PLATFORM: DVD | RELEASE DATE: JANUARY 11TH

It’s really important for monster movies to get the title right. Think of some of your favourites and how just the title sums up the chills and thrills guaranteed by a name that succinctly describes the wild ride we’re going on for the next couple of hours. The Thing from Another World (and The Thing itself), Tremors, The Creature from the Black Lagoon, Jaws… the list is endless. The right title for the right film. Originally known as Abominable (presumably changed to avoid confusion with last year’s bright-and-breezy animated film), Yeti is a bland and vague name but then it’s unlikely anyone would have taken a punt on a film that should, by rights, be called “Poor Sod in a Baggy and Hopelessly-Unconvincing Monster Suit with a Poundland Halloween Gorilla Mask Jammed Over His Face.”

Yeti is as threadbare as its titular monster’s costume and even at under seventy minutes it quickly wears out its welcome. Deep in the Himalayas (and never has a location looked less Himalayan), a research team seeking a rare plant with extraordinary medicinal properties discovers the equipment abandoned by a previous ill-fated expedition. There’s a Yeti lumbering around protecting its domain and it begins to pick off the second group in a handful of gore sequences that might amuse the easily pleased but otherwise there’s nothing of real creative worth going on here. The acting is acceptable, the direction is competent but the crashing and intrusive musical score really belongs to a much better movie. The name-change to Yeti is actually quite ironic as this movie really is abominable.