Sort of a cross between Rear Window and The Legend Of Boggy Creek, Ryan Schifrin's Abominable is a fun, drive-in style monster movie with gore galore, gratuitous nudity, a fun b-movie cast and a goofy creature at the center of all the mayhem.

When the movie begins, a farmer and his wife (Dee Wallace Stone of The Howling) head outside to see what's causing a disturbance. They find a dead horse and soon enough come face to face with a giant furry monster. From there we meet Preston Rogers (Matt McCoy of Snapdragon) who lost his wife and the use of his legs when a mountain climbing expedition went awry. Six months later, after physical and emotional therapy, Preston is returning to the cabin up in the mountains that he once shared with his wife, this time accompanied by Otis (Christen Tinsley), his male nurse.

When Otis heads out to get Preston some soy milk (it's seems he's lactose intolerant), Preston sees a group of five young ladies descent upon the cabin next door. Soon enough, one of the girls goes missing and the beast who killed the farmer's horse starts looking around Preston's cabin and the cabin next door for a snack. He emails the police (lead by Paul Gleason of Van Wilder) when the phones go out but they figure he's a nut and don't pay him any mind. To make matters worse, the girls next door don't realize that he's trying to help them, they figure he's a peeping tom.

While all of this is going on, the farmer has gathered up two of his pals (Jeffrey Combs of Re-Animator and Lance Henricksen of Pumpkindhead) to do a little recon work in the woods. They're out there to find the creature and put a stop to him and soon enough they come across the missing girl from the cabin next door – of what's left of it. Their attempts are in vein and soon enough the monster is back, making life very difficult for Preston and the girls. Otis returns, but he thinks Preston is making it all up and so he doesn't prove to be any help and it looks like it Preston wants to save his skin and help the girls next door it's going to be all up to him.

Despite the fact that it's a completely ridiculous premise, Abominable turned out to be a whole lot of fun. The acting is a little on the hammy side but it fits the movie nicely and the creature effects are pretty cool as well. Towards the end of the movie there are a few really strong gore scenes that will take most viewers by surprise (these were likely cut from the original Sci-Fi Channel broadcast along with the nudity and the profanity) and that make the movie more intense and surprising. The action moves along at a pretty brisk pace and Matt McCoy manages to make Preston a fairly likeable lead character. The cameos from genre legends like Combs, Henricksen and Stone add to the fun and while the girls who rent the cabin next door don't have much to offer the story, at least they make for pretty monster bait.

The film isn't particularly scary (though there are a couple of decent jump scares) but it is definitely an entertaining throwback to the kind of drive-in movies that were so popular in the seventies that so many of us remember nostalgically. It's nice to see a movie that doesn't take itself too seriously and that isn't ashamed to be nothing more than a fun monster romp with some nice exploitative qualities and some interesting character actors.

Video:

The 1.85.1 anamorphic widescreen transfer has fantastic color reproduction and perfect black levels and is virtually blemish free in regards to print damage or visible debris. It's also got a lot of aliasing and line shimmering throughout which, while not particularly detrimental to the viewing experience as a whole, is definitely noticeable in a few spots. Aside from that, however, this is a very fine looking DVD. There's a pretty strong level of both foreground and background detail present in the image and there aren't any issues with compression artifacts or edge enhancement.