SNOWBEAST (1977)
TV-Movie
Article 3430 by Dave Sindelar
Viewing Date: 11-25-2010
Posting Date: 1-4-2011
Directed by Herb Wallerstein
Featuring Bo Svenson, Yvette Mimieux, Robert Logan
Country: USA
What it is: Killer bigfoot movie

A skiing resort is terrorized by a vicious bigfoot-style creature.

I wouldn’t exactly describe this made-for-TV movie as awful, but it’s one of those movies where you just can’t escape the fact that it lifts most of its plot from JAWS. Furthermore, it handles those plot elements in a perfunctory fashion; the subplot about the ski lodge fearing to lose business during its winter festival is thrown into the story and proceeds to have no impact on it, as does the plot element of the killing of the wrong animal and passing it off as the creature. The only thing that doesn’t seem derived from JAWS is a romantic triangle subplot that is unimaginatively handled and itself a bit of a cliche. As a result, I get the sense that it was written on automatic, and the direction certainly doesn’t add anything special either. In short, this is routine and uninspired.