Man Beast

Rating:
Summary: Man Beast - Jerry Warren's Most Entertaining Film
Review: Okay, I realize that's not saying much, but this is an entertaining picture much in the way that Ed Wood and Phil Tucker movies are entertaining. This is one of the 3 Abominable Snowman pictures released in the 50's. This version is much better than the BORING Snow Creature and more campy than Hammer's Abominable Snowman. Plot involves a young woman in search of her brother who is on an expedition to find the Yeti. Warren has stolen some footage of mountain climbing, but obviously spent more time trying to match the footage in this film versus his other spliced up messes.

There is enough plot information in the Editorial review and the VHS review. Let's discuss the merits of the DVD. As with most Rhino DVD's, you get the movie and that's it. The picture is okay. Not spectacular, but not bad. Certainly nowhere close to an Image Entertainment release, but much better than a Retromedia DVD. Unlike other Rhino DVD's, the sound is consistent and you don't have to crank the sound on your TV. This version is certainly acceptable and worth the low price.

Rating:
Summary: Man Beast - Jerry Warren's Most Entertaining Film
Review: Okay, I realize that's not saying much, but this is an entertaining picture much in the way that Ed Wood and Phil Tucker movies are entertaining. This is one of the 3 Abominable Snowman pictures released in the 50's. This version is much better than the BORING Snow Creature and more campy than Hammer's Abominable Snowman. Plot involves a young woman in search of her brother who is on an expedition to find the Yeti. Warren has stolen some footage of mountain climbing, but obviously spent more time trying to match the footage in this film versus his other spliced up messes.

There is enough plot information in the Editorial review and the VHS review. Let's discuss the merits of the DVD. As with most Rhino DVD's, you get the movie and that's it. The picture is okay. Not spectacular, but not bad. Certainly nowhere close to an Image Entertainment release, but much better than a Retromedia DVD. Unlike other Rhino DVD's, the sound is consistent and you don't have to crank the sound on your TV. This version is certainly acceptable and worth the low price.

Rating:
Summary: Not a great film, but not as bad as advertised.
Review: True, it would be difficult to come up with a list of three people with worse filmographies than the director of Man-Beast, Jerry Warren. But he evidently had not learned enough to do absolutely everything wrong yet in this 1956 creature feature, his first foray into flicks. The acting is lousy, the budget is minuscule, the direction is bad (when it's not stock footage) and the overall film-making quality is negligible, but somehow it manages to be more entertaining than its more intelligent and more highly-regarded Hammer counterpart, The Abominable Snowman. This is due primarily, in my thinking, to the fact that we ACTUALLY SEE THE MONSTERS (cheap and lumpy though they be)! Yes, I know, a gradual build-up of suspense is important, and one never wants to reveal too much too soon, but in the Cushing film that revelation is the whole point. A thousand pardons to zealous Val Guest fans, but whoopty-doo. Man-Beast builds to an adequately satisfying suspense climax, and the motivations of the titular character(s) and their cat's paw are pressingly evil, ringing more true than in the later film. In addition, some of the action in Man-Beast takes place in darkness. In "Snowman" it is mostly in the light, or else in badly-composed day for-night scenes. Still, if you don't like fairly ludicrous 50's drive-in fare, there is no way you will be able to stomach Man-Beast. Yet again, if you don't like fairly ludicrous 50's drive-in fare, you wouldn't click on a movie called Man-Beast. Sit back, enjoy, and experience a time we will never recapture.