The Yeti Review: Defanged Creature Feature Offers Very Little Tension Or Fun

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Monster movies can be scary, funny, or both. Some filmmakers create intentionally campy and over-the-top horror, letting the audience enjoy a good laugh with the frights, like in Alexandre Aja’s Piranha remake and Ellory Elkayem’s Eight Legged Freaks. Other filmmakers aim for pure terror, as successfully demonstrated in Kiah Roache-Turner’s Sting.

As a film buff, I was really excited by the beginning of this movie. It had a fantastic atmosphere and a unique vibe that immediately grabbed my attention. But honestly, it felt like the filmmakers, Gene Gallerano and William Pisciotta, lost their way. The story started strong, but somewhere along the line, their vision seemed to shift, and things just didn’t quite deliver. By the end, it unfortunately became pretty predictable and didn’t leave much of an impression.

The Yeti Should Have Stuck With The Pulpy Vibes Of Its Opening Act

Directed by newcomers Gallerano and Pisciotta, the film The Yeti follows Ellie Bannister, a skilled cartographer and the daughter of famous adventurer Hollis Bannister. When Hollis disappears during an Alaskan expedition with oil tycoon Merriell Sunday Sr., Ellie is asked to help find them. Merriell Sunday Jr. hires Ellie and a team of experts to lead the rescue mission.

The group’s arrival is immediately met with a severe winter storm, cutting them off from the crew of their boat. While trying to locate the camp built by their fathers, they unknowingly lead a rescue team directly into the monster’s hunting grounds, sparking a desperate new battle for survival against a dangerous, ancient creature.

The film The Yeti gets off to a great start, effectively building suspense as it introduces the initial expedition and hints at the dangers they faced. The tension really pays off with a well-done, shocking death scene. Things get even more interesting when the movie introduces the rescue team assembled by Merriell Jr. to find his father. This shift in focus gives the film a fun, adventurous feel, similar to the retro style of movies like Captain America: The First Avenger.

Sadly, this is where the movie starts to fall apart. After moving to the Alaskan forest—where most of the film takes place—it abandons the initial, promising atmosphere and becomes a very standard horror story. It’s so predictable, in fact, that The Yeti doesn’t manage to create any real suspense or scares. Scenes of characters getting lost in the woods feel empty because it’s always obvious what’s going to happen to them—and not particularly exciting to watch—especially since many of the attacks happen without us actually seeing them.

The movie The Yeti suffers from a weak and underdeveloped script by Gallerano and Pisciotta. While it attempts to explore the characters and their histories, it fails to create any real tension or suspense. Several characters are so poorly developed that I’d forgotten about them by the time they died, or even mixed them up with others, leaving me feeling no emotional impact when they were killed off.

I was really impressed with some of the actors in The Yeti. The director and PJ McCabe clearly put together a strong cast. Brittany Allen, who I recently saw in The Pitt season 2 and absolutely loved, is fantastic as Ellie. She brings this amazing blend of toughness and vulnerability that makes her character so much more interesting than everyone else. And Jim Cummings, who also helped produce the film and acts alongside PJ, is great as one of the few guys willing to actually hear Ellie out.

Despite its flaws, The Yeti benefits from the stylish direction of Gallerano and Pisciotta. Working with cinematographer Joel Froome (known for Twin), they effectively use the film’s locations and time period to create a tense and atmospheric mood. The filmmakers also build suspense by keeping the Yeti largely hidden for most of the movie, making its eventual reveal more frightening.

I really wanted to love The Yeti, and it started out with so much potential, but honestly, it just didn’t quite deliver. It often slowed down with long scenes trying to explain things, and the movie couldn’t seem to decide what kind of tone it wanted. The ending tried really hard to be moving, but it just didn’t land for me. Sadly, we’re still waiting for a truly great horror movie about the Yeti!

The Yeti releases in theaters and on VOD on Friday, April 10.

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2026-04-10 19:38