Abominable (2006)

Did you people see the same film I saw?

When a movie has you begging for it to end not even half way through it's pure crap. We've all seen this movie and this characters millions of times, nothing new in it. Don't waste your time.

I really wanted to like this movie. I feel terribly cynical trashing it, and that's why I'm giving it a middling 5. Actually, I'm giving it a 5 because there were some superb performances.

The movie turns out to be a little better than the average. Starting from a romantic formula often seen in the cinema, it ends in the most predictable (and somewhat bland) way.

The search for Bigfoot has increased over the past few years, in part fueled by the series FINDING BIGFOOT. Combined with previous efforts to find the elusive beast we've seen how groups of people have banded together to search for this creature. But before all of that there were movies being made about not just the search but encounters with Bigfoot or creatures like them. One of the most famous was THE LEGEND OF BOGGY CREEK which fueled the films of its producer/director Charles B. Pierce. Another was the schlock drive in classic SHRIEK OF THE MUTILATED. But one that rarely gets the attention it deserves is ABOMINABLE. Made in 2006 on a minor budget the film didn't play many theaters but became a hit on cable TV. I can remember it airing to little fanfare but after watching it I was stunned. The movie is far better than one would expect.Matt McCoy stars as Preston Rogers, a well off young man who lost his wife during a mountain climbing accident a year earlier that left him bound to a wheelchair. His doctor feels that the best thing for him to do to get over the sadness and guilt he still feels for his wife's death is to send him back to the cabin they shared near the mountain she fell from. Accompanied by a less than sympathetic nurse named Otis (Christien Tinsley who also helped with the creature effects) they reach their destination. Having forgotten a few supplies Otis leaves Preston behind in the cabin for the short trip to town.While he's gone new neighbors in the cabin next door arrive, a group of young women out to celebrate the impending wedding of one of their group. Preston hears them arrive, stereo blaring and watches as they unload and go into their cabin. He's later caught looking at them through binoculars making them assume he's a peeping tom. Looking into the woods he's stunned to see a pair of red eyes looking back at him, bumps his chair and is knocked unconscious.After a nap Preston wakes wondering why Otis hasn't returned. Looking outside he sees a telephone pole blocking the road. Attempting to alert the girls next door they assume he's doing more window watching and ignore him. One of the girls goes out to use her cell phone and after looking away for a moment, Preston sees she's disappeared and her cell phone is laying on the ground. A side note has three friends in the woods attempting to track down the best that killed the dog belonging to one of them during a short opening segment. As they do so they hear something in the woods. As one of them tracks it down, he finds the first missing girl as well as the beast, hightailing it back to the campfire and more fire power. But the odds of their surviving are slim.Unable to get to their cabin because of his condition Preston is helpless to do anything but watch as the beast attacks and abducts another girl which the rest later discover. He yells to them and attempts to get them to his cabin but the beast attacks again. Not all will make it but one does. Now Preston and the girl must do what they can to survive before the beast returns.Director Ryan Schifrin does an amazing job of telling the story using glimpses of the creature throughout the film but finally delivering with some great looking special effects to allow the viewers to see the creature full on. This doesn't cheat the viewer with a movie that never shows the monster in question but is used sparingly leaving you wanting more. He builds the tension nicely here, forcing the viewer to feel concern for Preston who is unable to do much confined to his wheelchair but not giving in at the same time.While watching I kept thinking that the film felt like a combination of Alfred Hitchcock's REAR WINDOW melded with a Bigfoot film. I was pleased to find that this was what Schifrin was going for in the extras as he talked about the film. It does so in such a way as to not be a rip off of the classic film but putting its own twist on the idea and it works marvelously.The acting is something that could have killed this movie. In the hands of terrible actors the movie would have been difficult to watch. Not to worry. McCoy does a fantastic job. Having seen him before I often wondered why he was never a much bigger star than he was. Haley Joel as Amanda, the girl that makes it to his cabin, also turns in a great performance. Her character isn't the standard dumb blonde bimbo here but someone capable of helping Preston as the two of them face off against the monster. Familiar faces to horror fans will be found here as well. Dee Wallace and Rex Linn are the wife and farmer attacked in the opening sequence, Jeffrey Combs and Lance Henriksen are the two friend accompanying Linn when they go searching for the monster, Paul Gleason and Phil Morris are the sheriff and deputy respectfully going to check on things and Tiffany Shepis is on hand to do what she does best which is be a scream queen. Without giving it away or supplying any clues one more thing needs noted and that's the ending of the film. Where some movies on the subject leave you hanging or completely cheat you (as in WILLOW CREEK which I found to be a major disappointment) this one delivers what I think is one of the greatest endings of a horror film in some time. Enough so that I found myself smiling before the end credits began rolling.MVD is releasing this film as part of their MVD Rewind collection, complete with old mom and pop video store packaging. Not only that they're releasing it with a brand-New 2K High-Definition transfer from the original camera negative giving it the greatest looking picture possible on screen. Extras are plentiful here with an audio commentary track with Schifrin, McCoy and Combs, an introduction by Schifrin, BACK TO GENRE: MAKING ABOMINABLE a featurette on the making of the movie, deleted scenes and extended scenes, outtakes and bloopers, SHADOWS Schifrin's USC student film, BASIL & MOBIUS: NO REST FOR THE WICKED a short film written and directed by Schifrin with a score by his famous father Lalo Schifrin, the original 2005 version of the film, an improved version of the film with some minor alterations, the original theatrical trailer, a poster and still gallery, a storyboard gallery and a collectible poster.This is a must have movie for both Bigfoot fans and horror fans. It delivers on all levels. Even fans of suspense films will want to make a point of watching this one. I know for myself I plan to keep this one handy so I can enjoy it again in the near future. I truly enjoyed it and can't recommend it enough.

From new director Ryan Schifrin comes the Bigfoot/Yeti film, Abominable. Preston Rogers (played wonderfully by Matt McCoy) lost his wife and be came paralyzed on Suicide Rock in Flatwood. Now, he returns to Flatwood with Otis Wilhelm (who is played by newcomer Christien Tinsley) for treatment. Also arriving is a group of young women (which includes scream queen Tiffany Shepis). As time goes by Preston realizes there something is in the woods, something big. He tries to explain it to Otis and the local authorities, but no one believes him. That is until it comes out of the woods very unhappy and very hungry!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!! Although it stole a little for the Hitchcock classic Rear Window, Abominable was a pleasant surprise. Having an intelligent and original story filled with blood & guts and shocks, it had everything a creature feature needed and more. So if your looking for a scary, bloody, suspenseful evening, pop some popcorn and watch Abominable. Also starring horror legends Jeffery Combs( The Re-Animator franchise, From Beyond, and The Frighteners), Dee Wallace (Cujo, The Frighteners, Critters and The Howling), and Lance Henriksen (Aliens, Alien 3, AvP, Omen 2, Pirahna 2, Near Dark, Pumpkinhead, The Terminator, and many more). I wish they made more horror movies like this!!!

Let's start with the (very few) positive things. The photography in the first 10 minutes was nice: some beautiful shots of the mountains. Matt McCoy as a lead could have been good: he's soft on the eyes and I do think he can act (it's just a pity that he got himself into this lame production that made him utter some of the corniest dialog I've heard in ages!). The musical score aims solely on scaring the viewers out of their wits with sudden outbursts of decibels, which (I can assure you) is very effective. Even the premise wasn't too bad, I mean, I don't mind old Bigfoot resurrected again, it could be fun, especially in a nowadays fashion. And the idea of a cripple caught in a house that's besieged by this giant predator, so that he has to use some other skills and tricks than just sheer physical strength, isn't too bad either. But that's about it on the positive side. For the rest I just don't know where to begin. Biggest disappointment: the creature. As long as it's hidden in the shadows it's (remotely) scary, and they try very hard to convince us of the creature's colossal strength and size (at the start of the movie we see a prize stallion that he's supposed to have killed). But then it come's out in the open and it's diminished to the size of an average big person. And guess what: it IS a person! This is a 2005 production, and in stead of some sophisticated CGI they make us watch a guy in a suit, for crying out loud!! Not even a decent one, but just a big bag of fluffy hair. The head is the only menacing feature, with big rolling eyes an a wide jaw with pointed teeth, and it's nicely done, but the director is apparently so proud of this, that we get to see this hideous face for long close- ups as it appears outside the window, where it's so busy rolling it's red eyes and baring it's teeth that the effect is ludicrous. Then the script. Main character McCoy has had an accident some month ago where he lost his wife and barely made it alive himself. He's now back in his old home under the guidance of some sort of male nurse (who acts more like a sadistic prison-guard). Why this elaborate back-ground? Apart from McCoy being confined to a wheel-chair, it doesn't serve any purpose. The guardian-bit neither – okay, it provides us with the most entertaining part of the movie (and by far the best acting!) but it doesn't add anything to the story-line. Although I must grant the writers that the devouring of this obnoxious man's total head by the monster was neatly done and very well deserved!!Anyway, the makers brought in a whole bundle of girls, who come up to stay in the cottage next door. I jumped up in my chair, expecting us to be treated with some traditional (for this kind of horror-flicks) nudity and making out. Alas, not so here, they just served as Bigfoot-meat within ten minutes after their arrival. The terrible Bigfoot finds the girls very appealing and we see him breaking through their doors and walls, slapping everyone around him and even pulling one of them, who hides on the first floor, right down through the ceiling (well, THAT at least was original!), all swaying arms and ferocious roars while slowly walking wide-legged like some kid in a high school play in an over-sized monkey-suit. McCoy has to witness all this havoc from behind his window and screams preposterous advice to the doomed girls ("go inside! Lock the door!!"), without much avail. The last girl finds refuge in his house. Here the silliness takes an even more amazing turn. Between McCoy (obviously forty-something) and this rosy-cheeked teenage-girl develops some kind of instant mutual attraction. He takes her in his arms and while an abominable predator threatens their lives (after having killed all 4 of her friends within the last 20 minutes) McCoy finds the time to tell the whole tear-jerking story of his wife's deadly accident and how he came out of that as a better and wiser mans, and then he reassures the girl (who's on the brink of getting devoured by an abominable beast) with this incredible wisdom: "being afraid that we're going to be killed means that we still are ALIVE and can fight". I could swear I saw a halo glisten around his angelic face and the girl is totally smitten on the spot.Well, I'm not going to give away how they managed to out-smart the monster and get away alive, but they do. And the monster? The last minute of the movie gives us the obligatory open ending: the evil didn't end, it has only just begun. Oh, you missed the prominently billed Lance Henriksen in my review?? Well, that's because he had approximately 20 seconds screen-time to utter only one sentence. He's just there to attract innocent people like me, making me believe that his name stands for at least SOME quality. Boy, was I wrong.

This film was okay. But kind of awkward when you think of it. I mean it is supposed to be about Bigfoot and how he survives out in the wild, not about him killing innocent people. That was kind of brutal of him going around to different places around his territory killing people and then eating them. That was sick and cruel to see. But that's what makes a real good horror film. I thought this would be of Bigfoot trying to get people scared of him so that he could be popular and have a legend not of him in the woods killing people! This film didn't even have any CGI in it it only had a man in a costume running around scaring the girls and guys to death. There was a lot of blood and gore in the film especially around the mouth of the creature. I thought the film should have used a bit of CGI in it instead of a guy in a costume acting and scaring lots of girls!