Rage of the Yeti is set on an island called Mercy in the Artic which has suffered a sudden heatwave which has melted lots of ice & snow & an old ship called the HMS Victoria which contains an ancient & priceless Codex that eccentric billionaire Mills (director David Hewlett) wants, unfortunately his first team lead by a chick named Villiers (Yancy Butler) has been wiped out by huge snow monsters that resemble mutant Yeti Polar Bears. Villiers & a couple of other’s from the first team manage to make it to an abandoned Canadian research outpost while Mills hires treasure hunting brother’s Jonas (David Chokachi) & Jake (Matthew Kevin Anderson) to be part of a rescue team to save the survivors & get the valuable Codex. However this team is unprepared for the Yeti snow monsters & also head for the outpost where they find Villiers, coming under constant attack from the Yeti monsters & with ammo & supplies running out fast the survivors have to figure out a way to stay alive until help arrives…
Directed by & featuring actor David Hewlett who is probably best know for his recurring role on the various Stargate television series this is yet another SyFy Channel original monster film that throw’s together all the usual clichés & ends up more or less as bad as all the other’s. After having seen countless numbers of these SyFy Channel monster films I am asking myself why I even bother anymore, I can’t really answer that question but there’s always the hope that the next one will be half good & at least they are free to watch so it only feels like I have wasted my time rather than my hard earned money. The routine script has over familiar elements slung together like a couple of wisecracking heroes, the isolated location, a few monsters that are always enraged (hence Rage of the Yeti) & want to kill everyone, stupid plans to make money & plenty of dull & poorly staged attack scenes. There’s the usual goofs here as well like where was that huge plane going to land exactly? I’m not even going to ask how it was going to take off again either. These Yeti seem to have slightly suicidal tendencies as one throw’s itself into a plane engine, one throw’s itself off a huge cliff, one throw’s itself under a snowmobile & another just stands there while a guy burns it with a flamethrower so I am not sure what that is all about. The double cross twist about half way through is meaningless & only there to kill a few more people off, the idea that one moment someone has a punctured lung & the next they can fight Yeti & trek through snowstorms just about sums up the level Rage of the Yeti is aiming for.
From a technical point Rage of the Yeti is pretty poor as well, from the utterly abysmal CGI computer effects which are bad even by SyFy Channel standards to the bland attack scenes that have zero build-up or tension to the way several character’s just totally disappear supposedly lost in the snowstorm never to be seen or heard of again. Then there’s the supposed snowstorm that can’t even blow a plastic bag away it’s so weak (the moment when the guy removes that orange plastic bag from the hole at the end & it doesn’t even flap) & there’s virtually no gore whatsoever as every kill is off-screen & except for a tiny bit of blood splatter Rage of the Yeti is disappointing dry.
Filmed on what was probably a next to nothing budget I find it hard to believe the $1,800,000 quoted by the IMDb. The production values aren’t too bad & the sets & costumes are alright but the really bad CGI effects just kill it dead & turn what could have been an good horror film into a bit of an embarrassment. The acting is OK, the two leads play off each nicely enough with a few good one-liners & Yancy Butler does alright as well.
Rage of the Yeti isn’t the worst SyFy Channel creature feature monster film out there & it had potential but the rubbish CGI & all the usual goofs & plot holes ruin it. I can’t even recommend this if you can catch it on SyFy for free, I mean there’s bound to be something better on another channel.
