Gettin’ Squatchy! Day O’Horror #5!

In The Woods

The Legend of Boggy Creek was the first film I watched that featured a cryptid as the antagonist.   Since that time I have watched many, many more films about Bigfoot, Sasquatch, Yeti, and any other big hairy creature with massive feet.  Most of those films were terrible, but every once in awhile a film pops up that makes me take notice.  It isn’t necessarily perfect, but it’s really fun to watch.  Abominable is one of those films.

Matt McCoy (Police Academy franchise) stars as Preston Rogers, a man who is taken up to a cabin in the woods to face his fears and come to terms with the loss of his wife at the same location six months earlier.  He is accompanied by Otis (Christien Tinsley), a nurse that takes care of Preston’s needs.  Otis is a jerk, but deep down inside he really does care for Preston.

Mild Spoilers Ahead!

After arriving at the cabin, Otis realizes that he forgot to pick up soy milk for Preston.  He decides to go back into town, leaving Preston all alone.  While waiting for Otis to return, Preston hears loud music and laughter at the cabin next door.  He takes a peek outside and sees a group of young women getting ready to have a big pre-wedding weekend for one of their friends.

One young lady, attempting to get a stronger cell signal, steps out of the cabin and walks over to the treeline.  Preston watches her with his binoculars, only to see that a creature is standing just outside of her sight line.  All of a sudden it attacks her, dragging her off into the forest.  Preston tries to tell the other girls, but they believe that he’s doing nothing more than watching them like a creep.

Otis returns and Preston tries to tell him what happened.  Otis doesn’t believe Preston, especially whenever Preston hands him the binoculars and Otis spies one of the girls taking a shower.  As the story rolls along, the body count goes up.  Preston attempts to get in touch with the local sheriff’s department, but the sheriff holds his men off until one of them finally decides to see what’s going on.  Will he get to the cabin in time to save Preston and the rest of the girls?  You’ll have to check out Abominable to find out.

This film is equal parts comedy, horror, and B-eautiful.  It generates a decent amount of scares and the bulk of the cast is pretty solid.  What’s especially wonderful is the fact that genre legends Lance Henriksen, Dee Wallace, Jeffrey Combs, and Tiffany Shepis all have small but excellent roles in the film.  Combs is especially funny.  Shepis, as gorgeous as ever, has one of the best deaths in B-cinema history in this film.

Paul Gleason (The Breakfast Club) hams it up as the local sheriff, Halderman.  He drops numerous references to The Breakfast Club, including a few direct quotes and that brilliant hand gesture he uses during the film.  This movie would be one of his last roles.

Director Ryan Shifrin phones in for assists from his father, legendary composer Lalo Shifrin, and artist Drew Struzan (creator of posters for film franchises such as Star Wars and Indiana Jones).

Christien Tinsley pulled double duty as both an actor and as a makeup artist.  He’s actually an Oscar nominated artist that has worked on films such as The Passion of the Christ (where he excelled at creating prosthetic tattoos) and No Country For Old Men, as well as television shows such as Westworld and American Horror Story.

Despite being a convincingly scary beast, the creature in the film reminded me of Jack Elam.  He’s still pretty scary, and executes some excellent kills on the screen.

If you haven’t seen Abominable, I highly recommend checking it out.  It’s an excellent creature feature with some nice scares, decent acting, excellent music, and Otis, the grand jerk of nursing aids.

As always, thanks for reading.  I’ll have another post tomorrow night!