The Abominable Snowman Review

The Abominable Snowman Review

Medium: Movie

Release date: 8/26/1957

Review date: 9/25/2024

Score: 6/10

I feel a little guilty about liking this movie as much as I did - a film that’s so committed to portraying the authenticity of its Tibetan locale that they hired a German dude to play the Dalai Lama. This movie is dumb and incorrect in that way most pulp orientalist 50s media is, and so I struggle to blame “The Abominable Snowman” for those sins rather than just acknowledging up front that “it's a 50s pulp monster movie set in the Himalayas, nothing is going to be respectful or correct.” Because outside of that you have a really fun little black and white monster movie here (I’m loath to call it horror) that manages to pull off the classic “perhaps man is the true monster” message to satisfactory execution. Here Peter Cushing plays a doctor studying the Himalayan botany with his wife and assistant before he gets pressured into joining a team of mountain explorers as they hunt for a Yeti in the nearby peaks (a pressure he doesn’t seem particularly torn up over having succumbed to). It's here we get to see a lot of the movie’s photography really shine, as the snowy landscapes really pop on the black and white film. This does come back to bite the movie a little bit, as there are multiple scenes that are supposed to be set at night but because of the film’s lack of color and all white snow landscape, it can be difficult to decipher what time of the day it actually is supposed to be. The movie is rather tropey, with the doctor being affronted to learn that some of the team wants to trap or hunt the Yeti if they find them, and the whole aforementioned “man in the real monster” messaging, but I think it still comes together for an enjoyable experience. If you’re looking for a new monster movie to throw on this Halloween season, you could do a lot worse than “The Abominable Snowman.”