Wuchak
RELEASED TO TV IN 2013 and directed by Marko Mäkilaakso, "Deadly Descent: The Abominable Snowman" (aka "Abominable Snowman") details events in the Washington Cascades after someone goes missing on Mount Glacier (Chuck Campbell) and his concerned sister (Lauren O'Neil) amasses a team to rescue him, utilizing the services of an alcoholic helicopter pilot (Adrian Paul). Unfortunately, their rescue effort is hindered by a couple of hulking, hairy beasts.Being a TV movie that debuted on Syfy, you can expect cartoony CGI, not just for the ferocious creatures but other things as well (e.g. the helicopter and explosions). If you can handle that, this is a decent entry in the Big Foot/Yeti genre. The tone is serious, akin to "Sasquatch Hunters" (2005) and "Sasquatch Mountain" (2006), albeit taking place almost entirely on the peaks during winter. While it's not quite as good as those two, it's not far off.The notable score has a reverent quality and Lauren O'Neil shines as the female protagonist. The director doesn't fail to respectfully highlight her beauty. The mountain scenery is magnificent and there's quite a bit of thrilling ski & snowboarding sequences. The second act has the protagonists held up in an abandoned ski lodge on the heights.The creatures, by the way, are never referred to as Yeti or the Abominable Snowman in the movie. The original title of the flick was "Deadly Descent" and the whole Yeti/Abominable Snowman element was added simply to market the movie. I'm sharing this for anyone who might complain that Yetis only dwell in the Himalayas, not the Cascades in the Pacific Northwest.THE FILM RUNS 85 minutes and was shot in Bulgaria. WRITER: Nathan Atkins.GRADE: C+/B-
TheLittleSongbird
SyFy's movies are often terrible, though there are some tolerable ones out there. Abominable Snowman(aka Deadly Descent) is down there with their bad movies. The good news is that it is a long way from SyFy's worst, and it is certainly better than last year's Bigfoot. And there are a few decent things. Nicholas Boulton's performance is dramatically stern and intense which is in good keep with this type of genre. The reveal of the second creature was very effective also, and Zara Dimitrova is smoking hot. Sadly, that's pretty much it. The acting has been much worse with SyFy, but there is still the mix of blandness and over-compensating. If you're looking for Atanas Srebrev to elevate it, you'll be disappointed, he's only in one scene and that one scene completely wastes him. It is not the actors' fault though that their performances generally don't register. They also have to work with characters that do little more than bore and irritate you and dialogue that just doesn't flow and that is unintentionally funny. The story doesn't engage either, while it picks up a tad in the latter half it is slow-moving and has very little atmosphere. Any comedy is awkward and out of place, the scary elements are diluted by the lack of suspense and that we don't see a lot of the deaths(which weren't that inventive in the first place) and the drama is soppy and lacks any kind of passion. Visually, there's been worse, but the creatures look blurry and quite weird-looking and the editing lacks any kind of fluidity. In conclusion, poorly done but there's worse out there. 3/10 Bethany Cox
GL84
Attempting to track down a long-lost friend, a group of skiers head off into the wilderness to find him only to find the cause of the disappearance to be a group of giant abominable snowmen in the area and must find a way to get away alive.This here was actually a pretty big disappointment as this had the potential to be one of the better efforts in the style. There's a sense of fun that comes from the attacks inside the abandoned ski resort in the later half, the discovery of the second creature is quite nice and there's a few rather inventive attacks and confrontations with the creatures throughout, but unfortunately this one is plagued by it's flaws. The main factor here is just like every other Sci-Fi Channel outings in truly abysmal CGI that is utterly blurry and impossible to determine what's going on, and the fact that it's set in the snow seems to make the impression that it's supposed to look like that totally moot when the same look is employed on the interior scenes. As well, the dearth of attack scenes in the first half is incredibly noticeable since hardly anything happens with the creatures who aren't even glimpsed at all, and that also happens to lower the body count and by extension the blood and gore. The attacks are also edited in such a manner as to be quite hard to determine what's going on, and that makes it hard to get into it even more. These problems outshine all the good stuff this one has.Rated R: Language and Violence.
Mikel3
We watched a new SyFy Channel movie last night called 'Abominable Snowman'. It had the usual predictable formula about a small isolated group of young people battling a relentless blood thirsty creature. Whether they take place on a spaceship, under the sea, or in the snowy mountains these films are much the same. This one did have above average writing, photography and acting by all involved. The CGI monsters looked much more realistic than most on the SyFy channel. There was also plenty of action and well developed characters who you actually cared about. Basically the creatures looked like giant bears with strange jaws. Too bad they weren't at least white. They looked more like Abominable brown bears than Snowmen. I like my snowmen to be white or at least gray, abominable or not :wink:. I guess the film makers may have figured dark brown was a better contrast for the white snow scenes, and they're right at that. There were some memorable scenes of the relentless brown creature in the distance bounding down the snowy mountain after it's prey. I Had to laugh a little at the 'Aliens VS Ripley' like finale. I give this a 5 or 6 out of 10 rating anyway, that's high praise from me. It was pretty good if you like these sort like I often do. I've seen much worse released to theaters. My wife liked it even better than I did. Watch this one on a snowy winters night and you won't be disappointed.
AD
