"Snowbeast" was yet another Dollar Store DVD pickup for me (on a double feature disc with David Janssen in "Moon of the Wolf," which I have yet to watch) and it is a serviceable, though far from great, late 70s creature feature. Several other IMDb posters have referred to it as "Jaws on a Ski Slope" and I'd have to say that's a pretty accurate description. Like the zillions of other 70s monster movies that were obviously inspired by the success of "Jaws," "Snowbeast" duplicates virtually every plot point of the shark classic and transfers them to a dry land location (a Colorado ski resort, to be exact)... the opening scene where the creature attacks a lone girl, the hero with a dark past, the authorities who want to keep the attacks secret for fear of losing business, the eventual hunt for the beast by a small group of people on their own, yadda yadda yadda. Since "Snowbeast" was made for TV you don't get much in the way of blood and guts, therefore the gorehound crowd can skip this one right off the bat. You also don't get to see much of the titular Snowbeast (a Bigfoot-style mountain creature) due to obvious budgetary constraints. The filmmakers try to hide this by shooting most of the Snowbeast-attack scenes from the monster's point of view, which means all you get to see most of the time is a hairy arm and claw shooting out from the edge of the screen to grasp a screaming ski bunny. We do get a two second look at the critter's face when it peers through a window during the resort's Winter Carnival, causing predictable chaos, and I swear that it looks enough like the "Abominable" from "Rudolph The Red Nosed Reindeer" that I half expected one of the characters to announce "Didn't I ever tell you about Bumbles? Bumbles BOUNCE!"
Despite the high cheese factor, I had fun watching "Snowbeast." It's not scary in the slightest but was a decent way to kill 90 minutes on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Bo Svenson (as the troubled ski instructor who's honor-bound to kill the beast) puts in a decent performance, as does Yvette ("The Black Hole") Mimieux as his long suffering wife. Everyone else in the cast is basically there to provide cannon fodder/Snowbeast chow and aren't terribly interesting. But the snowy Colorado scenery is nice to look at (though the constant shots of the characters skiing and snowmobiling around the resort while hunting for the monster get a little tiresome after a while; they're obviously only there to pad out the run time) and unlike most movies of this genre, the ending does not set up for a possible sequel (thank God). If this sounds like your bag, you can find "Snowbeast" on DVD at a dollar store near you. Ya can't beat the price and you can do a hell of a lot worse for your buck.
Despite the high cheese factor, I had fun watching "Snowbeast." It's not scary in the slightest but was a decent way to kill 90 minutes on a rainy Sunday afternoon. Bo Svenson (as the troubled ski instructor who's honor-bound to kill the beast) puts in a decent performance, as does Yvette ("The Black Hole") Mimieux as his long suffering wife. Everyone else in the cast is basically there to provide cannon fodder/Snowbeast chow and aren't terribly interesting. But the snowy Colorado scenery is nice to look at (though the constant shots of the characters skiing and snowmobiling around the resort while hunting for the monster get a little tiresome after a while; they're obviously only there to pad out the run time) and unlike most movies of this genre, the ending does not set up for a possible sequel (thank God). If this sounds like your bag, you can find "Snowbeast" on DVD at a dollar store near you. Ya can't beat the price and you can do a hell of a lot worse for your buck.