious nubile blonde Euro vixen (the gorgeous Pheonix Grant) he lays lustful eyes on, and storms away with his new lady love. The yeti gets recaptured and flown to Toronto to be showed off to a gawking audience. Of course, he breaks free again, nabs the vixen, and goes on the expected stomping around the city rampage. The sublimely stupid dialogue (sample line: "Philosophy has no place in science, professor"), cheesy (far from) special effects (the horrendous transparent blue screen work and cruddy Tonka toy miniatures are especially uproarious in their very jaw-dropping awfulness), clunky (mis)direction, and a heavy-handed script that even attempts a clumsily sincere "Is the yeti a man or a beast?" ethical debate all combine together to create one of the single most delightfully ridiculous giant monster flicks to ever roar its absurd way across the big screen. Better still, we also have a few funky offbeat touches to add extra shoddy spice to the already succulently schlocky cinematic brew: the vixen accidentally brushes against one of the yeti's nipples, which causes it to harden and elicits a big, leering grin of approval from the lecherous behemoth (!); the vixen nurses the yeti's wounded hand while he makes goo-goo eyes at her, the yeti smashes windows with his feet while climbing a towering office building, and the furry fellow even breaks a man's neck with his toes (!!). Overall, this singularly screwball and shamefully unheralded should-be camp classic stands tall as a remarkable monolith of infectiously asinine celluloid lunacy that's eminently worthy of a substantial hardcore underground cult following.

LOL! Not a bad way to start it. I thought this was original, but then I discovered it was a clone of the 1976 remake of KING KONG. I never saw KING KONG until I was 15. I saw this film when I was 9. The film's funky disco music will get stuck in your head! Not to mention the film's theme song by the Yetians. This is the worst creature effects I've ever seen. At the same time this film remains a holy grail of B-movies. Memorable quotes: "Take a tranquilizer and go to bed." "Put the Yeti in your tank and you have Yeti power." I remember seeing this film on MOVIE MACRABE hosted by Elvira. There is one scene where it was like KING KONG in reverse! In KING KONG he grabs the girl and climbs up the building, but in this film he climbs down the building and grabs the girl (who was falling)! Also around that year was another KONG clone MIGHTY PEKING MAN (1977) which came from Hong Kong. There is a lot of traveling matte scenes and motorized body parts. This film will leave you laughing. It is like I said, just another KING KONG clone. Rated PG for violence, language, thematic elements, and some scary scenes.

People talk about the missing link between man and ape. The similarities, the actions and mannerisms were surprising. After watching this film I learned canadians are almost human.

If you watch this thing, do yourself a favor and don't ask too many questions. Just sit back and enjoy this train wreck for the campy schlock it is. I think this movie would be even better if the people making it hadn't taken it as seriously as they did. Some of the other reviews have gone into more details, but I don't think that's necessary. This thing has to be experienced to be believed. Give it ten minutes and you'll know whether you can stand the rest of it. For B-movie fans, it's a rare and amazing treat. For the rest, it will be a hideous, head-shaking, mess that will have them constantly asking "WHY??" Watching this with one of them will make the movie even more fun. No one will be the same after watching this. It's a little like taking a reality-altering drug.

Whoever gave this 9 out of 10, or 10 out of 10, which is half the reviews here, needs to be shot.....theres no other way around it..