Review: ABOMINABLE (2019)
Abominable, the latest film from director Jamaal Burden (Elves) and producer Justin Price (The Dawnseeker, The Mummy Rebirth) shares its title with an excellent Bigfoot film from 2006. Given their collective track records, I wasn’t expecting anything near that film’s quality, however. And I got what I expected.
An expedition to the Himalayas looking for a plant with reputedly wondrous medical properties meets with a nasty end. So a second, highly armed expedition is sent in to find out what happened, and bring back a sample of the Yeti Plant. Instead, they find the actual Yeti, and he is not pleased to have uninvited visitors.
Abominable was very obviously filmed in the US and not in the Himalayas. It actually never says where it’s set beyond “the mountains”. But it wasn’t even filmed on a mountain, just in some woods. However, the press release I got says it’s the Himalayas and the creature is called a Yeti. Why they didn’t just go with a US setting and have the creature be Sasquatch is beyond me. It certainly beats blowing the film’s credibility right from the start.
Not that Abominable would have had much credibility anyway. It’s filled with ex-special forces types who wander through the woods emptying their weapons blindly into the darkness and getting winded after short sprints. Add in some obviously cobbled together medical at technobabble that sounds like something The Professor from Gilligan’s Island would say and you have a sure way to get the audience to tune out.
Just how bad is Abominable? The expedition sets up in what looks like an abandoned elementary school. Complete with little kids construction paper art projects, in English, on the walls. On another level, the makers had so little faith in it the IMDB page only mentions one cast member and has no promotional stills, just the poster.
Effects wise Abominable does have more blood than I expected. Most of it in a scene where somebody gets literally torn apart. That scene is quite effective, as is another of a face being torn off. The one where a man gets his head repeatedly slammed into a tree and just bleeds a bit, not so much. The Yeti itself is somebody in a baggy, ill-fitting latex suit.
Kudos to them for finally putting out the cash for some solid effects, that is a major step up. But the script for Abominable lives up to its name. It’s filled with jaw-dropping stupidity and cliches. That includes the guy who’s only there to prove he’s the ultimate Alpha Male by killing a Yeti. The dialogue he spouts had me howling in laughter, which I doubt was the intent. Check out the clip below if you don’t believe me.
I’m giving it two stars based on the excellent gore effects, but take them away and Abominable would be on a level with Frozen Sasquatch.