User Reviews

"Half Human" was one of a handful of 50's monster horror flicks made about the Abominable Snowman. Although it's a marginal improvement over the abysmal "Snow Creature," it's alas still no great shakes as a movie. Once more an expedition into the treacherous snowy mountains stumbles across the yeti and its offspring. They also discover a primitive society who worship the yeti ala the backwoods Bigfoot cult in the infamous sanguinary Sasquatch splatter hoot "Night of the Demon."

Unfortunately, the hack American distributors who released this film in the States produced a severely truncated and oversimplified version of this Japanese-made item (it was done by Toho Studios, the same outfit responsible for "Godzilla," which coincidentally was also drastically recut for American release). They chopped out 30 minutes and replaced 'em with cheap-looking, frustratingly needless and useless insert filler sequences starring the ever-desperate John Carradine (in his first and probably least humiliating of three Sasquatch cinema gigs) along with fellow washed-up has-been character actor Morris Ankrum. The sequences with Carradine and Ankrum are acted and directed with all the skill and flair of a first grade elementary school play, thus draining all the punch and tension out of a picture which could have been reasonably effective and interesting on its own. Further damage is wrought by Carradine's asinine narrative commentary ("Even in death his face still carried an expression of fear, shock and unadulterated terror"). In a shameless cost-cutting move Carradine's nonstop blathering drowns out all of the film's original dialogue, therefor eliminating the necessity of any dubbing.

It's a testament to director Inoshiro ("Rodan," "Mothra") Honda's talent that a modicum of spooky atmosphere and a dash of poignant tragedy somehow manage to shine through this chintzy ragbag melange of dreary talk and eye-filling travelogue footage. Moreover, the yeti himself is quite impressive: brawny, limber, and toweringly gigantic, he's a genuinely redoubtable beastman. If there only had been less dull chitchat and more cool creature, this could have been a pretty enjoyable and enthralling romp. But there isn't, so it ain't.

There are some surprisingly touching moments in this edited version of a Japanese classic that has been unseen in years, re-edited by American film makers with new footage featuring John Carradine and Forrest Tucker. Actually, it's mostly Carradine's narration, dramatically spoken over the original film (greatly cut down by over half an hour) as he tells the story of the discovery of a mysterious cave creature, similar to The abominable snowman, or a Yeti. Stunning footage of the Japanese mountains makes you wonder what the original film was like, and the cave creature does show some gentleness, comically discussed by carrigan as his attraction to the hunan female.

Apparently, outsiders were not welcome in this mountainous region where the natives take an unwanted visitor, and leave him hanging on a rope over the mountain ledge to be swarmed around by flesh eating birds. The sudden appearance of the gentle large monster changes that, but then the film shifts gears to show how human interference caused the cave creature to become violent and vengeful. much of the film is silent, only dramatized by newly written music for the American version, occasionally interrupted by carradine's Shakespearean like booming voice.

This is no different than any second-rate horror or science fiction film of the time, and it's easy to see this as the bottom half of the barrel add neighborhood cinemas, usually laughed at by rowdy teenage crowds, as dramatized for a showing of "Bride of the Monster" in the Tim Burton classic "Ed Wood". I'm sure the original creators were tempted to do the same when they saw what had happened to their creation has what looks like a true piece of art is turned into another low grade example of American cinema at its hokiest.