How is it that I don't review any movies on here in like forever, and the first two I do all summer end up being obscure titles with Robert Logan in them?? Weird. Anyway, I sat through this 1977 small screen epic yesterday morning, and came away a bit disappointed. I recall there were plenty of decent tv movies when I was a kid. Don't Go To Sleep, Disaster on the Coast Liner, and perhaps the greatest of them all... Dark Night of the Scarecrow, but Snowbeast is nowhere near those in quality. It is a missed opportunity on many fronts. It takes an interesting premise, a solid cast of typical supporting players, a potentially frightening creature, and just ends up boring the audience. The concept of a yeti, or bigfoot has been the stuff of legends for many years here in America. So many people claim to have seen one, and many are still trying to prove its existence. But would he be some terrifying beast, or some harmless big ape-like animal? Well, this film shows him (or mostly doesn't show him) as being a blood-thirsty almost bear-like creature who attacks and kills humans on sight! Mostly skiers who ski too close are his victims. And of course the local town is doing some sort of big celebration or something common in these 70s monster movies such as Tentacles, Piranha, or others. This puts even more people in peril. Can a former Olympic Skier, his wife, the local law enforcement, and the resort owner's son team up to stop him??Snowbeast is at least an improvement over 1970's Bigfoot, but that is hardly an accomplishment. Way too much time is spent watching people ski or ride around on snowmobiles. The photography is poor, and that is hard to believe with beautiful Colorado scenery as the backdrop. Oddly enough, when we do get brief glimpses of the beast, he looks quite scary! But they hardly show him. Not too much gore, but more than an average tv movie probably had back then. Another downfall is the running time. With commercials thrown in, this thing doesn't have the goods to hold interest for two whole hours. There are at least two Scooby Doo episodes with this same basic plot, and they are more worth your time. 4 of 10 stars. The Hound.

It may seem hard for younger people to believe this now but back in the 1970's a lot of people believed in the existence of Bigfoot, so much so that there were even documentaries made on the subject that seem quaintly ridiculous now, such as The Legend of Bigfoot (1976). For this reason it's hardly surprising that creature features of the day were also sometimes about the legendary Sasquatch. Snowbeast is a TV movie of this ilk that plays upon the fact that a lot of folks still thought these creatures could be out there.Its writer is Joseph Stefano the man responsible for the screenplay of Alfred Hitchcock's classic thriller Psycho (1960). With this movie Stefano's writing skills are somewhat more derivative in that the plot-line to Snowbeast is essentially a copy Jaws (1975), a film that had been released a couple of years earlier and one that had been astronomically successful at the box office. There are various ways this flick mimics that Spielberg classic - it opens with an unseen beast killing an unsuspecting young woman, there is a carnival that is so commercially important to the community that the town leader insists on ignoring the grim warning signs, there is an everyman who alerts the authorities of the danger but is ignored until more unnecessary deaths occur, a small group eventually get the go ahead to go out to seek and kill the creature in a vehicle that the monster easily destroys. Also like Jaws the monster here is only seen sporadically, mainly it's powerful arm and a couple of flashes of the head but hardly anything really. It would probably have been better if we were to have seen more but it's not really a deal breaker for me. I actually though the most effective moment when the snowbeast is seen was when it's glimpsed from afar half hidden by trees way up a hill. It's quite a nicely creepy moment.I've got to be honest and say I kind of like this movie and think it gets a bit of an unfair wrap. Admittedly I have a soft spot immediately for any film set in the snow. And the Colorado ski resort is a great location for me. The snowy expanses are kind of nice and I enjoy watching folks ski. So for this reason I am immediately on board with this one. But not only this, I also think it works pretty effectively as a creature feature. The story and characters are solid enough; while there are some effective enough tense scenes involving the Bigfoot. Overall, this one is a little under-rated I reckon; you could do a lot worse.

Although this made for television movie takes place high in the mountains, it's pretty clear that it was somewhat influenced by the theatrical movie "Jaws", which came out two years earlier. Both movies take place in vacation spots and with authority figures fearing bad publicity from a homicidal animal. But the movie's unoriginal strokes didn't really bother me. Indeed, there are signs that it could have been pulled off. The production values are decent, showing some expense was put into making the movie look good. And the snowy landscape does occasionally add a little atmosphere. However, the acting is a mixed bag, with some below average performances. Also, monster fans will probably be disappointed that they only get to have one (brief) look at the creature. The biggest problem, however, is how slow and uneventful much of the movie is. There's endless skiing footage and not that much plot, and soon the movie gets to be pretty dull for minutes on end. The movie could have been a lot worse, I admit, but it's not worth seeking out.

A ski lodge somewhere in the Colorado mountains is about to celebrate its 50th anniversary when a report comes in to the owner, "Tony Rill" (Robert Logan) that a girl has been attacked by a vicious beast of some kind. Not wanting to alarm the public he keeps the information low-key while he and 3 other men go to investigate. He finds the jacket of the missing girl and thinks he sees something big and fast moving in the trees. Not long afterward the local sheriff, "Sheriff Paraday" (Clint Walker) gets a disturbing report that a body of a girl has been found viciously mauled to death in a barn. Meanwhile, a gold-medal winning skier named "Gar Seberg" (Bo Svenson) and his wife "Ellen Seberg" (Yvette Mimieux) have arrived at the ski lodge and they join the sheriff and Tony in the hunt for "Bigfoot". At any rate, for a made-for-television movie this particular film wasn't too bad. I liked the performances of both Clint Walker and Yvette Mimieux along with the way the director (Herb Wallerstein) captured the cold winter climate. Unfortunately, the action was rather weak and the special effects left much to be desired. Additionally, there were several parts of the film that were just plain boring. All things considered, I rate it as slightly below average.