There's something very strange and very dangerous out there.
And if I thought it would stay up there, fine.
We could designate the area avalanche prone and just seal it off.
Well, if it were going to come any nearer, wouldn't it
have done so by now? What do you base that on?
You don't know anything about it. I mean, you don't know
how long it's been up there. When it got there, it could have got there
last night. Just in time for the winter carnival. What are you
being so facetious about?
Everything is ready, my darling. Do not be
afraid. So we'll be together again.
This sandwich tastes as dry as hell.
Hello and welcome to. Hello, this is the Doomed Show.
I am Richard, folks. I am joined by my favorite snow bunny,
my favorite slalomer,
it's frickin Jeffrey. Hello.
Whoa. That was a third of the movie we're about to talk about. Holy crap.
Folks, we are feeling the cold burr
in the hottest summer on record of the world.
Man, you can see my breath, can't you? It's just your
sweat flying off of you.
We're talking about Snowbees from 1977,
directed by the one and only Herb Wallerstein.
Herb. Not to be confused with the remake from
2011, directed by Brian Bro.
Bro. Very interesting.
This, this remake. I did not watch it, but I did
take a look at this here trailer. They replicated the
design of the creature and actually like put
some money into it so that it looks like the same monster.
I thought it was the same suit at first, but no, it's just the same
because this thing is like articulated. Its face actually moves.
Yeah, ours just sort of just sits
there. But it's got Jason London
in it. The dude from Mallrats. Yes. So I've been thinking about Mallrats
all day today. Like, that is
a Kevin Smith movie. It sure
is. Yeah. One can't deny it. Yeah, I would watch
that before I'd watch like any of his other stuff. Maybe I'd hit up
Clerks. You can hit up Clerks. But I would not do Chasing Amy
again if you paid me. Yes, I'll do. I'll do a lot of things for
money. But seeing Chasing Amy in the theater when it came out,
and just walking out like, whoa, man. Oh my God, that was
so good. That really like, spoke to me, bruh.
And then watching it again on video like, like a year later going,
ah. I'm still a Chasing Emmy fan. I have to.
Good. No, it, it's, it's a.
I feel like it's a very pure film from a
somebody who's trying to learn and grow. And I appreciate that.
Just think marijuana ruined his life. No.
So anyway, Snow Beast got off. Got off topic here. Yes.
This aired on April 28, 1977.
And I found a trailer. Excuse me, a commercial
reel. I didn't do so good on the trailers for this movie. I found a
commercial reel from YouTube that purports to be from April
28th, 1977. So I'm going to sprinkle some of that 1977
flavor through the episode. I found a 15
second promo for this from TV. So here's what
little I could find of Snow Beast. Who will survive
the Snow Beast Sunday night at 12:35.
We now return to Lucasfilm's the Ewok Adventure.
And there you go. That's it. What else could you want to watch
at the dead end of April spring than Snow
Beast? It's to give you hope of the cold weather
leaving. Yeah, it's like this is what we've left behind.
Goodbye, Snow Beast. We're moving forward.
Oh, boy. So I found a nice VHS tape.
Of course not in irl, not in
IRL Life, but I found one on the
virtual space we call that erl.
Yes, everything really licks snow.
And this is from a company called.
What is this company? What am I looking at? Good times.
Good times. Love good times. Some of the worst quality
tapes you can get. Hope you like that SLP mode. Love it.
I love having my finger on the tracking buttons the entire time.
Up or down? Up or down? Wait, no, wait up.
Back down again. Ugh. Great stuff. It says on the
COVID of this, it's half human, it's half animal,
it's a cold blooded killer. Ooh, that's almost a
line from the movie. Sorta. Sorta. And let me
the real line from the movie is I think it's not quite an
animal, but it's certainly not a man. And then grandma
says, well, that really narrows it down.
Oh boy. So the plot synopsis on the back is
fairly lengthy, so bear with me here. A half human, half animal
killer beast is on the rampage at a ski resort in this
spine chilling thriller. The 50th annual winter carnival
is about to begin at the real ski lodge in the Colorado Rockies.
However, mystery hangs over the gala preparations as
the body of a young skier is discovered on the slopes brutally
murdered. Tony Rill. Robert Logan, manager of the
Log and the grandson of the lodge's owner, Mrs. Carrie Rill.
Sylvia Sydney sees a shadowy beastly shape disappearing into the
woods Terrified, he informs his grandmother.
But still Mrs. Rill, in an effort not to lose
business during the winter carnival, assures Tony that such stories
are simply folklore. And then another skier
disappears. Bo Svenson and Ivy Yvette.
Yvette also
stars as a former ski champion and his wife, who are
witnesses to the horror of the snow beast.
96 minutes. That's not true. Not true.
Color guaranteed, superior quality videotape and recording.
Good Times Home Video. We make collectability a way of life.
Good Times Home Video Corp. 401 Fifth Avenue, New York,
NY 10016. Call them up.
Yo, what happened to your tapes, bruh? Hey, how'd you make this 96
minutes? What did you do? I found
a little clipping of an article by way of Groovy Doom. Folks, if you don't
subscribe to Groovy Doom on either Facebook or
Instagram or Twitter, find Groovy Doom. They have the best
newspaper article and clippings
to show. Drive in triple features. All horror,
all wonderful. You get to see some of the weird pairings of movies that have
happened in the past where they put up a horror feature
and then, I don't know, like, Cannonball Run 2 or something. Very strange.
But yes, we got Yvette Mimiu flees
from the shadowy figure of a half human, half killer beast in
Snowbeast on Channel 2 Thursday at 8pm Beautiful.
I know. So good. I'll say. This director,
Herb Wallerstein, he was a TV
guy. Oh, my gosh. Everything he did was TV stuff.
He was an assistant director and then worked his way up to director.
Did episodes Quincy and
Father Knows Best. He had an interesting career because pretty
much right after he directed this, he became,
like, a studio head at Fox. Oh, my God.
Yeah. And that's what he dedicated the rest of. Well, a good chunk of the
rest of his career, too, where he, you know, was,
like, overseeing productions of movies like Alien.
So, yeah, definitely had a.
You know, what's the bigger impact on film? When he worked at 20th Century
Fox or when he directed Snow Beast? We'll never know,
only time will tell. He also died in
a horrifying fashion. No.
Yeah, the Wikipedia page for Herb Wallerstein,
the death section is the longest section.
And, yeah, misadventure or no, he was,
like, beaten to death. Oh, geez. Like in
an assault. Good Lord. Yeah, he was hit in
the head with a baseball bat. Geez.
Not good. Not good. Do you have an alibi?
That's poor taste. I mean. Yeah,
my alibi was. It was in 1985, and I wasn't alive.
God damn. Yeah. Poor Herb,
man. Well, we miss you, Herb. You brought us the beast.
You turned the beast loose. You brought us Jaws in
the snow. As a lot of people have noticed, Joseph Stefano
wrote this bad boy and he has an
interesting career. Oh, you bet. As a writer.
You only wrote Psycho. Yep. The wrote Psycho
adaptation. The script, of course. Psycho for the
beginning. Oh, the Kindred.
Yep. Come on. That's another classic
right there. Home for the holidays. Oh, my God. Eye of the
Cat. Oh, Eye of the Cat is so good. He did
a lot of cool TV stuff. He's also responsible
for in the first season of the Outer Limits.
He wrote most of those.
Wow. You know, he had a great career.
Nice. For a while. Hopefully he wasn't
also beaten to death. Oh,
sadly, he was beaten to death. Yes. This is
a recurring theme with this movie. They talk about the snow beast curse.
That would be nuts. Oh, boy. So, yes,
we're going to spoil this one. I recommend, and I
believe Jeffrey recommends to the Retro Media Blu
Ray. You bet. Retro Media is still kicking around.
They've been putting out great versions of movies since way back in the DVD
days. Maybe even earlier than that, I'm not sure. But this
Blu Ray is frickin nice.
Plus, they put out Teenage Exorcist, and they
put out, I think it's lurking fear. No, excuse me,
haunting fear. Both of those are with good old Brink Stevens,
so I recommend those. And not only do you get two
different versions of the film on the Blu Ray, but you also get a
commentary track with Fred Olin Ray and David Dakoto, where they
mostly just talk about their own movies. So,
you know, you get a bang for your buck here.
They desperately needed a public forum for self
promotion, those poor guys. All right, so we're gonna jump into
the plot. Spoilers are coming, so just beware.
The movie opens on the wastelands of Hoth or Colorado.
Some nice windy, snowy establishing
shots, and we're immediately treated to a POV with
the beastly clawed hand of the Snowbees.
Izzy, like, pulls away some twigs from his path.
I feel like that's most of what Bigfoot spends his time doing
is just like breaking twigs down to clear a path. Because he's
so big, you know, he. Would have evolved farther and
invented computers or something, but now he's still
playing with twigs. We get Slow mo ski.
Ladies, having a moment brought to you by either Wheaties or sanka
or insert whatever 70s commercial here. That's very,
very fun.
Now I get me up from Sleep and I pray, Pray for
quiet feet. Oh, Kentucky Fried Chicken. I didn't
get enough at supper time. Oh, this finger
looking good. Chicken, it's my favorite kind.
It's America's country, good meal.
Kentucky Fried Chicken. America's country,
good meal.
This is Jennifer and Heidi. They are just living their
best lives. Skiing the dream, as they say
in nowhere. And our pal Heidi,
she's the smart one, she detects something funny.
I don't think snow beasts are funny at all. I think they're very
serious. And you shouldn't just say that. She's like,
let's go back, there's something funny. And I said something funny like
the unknown comic from TV's the Gong Show.
Oh, he's got a bag. Oh, man. Maybe if we put a bag over
the head of the snow beast, that would actually be an improvement. He might not
be gong so fast. Have we ever seen the snow beast
and the unknown comic in the same place? I don't think so.
Yeah, actually at The Real Lodge. 50th anniversary winter
carnival. You know, the unknown comic really needed
a job as most people who work the Winter Carnival
need. Yeah, him and Gar, they needed some work.
So Heidi's like, peace out. And abandons
her pal Jennifer. Not a good friend. No.
And Jennifer immediately gets POV'd and roared at.
And then we cut to more ski fun as the Ryls
family Winter Carnival with our friends.
Not. Not a personal friend. I wish she was my friend. Sylvia Sydney
of frickin Beetlejuice. She's been dominating this.
This thing for 60 years. Yeah, she's in this
film. She's playing the character known as
the mayor from Jaws. Yes. She's definitely not motivated
by financial gain whatsoever. Sylvia Sydney.
What a career. Good lord, the old Hollywood. All the way up through the
90s. Love it. Oh,
yeah. Lietta spotted her just by the voice. As soon as
she started speaking, Lietta's like, is that.
Yeah, okay. And then the Snow
Queen, the young Snow Queen, because, you know,
Mrs. Rill was the OG Snow Queen. But now we got the new Snow
Queen rolling up in her quote unquote carriage.
This carriage is a. Is like a Ford
vehicle that has the word carriage. Snow Queen's carriage painted
on it. I thought that was cool. We meet Buster and Tony.
One character who's not important and one who is very important.
Buster is gonna get into some trouble in a bit, but Tony,
he's the grandson of our original Snow
Queen here. He also gives the most yellingest performance.
Dude likes to shout. This is Robert Logan.
Man, this guy. Interesting film career.
A Night in Heaven, which if you haven't seen, you should watch it
is very confusing. Tonally, Night in
Heaven is very, very odd. He just yells at
everyone in this movie. Yeah. Oh, boy.
Very tightly wound. I love, I love when the Mrs.
Rill says, I was the first Snow Queen when I was 16.
And that was 600 years ago.
Tony and them go. They talk to Heidi because she's. They were
pulled away because of this emergency that happened.
And he come and Heidi's freaking out and they're like,
look, we can't find Jennifer. You need to take us back
out there. And Heidi says, no, thank you.
And so they're like, all right, we'll go find Jennifer. Pieces of her.
The search for Jennifer. Jennifer. The search for Jennifer
on skis begins. Tony finds her bloody jacket and
her broken skis. And then he gets roared at,
but doesn't get killed. And apparently he sees the beast.
I didn't get that from this encounter. Well, you know, they don't actually show
you the beast. No. Well, actually, you know
what, I might take it back because there is like one shot
where we. Most of our shots of the snow beast are an extreme close up,
but we do get one shot of him in the like,
it's a very long shot where he's in the tree line and he just
sort of bobs a little bit.
So you could almost miss him if you're not looking closely.
They really don't want to show us the snow beast costume.
I do love his arm waving at people later. Well, we'll get that. We'll get
to that. We meet Bo Svensson's character,
Gar, and party on,
Gar.
Party on, Ellen. So Gar is
a apparently washed up Olympic skier.
His autograph could be worth up to $10. Keep that
in mind, dude. I take back the washed up part.
So they're there. He's going to beg Tony
for a job. The funniest thing is after he signs the autograph of
that very excited kid and the kid walks away,
he looks to his wife and says, well, it's nice to be wanted
somewhere. So, yeah, this is why I
love this movie. It's basically a soap opera about this
love triangle between Gar, Ellen and
Tony. And right now we're learning and
we'll learn some more details later on that, you know, yeah, Gar sort
of washed up in his career and that's affecting his relationship
with Ellen and she just doesn't feel it for him anymore. And you know what
Tony's there. And Tony, he's still got
that flame burning in this very chilly film. He's got it burning.
I just love that this is. This is a TV
Bigfoot movie and we spend almost,
you know, half of the time on this love triangle
between the three of them. It's beautiful. Did. Because this is Jaws.
This is a Jaws movie with snow. Jaws.
Was there like a romantic subplot in the Jaws
novel that did make it to the movie? Yes, there actually is.
Yeah. Richard Dreyfuss sleeps with Brody's
wife in the book. Yeah, in the book. Wow. And the movie cuts that
out entirely. So, yeah, it seems like they're basing that on the book.
Steven Spielberg's like, hey, let's make these people likable.
Let's be careful. But of course, it doesn't get
nearly as illicit here because this is made for tv.
So it's just a lot of, you know, not very
tense conversations between these different
pairings of the trio.
Want to know my personal secret for making deliciously thin crepes?
It's this precisely controlled heat. I get
it with the Monsieur Crepe Crepe maker from Sunbeam. It's almost foolproof,
and it even becomes a nice little frypan.
So now I can make perfect crepes with
a little help from my friend, Monsieur Crepe. It's from Sunbeam.
I really love their quality.
Tony comes back and he's very scared about this
whole thing and wants to cancel all the fun. And he's trying
to explain this to Grandma in the most shouty and condescending way he
can. And he says this wasn't an
animal and it wasn't human either.
And he also says it's very strange and very dangerous out
there. And Grandma's like, nah, dog,
we're doing this. We're going to. We're going to frickin ruin everyone's lives.
Let's proceed. Grandma, what you being so facetious about?
Jennifer's missing corpse is blamed on an avalanche
or weather balloons or swamp gases.
And then Tony spots Gar and Ellen, and within
seconds, he hits on her right in front
of Gar. Oh my God. Gar's just happy to
be there and have a job. Yep, yep. Our friend Buster,
who's this like, kind of like second in command of
this whole place, keeping people safe.
He wants to go out and keep looking for good old dead Jennifer.
And Tony's like, do not go look for her. Just put
up some restricted area signs. And of course,
Buster immediately ignores this order. And goes looking.
And then while he's skiing around. Get used to the skiing sequences,
folks. If we've had a little taste of them, we're gonna get a big old
heaping helping of some snow potatoes. See, I love
those snow potatoes. This movie is, in a sense, my asmr.
Just scenes, endless scenes of people skiing
and snowmobiling. I love that. I think about how
difficult snow skiing is, like how
much work it is to actually ski. And I'm like, now watch this movie.
So apparently there was a another actor cast
in the Bose fence and role of Gar Seburg. But he got
fired and Beau got hired because that actor had lied
about his ability to ski. Oh, so. So that is Beau's fence
and skiing, which is unmistakable. Right? I'm not surprised.
Yeah, it's definitely him. There's a ski episode
of Murder She Wrote that I keep thinking that
Beau was in, but I don't know if that
was the episode. He was in Two episodes of
Murder She Wrote. He was in Snow White,
Blood Red. It was the ski one.
There you go. Well known as a skier,
folks. I know I'm preaching to the
choir. Everyone listening is a Murder She Wrote fan. But if by some
reason you haven't seen Snow White, Blood Red,
it's b bonkers. It's a crazy episode.
Great stuff. Oh my God, that's great. Anyway,
so dipshit Buster Friggin wipes out for no
reason and is dangling off the edge of a cliff. The snow
beast tries to help him out, offers him a hand,
granted, he's grabbing this man by the head and then screams.
And the movie fades to red.
Yeah, you know, snow beast just doesn't know his own strength.
He was trying to help, you're right. But didn't work out. Didn't. Did not work
out. So the search committee. Search committee.
Maybe they're a team, A group of teamsters. They are
looking for Jennifer and they're searching at a
barn. Where the Heidi directs them to is this barn
they were skiing near. And the dumbass little
kid who's a son of one of the guys, he goes into the barn
and gets horrifically traumatized by something in
the water trough. He says, dad goes in
and finds what I wrote in my notes as Jennifer menting.
Gross. I thought it was pretty good. So our
pal Sheriff. I love the sheriff. This is Sheriff Paraday,
played by Clint Walker, who has the best voice.
Famous Clint walker. Shit. Only 40
credits. That's shocking. He seems like somebody who'd been in like hundreds of
movies. It's true, but, man. Yeah, he was in. Oh, my God.
He was in the White Buffalo. Holy crap.
Killdozer. Scream of the Wolf, Deadly Harvest. Was that
the Shatner movie? No, I don't
know what Deadly Harvest is. He had some bigger ones early on, like the Dirty
Dozen, Night of the Grizzly. Dude, I love.
I have seen The Dirty Dozen 3,000 times. That movie,
he's the sheriff, and I love him. His perfect hair is always
perfect. He finds out about the Jennifer murder and
takes off while Tony's trying to tell him about this, you know,
bloody jacket situation and the beast he saw. But more importantly,
Tony keeps his date with Ellen. But Gar
was supposed to also be there. But Gar does not show up until
things get awkward. He has dinner anxiety.
The funniest shit ever is Tony
and Ellen had this past relationship,
and, dude, she literally tells him, I've been
having these fantasies about him.
Well, we don't deal with fantasies here. We only deal with sexual realities.
They tell us. And she
says, I quote, this reality is the problem.
And I wrote in my notes, amen, sister. So I feel
like this has happened before in films that we've watched, but this is
a film that is entirely about Gar's impotence,
the fact that they are not having sex. So basically,
we learned during this conversation that Guard, like, really does have performance
anxiety in a couple different ways. You know, both in
his chosen career of skiing, which is what he tells
us. It's all he knows how to do, but he doesn't actually do it since
he won the Olympic gold in the winter of 68 and, like, got to shake
hands with the President and everything. He has not skied
since. He's just, like, terrified of letting people down,
dude. And when we find out why he hasn't skied since, it's even funnier.
It's even funnier. We'll get to that later in the movie,
because I was very confused up until he explains it to her.
Yeah, but just like my wife Ellen married a
jock, and his best days are behind him. Just like,
that's my life right there. Very, very triggering for me to see this movie.
I've been having a lot of fantasies about you for the last year.
Fantasies about me? Good or bad?
Not bad. A friend of mine, a doctor,
said that when a woman starts having fantasies about the man she didn't marry,
she's not getting enough realities from the man she did.
Hmm. I think your friend is talking to you about
sexual realities and you're not. Reality is the
Problem. So she confesses all this shit to him
and ends her conversation with him. I need
a nap. And I said,
double amen, sister. I'm with you. Reality is
the problem. I need a nap. Yeah. And the whole time,
Tony's like, no, what you need is a man who loves you.
I love you. So Gar finally shows up,
Right. Immediately within seconds after, Tony has laid a big old
kiss on Ellen. Good God. Oh, my God,
it's so funny. And while they're talking, Gar just plays it off
like, hey, what are you doing to my wife? Blah, blah, blah. And then he
asked Gar if he's still a good marksman. I'm like, okay, maybe Tony is
worried about his situation, but no, he wants the
freaking help to kill this snobeast. And then he says,
you know, are you good at taking your clothes off and getting in a
jacuzzi with me, big boy? And that's what they do.
So they get into this beautifully heated hot water to be talking
about the Sasquatch. Or is the snow beast?
Is the Sasquatch not what we're dealing with here?
Or are they the same? Is Sasquatch regional?
No, Sasquatch and Bigfoot are basically the same thing.
Okay. Yeti, Abominable Snowman. That's a little different.
But that's not really what we're dealing with here, because those are only in
high mountains in certain parts of the world, and that's not where
we are. It just happens to be snow in Bigfoot territory.
Yes. These are very, very snow,
ski lodge centric creatures we're dealing with.
I don't know if you caught where this is located, where real lodge is,
but I sure did. And it's called Crested Butt.
It's B u t T e. I'm sure it's like Crested Butte.
I think it's crested butt. It's the butt.
Very butty. Gar is a believer. He totally
believes in this beast because Ellen did a report on it.
Ellen is a reporter, by the way. Yeah.
And she. So, because she did this thing where she
interviewed a bunch of local yokels about it, he believes,
and he's offended that Tony wants him to kill it.
Just because it's different than us, you want to destroy it.
And then Tony is shouting again about someone has died,
and Gar is like, okay, gotcha. I do need to point out
that, yeah, I'm watching the film, of course, as we are talking,
and Beau just angrily hoisted himself out
of the pool. And he's wearing, like, Speedo trunks in. Yeah, Little blue boy.
Oh, boy. Speaking of fashion, though,
it cuts from that to them sitting in a room in the ski
lodge full with pinball machines and they're wearing like these big fluffy
robes and it's, it's. It's beautiful. They're just like sipping tea
or coffee. Dude, just give them
cognac and some cigars. And they're. They're in a different
movie. Tony is sinking into this robe. It looks like a little boy has
put on his dad's robe. Well,
the trivia of this. One of the little tiny bits of trivia
about this movie is it was bitterly cold when they made this film.
It was very cold. So I too would retreat into
the. The sweet, sweet confines of this puffy couch.
I love it. Oh, I got a. I got a gorgon. I got a visit
from my baby. Folks, if you're watching the video feed, which doesn't
exist, I've got a huge, like 18 pound cat sitting
on the back of my chair. Is he really £18? Yeah, Gorgon. She. She's a
big baby. Don't misgender her.
Oh, my God. Gender neutral cat.
So he tells. He asks guard not to tell Ellen under any
circumstances because Ellen is this, you know, reporter and she'll
panic the people because, you know, even though Tony is sort
of trying to do the good thing, he also doesn't want to spoil
this beautiful snow ski carnival bullshit.
She overhears the police, one of the cops
looking for Tony. And she books it out to the
farm to see if she can snoop a bit. And then
right after that, Gar and Tony get to the same barn.
And as they are arriving, Ellen is following the tracks of
the. Oops. Winter Beast. I actually wrote winter Beast. Oh, no,
that's a different guy. It's a very different film, folks.
Nice. So I'm glad I did that. Here's where I note the sheriff's
deep, sexy voice. They ask Tony how he'll know
if this body they found is Jennifer's. I'll recognize
her when I see her face. She doesn't have one.
Brutal, brutal snow beast. Why'd you do it?
The sheriff immediately sees through Tony's little secrets about the
jacket and a bunch of bullshit. And he's not. He's just not happy
with it. What do you think, Tony? Can you
help me? Is that her? That's her. What do
you base that on? Color of
her suit. How would you know the color
of her clothes? It matches the jacket I found.
You found the jacket? Where? On the north Slope. We were looking
for her up there yesterday. Her friend thought she might have
had an accident. So the patrollers told me. But they didn't say anything about
a jacket. We spread out in different directions. Cole. But you came together again.
That's right. So why didn't you show them the jacket?
What? Why didn't you show them the jacket, Tony?
Ellen is still romping around looking for clues. She finds blood spatter
and she gets roared at, but not POV'd as much.
So she's not dead yet.
Gar tells the sheriff what he told Tony, but with
slightly more detail. Twice in this movie,
characters repeat every single thing that they
said to someone else. It's so funny, in case you missed
it. Well, it got to hit 72 minutes. Somehow,
which is crazy because we're watching the 78
minute version. No, the 86, something like that.
86 minute version. We'll get to that 96 minute version that
doesn't exist later. Sheriff's like, now, let's cover this up for now.
A lot of COVID ups. Encrusted butt. But little Dr.
Gar is ready to kill it. Now he's ready. Before, he was not ready,
but now he's ready. Now they've seen Faceless Jennifer's corpse.
Also, Ellen is still stalking the beast. And she wipes out,
too. She gets Buster syndrome and wipes out.
And now it's nighttime. Or our favorite,
most most heavily working actress ever.
Day of Renaissance. Oh, yeah. Pleasure to
see you, miss. At the bar, we get disco music and people grumbling
about bear attacks because they've been told that Jennifer was mauled by a
bear. And I love this. I love Mrs.
Rill sending Tony to the airport to
meet Jennifer's parents because they don't know what's going on yet. But,
you know, they get to identify the. The pieces of Jennifer. And now
we get to my favorite scene in the movie, which I think this should be
everybody's favorite scene. Gar has to go to the high school because he's the
celebrity and he has to crown the Snow Queen
this year, 1977. And we get to the high school
gymnasium and oh my God, this is so cool. Lietta has a
question about this part of the movie. She says, why is this
American high school band playing Rule Britannia?
And all I could think of was, it's an easy song.
I have no, no idea. Listen, they're celebrating the roots of
America. Like the real roots. Pre Roots. I wasn't
in band, so I don't know.
We finally get our first look at the snow beast. That isn't it's clawed
hand. It's a beautiful shot of the
creature peeping in the window, which is just gorgeous.
Listen, if you're cold, he's cold. Let snow beast
inside. You know why he's really there is that he got
a mixed message and thought that he was being crowned the
like, Winter Queen. I'm the
Snow Queen, y'all. I'm the Snow Queen.
Pandemonium. As the Snow Queen who cannot hold
her freaking panic button down, she sees
the snow beast screams bloody murder.
And it's just complete insanity. A lady
gets attacked in the carriage. The Snow
Queen carriage turns out to be her mother.
And while all of the people running and screaming,
Grandma Rills has a frickin heart attack.
Which was actually like oddly affecting. I got
like really scared for her. She grabbed her arm like,
oh God. Oh. The snow queen finds
her mom dead and just screamed. It's so sad.
And oh my God, the whole thing is a mess. Everything is just crazy.
I kind of wanted to see more people getting trampled, but that's all right.
That's. That's like one of those 70s disaster movies waiting to happen.
On the grand. On the, on the grandma on the stretcher,
Mrs. Ryls is. She feels bad now,
now that she's witnessed the results of
their. Their stupid ass cover up.
Oh, gosh, I was silly about this whole thing.
She says, tell Tony I'm sorry.
Sheriff tells Gar, like, by the way, your wife was like freaking stalking us at
that crime scene. And Gar's like,
oh, where is my wife? And now we find out that Ellen is missing.
So Gar goes back to his hotel room. This pivotal scene, this is Bo Svenson's
big moment, folks. We love Bose Fenson. You and I have covered
it. This has to be at least the third or fourth movie
we did. Beyond the Darkness 3.
Yeah, the Train. The train, yeah. And there was
something else between that and now because Amok train
was like 200 episodes. Yeah,
yeah, yeah. I love Beau. I mean, I think,
you know, we know he was cast in this film for his ability to ski,
but I think he was also cast for his ability to basically pass
as a Bigfoot already. He's like the. Let's say
the. I want to say this, but I don't know if this is true
or not. He's like the American Mickey Hargitay. Is Mickey
Hargitay American? I don't think he is, which is why.
No, I think he's like that accent Was crazy. He's Hungarian.
American. Yeah, yeah, yeah. So he's like, this is the second time. This is
the second time the killer has gotten away from us.
Yeah. So that's how I see him. He's very dopey.
I love him. He's great. It says that he was
an athlete and the personal driver and bodyguard for the King
of Sweden. And he was a musician, big band leader.
What? I just opened his wiki and my brain
just fricking melted. Yeah. And I take it all back because he was born in
Sweden. So yeah, he's not the American Mickey Hargitay after all.
He's the Swedish Mickey Hargitai. He's the Swedish bossman.
So he's back at the hotel room and he's tapping on his skis.
Tapping, tapping. Very, very pensive because we get flashbacks
to the horrible incident that caused him to stop skiing success.
He was a huge success at skiing and he
quit because he didn't want to be a has been.
Yeah, he was just too good. Ah, I hate that self fulfilling
prophecy. Right? You quit while you're ahead
and then you found out, dang, I quit. I'm unemployable.
I needed a job. So he
conquers his fears, gears up and heads out. Day after
night of returns once again. We can literally see the sun
shining on this day of Fernanda. It's great. It's up in
the sky, man. Oh boy. Did this composer.
Was this like a TV composer, I wonder. Music was by
Robert Prince. Because this score is pretty good. It's effective. He sneaks
some nice synthesizer in and some of this
stuff. Lots of TV work, of course. And somehow
he was on the soundtrack for Annabelle Comes Home. I don't know what
in the world. Interesting. They must have played of his stuff.
That's great. But he composed the music for Ripley's Believe
it or Not. That's cool. Okay,
nice. I mean, I want to shout out the cinematographer here
too. I think this is a very good looking film considering clearly
the budgetary and time restraints. Absolutely.
Particularly with all this outdoor footage in terrible conditions.
And a lot of really energetic stuff too. Like all these
skiing scenes look great. Like that scene with Bo's fence and going
down. They're clearly like sledding or skiing next to him while
they're filming it. And it looks great. Dude, this. Okay, this cinematographer's
name is Frank Stanley and Frank Stanley
has done some cool stuff. I know exactly which
one. You know where I'm going. But yes, he did car wash and
he did Corvette Summer.
But he did Grease too.
Oh, yeah. That poor bastard had to film
that sequence at the bowling alley that goes on for
at least five minutes too long. Where every character
not only gets to bowl, but every character gets their own
little moment to shine with their dance moves and
their own little moment to shine and their dance moves sped up to
an inhuman rate. It is the only time in the movie where
I hate Grease 2. I love
Grease 2. We know. Anyway, I digest.
Morgan's really camped out. This is the longest this cat has hung
out with me on this chair in months. So cute. What a reunion.
This is what happens when you take four pages of notes. Let's see. So Ellen
is passed out in the barn. She just go right to the murder
scene and hang out. And there's something in there with her.
Oh, my God, it's Bo Svenson.
The two reconcile, start making some amends,
and that's when we find out that he skiings. He was scared to become a.
Has been. And she literally tells him a lie. She says,
you're not a fool, my love. The reconciliation
music is just gorgeous. I feel like
I'm watching a movie that has nothing to do with the snow beast. I've been
such a fool, Alan. Oh, not a fool, my love.
We're all afraid of failing. No.
Not you. Oh, yes. I never
knew that. I never showed you.
Have you been keeping things from me?
Nor will you kiss me? I thought
you'd never ask. And we're just getting going like we're
not even into the frickin. Like the finale of the
movie. Next morning, there's a
helicopter searching for Gar and Ellen. That's their one shot,
their one chance to get a shot of this
helicopter because the rental must have been very,
very expensive. Back in the barn,
Ellen leans over to this sleeping,
supposedly sleeping Gar and says, I love you.
To which he says, you say something.
The snow beast is coming, you know, roaring away out there.
And Busters dead, headless corpse
falls from the ceiling. His head falls first,
and then right behind it is his corpse. But because this
is made for tv, the shot is way in the background in
the dark, but it's there. It happened. This is a violent film.
You just, you know, gotta. All the violence is
technically off screen, although it is like happening
there. Yes. You gotta crank up the brightness on your TV to even catch
a little of it. So they barely escape the furry arm.
So the snow beast is just. His arm is trying to get in
and roar and the arm is kind of waving at them. At one point.
Very cute, Very cute. The cavalry
arrives on snowmobiles. And I find it funny that
you and I, not too long ago did an episode,
Chill Factor, which is what's more than 99%?
100%. What's more than that? A thousand percent.
It's 1,000% snowmobiles in that movie.
This one comes close, but not quite. There's a
great. Well, they get rescued. Then there's a great funeral scene for
Buster. I laugh my head off at this funeral scene. They literally,
all the little ranger dudes who work for Mrs.
Rill, they have a six gun salute for
the passing of Buster. And I was like, don't you
guys, like, not want to cause an avalanche by shooting off a
bunch of fucking guns? You're not authorized to shoot those guns, buddies.
Captain, I'm ship's social director, but nobody is sociable.
That's because you dress like a Stoway. You need Hager slacks
or a Hager. Sport coat and slacks. Or deck yourself
out in Hager's new vested suit. All of Klupman's
textured woven fabrics. And at prices that won't scuttle even your
budget. I don't have anything to do. Oh,
my dear. What's a social director for? The Hager look from
America's best known name in slacks. The sheriff rolls up
with a corpse of the beast and everyone celebrates.
All the people are cheering. It's this poor innocent bear.
Poor innocent bear costume. Yep. Which is funny.
I don't know of even. Like, brown bears are in that
part of Colorado. I don't know.
Somebody carted it in. Yeah. Oh, boy. It was
very sad. Very fake. Thank God Gar
is just miserable. So he and Ellen confront him
and they're like, sheriff, what are you doing? And the thing that blew my
mind, the most jawsy Jaws thing that ever. Jaws, the jaws is
he's like, if you think that's the beast that's been doing the killing,
you cut that thing open and see what's inside it. I'm like, oh,
my God. See if you find any faces in there. Yeah.
See if there's a face. See if there's like a license plate and a
tin can or whatever was in that shark. And Jaws. If there's
a snow princess crown. Oh,
my God. So Gar, Tony and the
sheriff and Ellen head out to go commit genocide on
the. I'm assuming the only snow beast in existence.
Yeah. And Snowbeast is out there stalking.
They take a camper out there and he's already Stalking their camper.
And he rips the skis. There's like a little ski
holder on the back. And he rips his hate skis. No, he wants to
ski. He's like, let me ski. Guys. Do you have
any inside 17.
They decide instead of running around looking for him,
because now that they know he knows where their camp
is, they hunker down and wait. And that's when Tony friendly
flirting with Ellen. And they finally seem
to resolve their stupidity. She's like, yo, Gar and I
are back together. Tony's like, all right.
And they have this nice little exchange. But the most mind blowing thing
is that in the back, as wall decor,
is a Newport Cigarettes Frisbee.
Classy. Yeah. Oh, my God,
dude, that's badass. In case they want to play later.
They're friends after all. Newport is a cigarette
designed to give the smoke a real tobacco taste
and. Enough menthol to keep the taste cool and fresh.
Newport. So while Ellen is serving coffee
to Tony and Gar, the sheriff's inside the camper.
That's when the snow beast causes a log avalanche.
Apparently, there was a huge pile of logs that were
barely held together. And he just slaps the
remaining support out of the way. We got a log. A lanch.
Listen, Bigfoot just wants to gift them those logs.
That's his. Here you go. I took your skis. I'm gonna repay you.
I know humans can make things out of things. Here's some material.
You know, that's what we used to call hot dogging back in the day.
Yes, they. They jumped on the logs rolling and rode
them back to camp. But now,
this time. This time the sheriff gets trapped inside the camper
and they have to flee. And of course, poor, poor guy gets
killed by the snow beast. And I'm like, where are their
g dam guns, y'all? These people,
they're in the camper. They had their guns leaning against
the freaking camper while they were enjoying their coffee. And the camper
rolled over on their guns. Unbelievable.
These morons head back to the barn, the murder
barn, to kind of regroup. And then they
go back to the camper, and they manage to find
the sheriff's gun inside it and another
gun. And Tony, who's not the best shot, manages to
wound the snow beast, and he gives Gar the gun.
Gar straps on his skis, and he gives chase
to finish off the snow beast. By chase,
you mean he's walking with the skis on, which could
be mistaken for Bigfoot if caught on film by Patterson and
Gimlin, almost indistinguishable.
He follows the bloody. The bloody tracks,
which I really enjoy. And there's a big showdown between them where
he manages to shoot the snow bees, but not fatally mortally
wounding it. And then the fatality moment is when
he totally stabs it with one of his
ski poles, which I thought was, you know, nice and on brand for this,
the skier. And keep in mind, we're basically seeing none
of the Snow Beasts during all of this. No, it's all very vague,
very quick shots, if at all. Yeah, it's all roars.
But that's like the end of the movie, right? Yeah. So he manages
to stab the thing and falls off the cliff
that it had been that guy was dangling off of earlier.
They stand over the cliff looking over
at it with no denouement whatsoever.
Credits start rolling. No emotion either. Even though this is
kind of how this whole movie's been about how Gar got his groove back.
So because of that, I think it should have ended with Tony turning
him into saying, well, we killed the one and only Snow Beast.
What are you gonna do now? And he would, like put his arm around
Helen and say, I'm gonna go home and sleep with my
wife after. We go to Disneyland.
I can't believe it ends so abruptly. It's like it just leaves you hanging.
It's weird. We hit 72, 86 minutes,
we're out, loose, out. Any other trivia about this?
I think there's a few little things. Yeah. I've got a little bit
this comes from. So Retro Media did not print
a liner notes for this. They just put liner
notes on the back of the.
The artwork for the Blu Ray. But it's a
brief little essay written by Amanda Reyes, who,
as the chief authority in Made
for TV Movies, pulls a lot of interesting information that
I couldn't find anywhere else. But it's super, super interesting.
I'll read this to you here. Snow Beast was
part of a pretty savvy programming schedule intended to capture viewers during
the April May sweep period. NBC hauled out its Nature Runs
Amok Big guns, premiering Snow Beast along with Savage Bees and
Irwin Allen's Fire. There was also an
airing of the big screen Disaster Flake,
Earthquake. Audiences dug the eco horror programming
and Snow Beast was the highest rated program of the week and one of the
most watched TV movies of the year. Yes, that's right.
Approximately 23.6 million homes
tuned into Snow Beast, which accounts for 38%
of the total audience. My parents must have watched
this that's brilliant. That means over one third of America was watching
this creature claw its way through the Rill Lodge. And it was glorious.
At the end of the season, Snow Beast would rank number 34 out of 233
original TV movies to air that season. Wow.
I was like eight months old, so I might have been there with my parents
watching it. The Goo Goo Gaga. Yeah. The other
little piece of trivia is that, you know, this was critically savaged when it came
out. Everybody hated it. Yeah.
Yeah. I think the Wikipedia page quotes
Leonard Maltin calling it quote unquote dumb,
rude. I know. And ableist. I'll say
other thing here. I did not notice this. Annie McEnroe, the actress
who plays the scared Heidi, the one who gets traumatized
by Jennifer's horrible death and her abandoning her.
She was also in Howling to. Your sister's a werewolf.
Holy. That's crazy. Love it.
Thanks, Pillsbury, for bringing no Bakes pies to
the people. Pies were a bother to make. Now with these
four new no Bakes. Pie mixes, we get to eat delicious pies
every day. There's no Bakes chocolate cream, no Bakes lemon
chiffon, no Bakes vanilla marble, and. A no Bakes cheesecake.
It costs less a serving than homemade graham cracker crust.
Thanks, Pillsbury, for bringing no Bakes pies to the people.
So, dude, how do you feel about this one? How does this strike your
fancy? Well, this, as most of the films we cover, was a
me choice. And it's a little bit different from, I think,
the films we usually cover. It's a little bit more competent.
I guess I was just going to say that. I mean, it's ramshackle and clearly
very cheap, but it is certainly, you know, more competent than
usual. I love TV horror movies. They are what
I would call balm films. For me, they are like a soothing,
healing balm. I watch them and I
feel, as I say, a lot. I feel a little sleepy,
but in a good way. I feel relaxed,
refreshed. You could seriously just put this movie
on a loop and I would be fine. I'd be perfectly content.
It is just sort of boring enough
to really tick all of my boxes.
So, yeah, love this. Highly recommended.
Definitely a different flavor for us for those
listening and watching at home. But give in to the Snow
beast. You may find that you like the hot dog.
And how do you feel about this one, Richard?
Well, you know, just like the other Bigfoot movies we've covered,
I'm very pleased with this. This is great.
Yes, the film is entertaining. Even with the ski footage,
it clearly is. Padding it out. The running back and forth between
stupid shit to stupid shit is great. No complaints
there. I wish this was a were snow beast and
it was a mystery where someone was turning into the snow beast.
It would definitely be Tony. I was gonna say Vet Mimiu is
the Snowbees, but dude. Yeah, that's better. That's better.
Honestly, I really. I really did enjoy this.
It reminded me, of course, of other TV horror
movies. The one I'm about to mention is one. I'm confused. I don't
know if it is a made for TV movie or just feels like
one. The Boy who Cried Werewolf, I believe.
Oh, actually, now that you're saying it, I actually don't know. That might
not. Weird. Yeah. Because it feels like it does. Yeah,
that's. I recommend that film I've always wanted to see.
Devil Dog, Hound of Hell. Yes, that one. I was reading an interview
in my favorite horror movie magazine, Shock Cinema.
I don't know those guys who make shock cinema,
but if you're ever at Barnes and Noble and you see this magazine and
it's got a lot of cool shit in it that's wildly cheap, get Shock Cinema,
get a subscription. It is my favorite magazine about films.
And there's an interview in the most recent one with
Ike. I think it's Ike Evanson. I might be
messing up his last name. He was the kid from Escape to Witch
Mountain. And he was also in Devil Dog, Hound of
Hell. And I'm very curious about checking that one out now. Yeah, and Yvette
Mimieux is too. Wow. Reunite. Yeah, we should cover
that one. That one's really good. I'm down. Richard Karena. I mean,
it's more exciting than this one. And also very funny.
Crazy. It's crazy stuff from what I'm. From what I've heard
about it. Yeah, this is. I. I can see coming back to this one
many, many times. This is my first viewing finally because I had the old
Mill Creek copy which did not inspire me to
watch it ever. Because, you know, sometimes some movies
were worth fighting through the. The Cruddy VHS
rip. But this one did not look like it.
Yeah, and I was kind of wrong. I mean,
a lot of people were hip to this movie. I know the shock marathons guys.
Matt Farley and Charlie Roxburgh and
Tom Scalza. Those guys. Their podcast covered this already years ago.
So they're big fans and rightfully so.
Well, Jeffrey, this was fun as hell.
Dude, we did it. And you know what? We're like under an hour, I think.
Oh my God, My. My frickin thighs are burning from all this skiing.
I've got. I've got Phantom. No,
I'm sorry. Sympathy pains from the thighs of
Yvette Mimiu. Well, you know what? Suck it up because we got to stretch this
baby out to 72 minutes minimum. Fuck that.
I want to go to the. I want to go to the full. Good times.
96 minutes. All right. Yeah, we're going to
stop. That's a terrible idea. Bye,
folks. Thanks so much for listening to this episode.
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