Abominable
**

Anchor Bay
Directed by Ryan Schifrin

Matt McCoy, Haley Joel, Christien Tinsley, Lance Henriksen, Jeffrey Combs, Dee Wallace, Phil Morris

Once in a while a film shows up that is typical of a decent "B" movie. Most of the time, it is "D", "E" or God help us, an "F" but sometimes that one little film sneaks in when you don't expect it to.
Such is the case with the new Anchor Bay release "Abominable"; but don't let the title fool you, it really is not that bad. Here is the premise, as simply as I can make it out to be:
A disabled man in a wheel chair sees a huge, fast monster start picking off the next-door neighbors. Now how does he see this? With the binoculars he is using to spy on them, of course! So, mix a little of Rear Window with a typical Bigfoot film and this is what you get.
At least it was not attacking them in a cheap motel while dressed up as the monsters dead mother.
So, disabled man and neighbors. Well, hot, good-looking, young female neighbors, which prove the creature has good taste anyway. While this is not the first film dealing with a hairy, woodland creature that walks like a man (see reference: Sasquatch, Abominable Snowman, Yeti, Euell Gibbons) but it is one of the more entertaining of the last couple of decades.
The film begins with an attack on a farm by some unseen creature, resulting in a local newspaper reporting on a "Bigfoot Sighting" in the area. We then join Preston Rogers (McCoy) traveling to his secluded mountain-home for the first time after recovering from a mountain-climbing accident that paralyzed him and killed his wife. With him is Otis (Tinsley), an impatient, crude and insulting physical therapist who would rather drink and watch television then take care of Preston.
Not long after reaching the cabin, Preston spends the remaining daylight looking off through the woods with a pair of binoculars. Not long after Otis goes to the store, a group of girls arrives at the cabin next door. It is soon after that Preston starts to see some strange things happening around the cabin. Strange noises, people yelling and screaming and even something unseen in the woods.
When one of the girls disappears and Preston is spotted, they think he is just some perv staring at them. I wonder why?
Anyway, once the good stuff starts guess who the girls come running to for help? Yeah, the guy in a wheelchair; makes sense to me.
Now I have been playing fast and loose with the story and the movie itself. Don't let that push you away from Abominable. It stands head and shoulders above a lot of the crap-horror that is being foisted on us by many of the 'first run, full screen' companies.
It is original story, written well and acted out pretty dang good by the folks involved. With few 'Big' names and only a few 'well known' actors, the film has achieved what so few horror movies do today; it simply entertains without trying to make you sick to your stomach from the blood, guts and intestines being tossed around.
This movie would be great on a Friday night at the drive in mixed with a re-release of Howard Hawks "The Thing" or even the remake by John Carpenter. It has a certain quality that has been missing since the glory days of Monster films in the 1950's, style.
Want to know why? There is almost none of the dreaded CGI. The creature (played by Michael Deak) is, OH MY GOD! A man in a fur suit. Wow; now to many people this will sound like the "Dark Ages" of film returned to us. Don't even think it, my friend.
The costumers and special effects people did a great job on this one. The outfit looks realistic and Deak really pushed it to make the creature scary and as realistic as a Monster film can be.
Ditto to Matt McCoy and Christien Tinsley both of whom prove themselves excellent actors and the interaction between McCoy and one of the girls (Haley Joel) show a wide range of emotion and respect for each other. It is one of the better boy spies on sexy neighbors; sexy neighbors are attacked by monster, sexy neighbors run to guy in wheelchair for help films I have seen in quite a while.
Abominable is a fun movie, one that manages to entertain without computer imaging and massive buckets of blood. Give it a shot, hopefully before SciFi channel chops it up for a Saturday night movie.