SNOW DEVILS (1967)
aka LA MORTE VIENE DAL PIANETA AYTIN, SPACE DEVILS
Article 1908 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 6-5-2006
Posting Date: 11-2-2006
Directed by Antonio Margheriti
Featuring Giacomo Rossi-Stuart, Ombretta Colli, Renato Baldini

When sudden changes in the Earth’s weather coincide with an attack on a weather base in the Himalayas, an expedition is set out to discover if these events have anything to do with legends of the Abominable Snowman.

Wouldn’t you know it? Yesterday, I dropped Antonio Margheriti’s name in a review, and here he is today, with another of his science fiction outings. Of the ones I’ve seen so far, this one is far and away the easiest to follow, but I was helped by having the longer ninety minute version of the movie and the fact that the dubbing showed a lot more care than is usually given to these movies. Still, that doesn’t hide the fact that the story is pretty cliched; first we have thirty minutes of typical yeti-hunting movie, followed by thirty minutes of typical alien invasion movie (and given the fact that one of the alternate titles of this movie is SPACE DEVILS, I don’t think I’m giving much away here), and finally followed by thirty minutes of typical outer space movie. As for the latter third, you’d think with only thirty minutes to go they wouldn’t feel the need to pad it out with a meteor shower scene, but no such luck. Still, the general predictability of the movie is alleviated by the occasionally interesting touch here and there; unfortunately, it’s also further marred by some really turgid pacing; many trucks are driven through many gaps between many cues. Despite the relative coherence of this one, I think some of his other science fiction movies have a lot more energy to them, and I’ll probably give them the edge over this one.