Very disappointing...

Sorry, this movie sucks

It's an amazing and heartbreaking story.

This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

When I found out that the next movie on my groups list was a film directed by Jerry ("Wild Wild World Of Batwoman") Warren, I was resigned to the prospect of consuming the cinema equivalent of a sh*t sandwich. My consolation: "Batwoman" was one of those bad films that is SO bad that it's perversely fun to watch...so I was hoping for the same kind of entertainment value from "Man Beast".To my surprise, "Man Beast" was halfway decent. It wasn't a good film by any means: The leading lady and her first suitor are as wooden and clunky as you'd expect.The logic of the screen play falls apart in several places. Some of the dialog is pretty risible. And the cast spends most of its time in the "Himalayas" wearing clothing more suited to a walk in the woods in autumn. But still, there were moments in this film where I didn't want to wash my face with broken glass to distract myself from the proceedings.A couple things save this film from the usual dismal fate of JW productions: for once, his use of stock footage is reasonably well integrated with the rest of the stuff he actually shot himself. There's some decent bits of stage business and a couple of good "reveals" that pump some energy into some scenes. A couple of his actors are decent - the dashing he man guide who eventually usurps the girl's affections can deliver his lines, the actor who plays the professor manages a low key, believable performance. And "Varga" is an interesting character - both his makeup and costume "design" and the motivations of his character (and the revelation of his big secret) add some chewiness to the movie.But in the end, it's still a Jerry Warren film....Jerry Warren, a director who insists on undoing any good impression he might have made in the first part of the movie with a "Yeti attack" scene that is disconnected and impossible to follow, and who ends the movie with a 'huh?' moment (the surviving couple escape when Varga, a character who is part Yeti and who has lived in the mountains all his life, proves incompetent at pounding in a crampon and falls to his death as he tries to rappel after them.) I wouldn't seek this one out, but if you are trapped into watching it, at least you won't need to gnaw your leg off to escape.

It is almost impossible to discuss the 1956 yeti movie "Man Beast" without making comparisons to the British film "The Abominable Snowman," which came out the following year. While the latter film features the stars Peter Cushing and Forrest Tucker, "Man Beast" boasts the "talents" of Virginia Maynor (who acts atrociously and doesn't even provide the requisite eye candy) and action lead Tom Maruzzi. And while the Brit film boasts a literate script and interesting characters...well, let's just say that the American film again comes off second best. But perhaps the most telling difference of all is that whereas "Snowman" only teases us with occasional glimpses of the yetis, seemingly adhering to Val Lewton's unspoken credo that the viewer's imagination can supply far more terror than anything shown on a screen, "Man Beast" shoves the yetis in our faces again and again. Fortunately, for red-blooded monster fans, this is not altogether a bad thing. The snowmen do look pretty scary here, especially in the film's finest scene, in which the yetis attack our heroes for the first time, in a dark cave. This scene is filmed largely in silence, and in somewhat slow motion, and is pretty darn nightmarish. As reported in the fine book "Sleaze Creatures," stock footage and filming in the hills of Bishop, CA do a decent job of simulating the Himalayan locale. Still, at least half of the film's compact 63-minute running time consists of scenic shots of our band plodding through the snow. Bottom line: This is a fun hour at the movies, inferior to the Brit version as it may be. Oh--the DVD here is nice and clean looking, but scratchy in spots, and with no extras to speak of.

Made in the wake of the crummy "Snow Creature" and the insipid "Half Human," this fright flick rates as a substantial step up in quality in the 50's yeti movie cycle. What makes the sound quality of this one so remarkable is the fact that Jerry Warren, the notorious Grade Z schlockmeister responsible for such dreck as "Teenage Zombies," "The Incredible Petrified World," and "Frankenstein's Island," both produced and directed it, showing a most atypical adroitness and sense of consistent focus that's not evident in his other pictures.The story once again centers on an ill-advised expedition that encounters a tribe of vicious yetis while poking around the treacherous Himilayan mountains. But this time the admittedly trite premise is compensated for by a tight execution. B. Arthur Kennedy's efficiently compact and straightforward script adds a few tasty twisted twists to the proceedings; having one of the expedition members turn out to be the mutant spawn of the Abominable Snowman and having the yetis abduct young ladies for vile breeding purposes are terrifically perverse touches. Moreover, the reasonable complicated characters are realistically drawn and believable. The performances are solid and spirited, with especially commendable turns by Rock Madison as the duplicitous half-man, half-yeti hybrid dude and Virginia Maynor as the endearingly spunky heroine. Victor Fisher's able, moody, starkly lit nighttime photography imbues the rocky landscape with a splendidly creepy gloom-doom atmosphere. The yeti monsters are fantastic: they're mean, skull-faced, broad-shouldered beastmen who possess a genuinely fearsome and intimidating presence. The attack scenes are presented with real snap and vigor. Much like its high altitude setting, "Man Beast" transcends the cruddy yeti movie norm and stands tall as a superior 50's creature feature.

**Possible Spoilers Ahead**In the annals of Yeti Cinema, Hammer's ABOMINABLE SNOWMAN OF THE HIMALAYAS was a masterpiece. Then there's this turkey, made by the future director of FRANKENSTEIN ISLAND and THE WILD WORLD OF BATWOMAN. A group of goofballs, including one Sherpa guide who doesn't look the least bit Asian, go to the Himalayas in search of the Abominable Snowman. They spend about as much time bitching at each other and doing pratfalls as they do looking for the monster. The cold climate is mentioned but the adventurers wear light jackets and stupid-looking hats with no ear-flaps. They don't wear gloves. The snowman effects are abominable, in keeping with the production values, the acting, the writing... For one scene involving the exterior of a temple, Warren jumped a fence onto another set and began shooting. Most people who've seen MAN BEAST wish the whole crew had jumped the fence and kept on going.