Abominable

Burden seems to have called up his friends and filmed the entire thing during winter on two sets: one inside a dilapidated pseudo-lab, and another in the woods near his house. Everything is slapdash and cheap: the editing, the acting, the directing, the camerawork, the score, virtually the overall production. The sentiments – what wisps of them there are – feel even cheaper. There are prolonged stretches of nothing happening, characters wandering the woods, and uttering lines as if they just memorized them.

Speaking of: most of Abominable‘s 70-minute running time is devoted to inconsequential, nail-on-chalkboard dialogue, poorly enunciated by amateur actors with not even a hint of passion or belief in what they’re saying. “I need more time to rewire the mainframe to sync it with our original coordinates,” a character in danger stammers awkwardly. “The snow here is so strange,” another intones, tasting the snow. “It’s… old.” (Wtf?)

“…proves the ‘no one sets out to make a bad film’ axiom wrong.”

It feels like there was a valiant attempt to correct a lot of the film’s continuity errors during editing, which results in even more cringe-worthy moments. Either the color-correction is all off, or some of the shots just plain don’t go together, perhaps filmed at different points of the day, in separate locations. A character hilariously lights up a flashlight during daytime and shines it in the creature’s face – only the Yeti seems to be in a different dimension that takes place at night.

I wholeheartedly support independent film and do my best to give filmmakers accolades where I can. I’ll award Burden’s effort some points for a few gory make-up effects such as a torn-off arm and a ripped out spine. Special honors should go to the poor actor who had to suffer through the production in that nasty-looking creature suit. But, overall, the film barely deserves a star. In this day and age, when talented filmmakers can shoot a decent-to-great horror flick on a micro-budget, atrocities like Abominable are inexcusable.