The yeti is a cryptozoologic creature that inhabits the Himalayan mountain range. According to the internet, so it must be true, the term ‘yeti’ derives from the Tibetan words for ‘rocky place’ and ‘bear.’ Various sizes are given for the beasts, ranging from just a few feet tall to over fifteen feet. The western term for yeti is ‘abominable snowman,’ first coined by Charles Howard-Bury in his book Mount Everest The Reconnaissance, 1921. He didn’t see a yeti, but he saw tracks in the snow at an elevation of 21,000 feet that Sherpas along on the expedition said were ‘metoh-kangmi,’ which translates as ‘man-bear snowman.’ Don’t be too impressed with this research. I took it from Wikipedia. Anyway…
The Yeti, the 2026 debut feature written and directed by Gene Gallerano and William Pisciotta, does not take place in the Himalayas. Rather, it takes place in Alaska in 1947. There, an expedition, led by oil tycoon Merriell Sunday (Corbin Bernsen), searching for new drilling sites, has gone missing. Sunday Jr. (Eric Nelsen) puts together a rescue team, enlisting the help of cartographer Ellie Bannister (Britanny Allen) to guide them in. She isn’t keen at first, but the missing expedition was led by her father (William Sadler), and she has unresolved trauma to work out.
The new group is introduced in a kitschy 1940s-style news reel, and then the film cuts right to them being lost in the woods at night. That’s it for the humor in this flick. Everything that happens after is quite dour.
At its most basic, this is a horror flick about a monster stalking a group of people in the woods. This is a movie that has been made countless times to varying degrees of quality. It’s not a bad trope to take on for first time filmmakers. As a learning experience, then, job accomplished. As an entertaining feature film, eh…
Suspension of disbelief was tough while watching this movie. It never felt real. The entire film was shot on a soundstage at Buffalo FilmWorks, and looks it. Everything takes place at night, so the lighting is faux moonlight with about ten feet of visible range. The snow looks like shredded paper. 
The biggest offense, though, is that no one looks cold. This flick takes place in Alaska in winter, yet we never see any character’s breath, and their wardrobe gives only a passing nod to the conditions. It’s a nitpick, sure, but in real life these knuckleheads would have been dead of exposure on the first day.
The creature is decent. Gallerano and Pisciotta followed the rule of thumb about monsters in movies, where less is more. Viewers never see the monster in total, although there is a nice face reveal near the end. It does nasty work on characters, too, with a fair amount of gore. The impact is lessened since the characters are not people an audience roots for. They have names and backstories, but no cohesiveness or chemistry. It’s just a bunch of actors thrown together for fodder, and we all know which of them will be around for the film’s climax. Most of the characters can be dismissed just as easily as Gallerano and Pisciotta did. Bernsen and Sadler were the heavyweights in the cast, but they didn’t show up until the final act. Until then it was up to Allen to carry the movie, and her brooding, self-doubting character made me wish she was first on the monster’s hit list.
Yeah, I didn’t like this movie. The least I wanted was a worthy take on a monster in the woods flick — not even a fresh contribution to the idea, just entertaining. What viewers get is a plodding execution that is simply rote. The Yeti is an anonymous film that probably won’t leave any lasting impression on those who see it.