Now and then a film takes you by surprise. I expected this to be a cheesy monster movie, and discovered instead a richly atmospheric, intelligent little gem. On closer inspection, it’s not so surprising, considering it springs directly from the mind of Nigel Kneale, long one of my creative heroes, and director Val Guest, one of the old stalwarts of British genre cinema, delivers a tautly constructed film that does a lot with few resources. Guest’s handling of the cinemascope frame is expert, and the atmosphere and tension he develops powerful. Kneale adapted the script from his own TV serial, and the film was brought to the big screen by the still-embryonic Hammer Studios as a follow-up to their successful adaptations of Kneale’s Quatermass tales. Peter Cushing, a regular in BBC television plays, such as Kneale’s adaptation of Orwell’s 1984, has his first starring role here, having played the part in “The Creature”, Kneale’s 1955 original. It was only a small step away then to Dr Frankenstein. .
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Rollason, a biologist with theories of the existence of the Yeti, and an ex-mountain climber, joins forces with shifty American explorer Friend (Forrest Tucker) in a hunt for the legendary man of the mountains, leaving behind his plucky but anxious wife (Maureen Connell) and nerdy assistant (Richard Wattis), and shrugging off the cryptic warnings of the Llama (Arnold Marlé) of the Tibetan monastery that is their jumping-off point. Heading into the high mountains with a small party to try and flush out the Yeti, they soon discover themselves up against a foe that’s far more sophisticated than they expected, and also struggling with their own weak psyches and motives.
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Kneale’s familiar fascinations, with the blurred, mysterious realms where science and religion could possibly overlap, his bitterly misanthropic critique of nuclear-age humanity and his genuinely apocalyptic mood, as well as his incomparable gift for the sheer spooky, fuel the drama with a depth and intensity rare in the sci-fi genre of the time. The dramatic set-up, where conscientious Rollason and the opportunist Friend clash over whether to leave the beasts alone or hunt them, is familiar, but Friend, despite his dishonesty and at-all-costs wilfulness, is a fleshed-out character with a certain nobility to his ideals that he is, unfortunately, completely unable to live up to. Indeed, the men prove more dangerous to themselves than the beasts, who, with their ineffably weird howls and apparent psychic powers, may in fact be a super-species calmly awaiting its day.
Guest conceals the low budget with some clever sets and settings, contrasting the shadowy, mystic corridors of the monastery with the billowing white and riotous winds of the mountains. He resists throwing tacky effects at the screen, keeping the Yeti themselves mystery-laden with a Lewton-esque rigour, building to a truly eerie climax where Cushing confronts the beasts in a cave. All in all, one of the best speculative fiction films I’ve seen in ages.
