Shriek of the Mutilated



AKA: Scream of the Snowbeast

Professor Prell has been investigating the elusive Yeti for years, and is so obsessed with the creature that he even teaches a class about it at the local college. This year though he’s going one step further, and has gathered four students together for a little field trip to an island in New York where his friend lives, and where a Yeti-like creature has recently been sighted. None of the students really think anything is going to come from their little trip, but once they get there it’s not long before they all start hearing strange noises at night, and one by one the members of their group start disappearing.



Shriek of the Mutilated is an independent American horror film from 1974 and was directed by Micheal Findlay, the husband of Roberta Findlay, a woman who just so happened to direct The Oracle, which I watched not too long ago. Roberta is also listed as the cinematographer for this film, although it looks like she may have had a slightly bigger hand in the production, since it’s reported that her husband had a bit of a mental breakdown on the first day of filming and she was asked to step in. Regardless of who may or may not have done what though, Shriek of the Mutilated isn’t in any way better than The Oracle, so it doesn’t really matter. In fact, unsurprisingly this one is actually a lot worse. Like, a lot A LOT. Though they both do share at least one commonality, in that it seems both movies were way too ambitious for the talent that was put in charge of them.



To put it very bluntly, the film’s just not very good. Which should probably be expected, since the Findlay’s primarily made a lot of porn films either before or after this. But even by those filming standards this is still pretty bad (and I’m not just referring to the lack of skin on display). Calling it amateurish may be the nicest way of putting it. The sound is often faint, garbled, or just drops out entirely on occasions. So don’t be surprised if you occasionally can’t really hear what’s going on. Not that you’d necessarily always want to, because the acting isn’t really something you’re going to want to remember anyway.



The picture quality fares a tad better. The cinematography is actually pretty good for an extremely low budget film like this. But the film quality itself is all over the damn place. There are some versions of the movie that have clearly been cleaned up, but even then the movie still looks a little rough. Overall it looks alright (especially in the versions that have been restored), but some scenes still end up looking washed out or way too dark. Or they look too washed out when they should look way too dark, because there are at least two scenes that are supposed to occur at night that are clearly set during the daytime. And regardless there’s still a persistent graininess to the film that makes the movie look grimy no matter what version you may be watching. And though that may be okay with some films, that look really doesn’t do this one any favors. It just stacks upon the crappy effects and cheap costumes to make it look worse.


This is supposed to be a “nighttime shot” *snort*





The story may be the one thing the film has going for it, but even that is a mixed bag. The general idea behind the film is pretty solid. There’s some really questionable logic in the beginning of the film that’ll make you wonder what the hell is wrong with the logic center of most of the characters’ brains. But believe it or not the film’s twist ending actually explains away several of these instances, proving that all that ridiculousness was fully intentional, and thus completely planned out. But then there are a couple other scenes that feel like they were only added later to either add some more blood or to pad out the runtime. Because including the subplot about Pell’s previous student and the resulting trauma he received from the previous trip actually kinda spoils the film’s twist, so I’m not really sure how good an idea they were. Though I will say, it did perhaps provide the most memorable scene. The guy’s trauma is so bad that he’s taken up drinking, so when his girlfriend tries to take his liquor bottle from him in their apartment he freaks out and tries to kill her. At least, that’s what the suggestion is, cause the next you see him he’s in the bathtub, drunkenly washing blood off his clothes (looks like he found a beer.) But I guess he sucks at murder, because then we see his girlfriend crawling through the living room, dragging a toaster behind her, which she then promptly plugs in and tosses in the tub, giving him a nice, shocking ending, before presumably succumbing to her wounds. And I was just cackling the entire time watching that because – holy shit yes – THAT is the level of pettiness I aspire to. Because, yeah, I could have called for help, but why do that when I can take you with me, you drunken asshole. It’s just too bad that perhaps the most memorable sequence in the Yeti movie had absolutely nothing to do with the rest of the Yeti movie.


This is some seriously dedicated Fuck You energy right here.

A part of me would like to say I liked Shriek of the Mutilated despite its faults. But I really didn’t. Well, I suppose that’s not wholly true. I did like parts of it. But I can’t say that I liked it enough that I really think I could recommend it to anyone. It’s just too much of a mess. And you know what? I can’t even recommend it to people who like Bigfoot, or Yeti, or even monster movies, because – Spoiler! – this doesn’t actually qualify. – End Spoiler –Which I would explain more, if it wasn’t such a huge reveal and someone truly still wanted to watch it. So I won’t. That said, the movie is an interesting effort that had some good ideas, it’s just that the movie didn’t have the skill to execute them. But hey, if you don’t mind the low-budget “meh-ness”, then by all means give this one a go. Just know that there are much better monster movies out there for you to watch.

Shriek of the Mutilated is available on a variety of streaming services.

Shriek of the Mutilated is also available on DVD and Bluray.

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