Rating summary

Movie		2.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		3.5
Overall		3.0

Abominable Blu-ray Movie Review

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman June 15, 2018

Lifeboat is regularly cited as one of Alfred Hitchcock’s more towering technical accomplishments, since virtually the entire film takes place within the confines of the titular “vehicle”. But there’s another Hitch outing with a fairly constrained physical space, 1954’s Rear Window, the now legendary film that features James Stewart as a wheelchair bound guy getting a few vicarious kicks out of spying on his neighbors via his, well, rear window. There’s an intentionally claustrophobic ambience to Rear Window, despite a few (studio mandated?) efforts to “open up” the proceedings, and a lot of the tension of the film’s almost unbearably angst ridden climax is seeing the apartment of the hero “invaded” by the villain of the piece. In a way, you have to hand it to director and co-writer Ryan Schifrin for having had the brainstorm of combining the substratum of plot mechanics of Rear Window with a “traditional” monster movie, but one of the odder decisions that Schifrin made was to place his characters in wide open spaces (at least some of the time), something that perhaps undermines the very claustrophobic aspect that gave Rear Window so much of its impact. Schifrin opens his film with a few (quick) disturbing images that indicate some livestock has met with a grisly end, which then segues to farmer Billy Hoss (Rex Linn) and his wife Ethel (Dee Wallace) being roused from sleep by something going bump in the night. Like any good horror movie character, instead of staying within the assumedly safe confines of their home, they venture outside with their dog, spying some kind of monster in the distance, a monster which unfortunately incites their dog to a little “assisted suicide” (if I may be a bit cheeky about it all). The pair realizes (perhaps a bit too late, at least for the dog) that it may indeed be safer back inside, but whatever they spied out in the woods comes calling anyway, though this being the “setup” portion of the film, the body count doesn’t accrue, and instead an important clue is left when huge, mutant size footprints are spied around the farmhouse.

The film then segues to what initially seems like a somewhat contentious road trip shared by Preston Roger (Matt McCoy) and Otis Wilhelm (Christien Tinsley), though it’s soon revealed that Otis is actually Preston’s nurse and caregiver, since Preston is (yep) confined to a wheelchair after a devastating climbing accident that also took the life of his wife. The two arrive at Preston’s forest cabin, the very abode that neighbors the huge mountain that wreaked such havoc in Preston’s life, with Preston’s emotional state obviously in disarray. The fact that Otis’ “bedside manner” leaves a bit to be desired also plays into some subtextual tension.

Things go a perhaps more traditional horror movie route when a bunch of pulchritudinous females show up to party at the cabin next door to where Preston and Otis have begun indulging in their kinda sorta bus and truck version of The Odd Couple. As might be expected, the girls soon start succumbing to whatever huge hairy beast is out there in the dark, and of course Preston manages to glimpse scenes of the carnage from his cabin windows. You probably don’t need to guess how Otis responds to Preston’s increasing hysteria.

Suffice it to say that Preston turns out to be more resourceful than might be imagined, and in fact manages to sedate Otis, ultimately giving visiting neighbor Amanda (Haley Joel) refuge, with the two left to figure out a way to escape. Meanwhile there are other law enforcement and/or vigilante types trying to figure out what’s going on, with everything leading to an appropriately calamitous climax which would tend to put the lie to the perception that those with disabilities can’t kill a Yeti.

Abomination has some fun aspects, and it does offer at least one spectacularly gruesome kill when a girl is pulled through a bathroom window (“folding up” in the process), but the film never really seems to find much traction despite its interesting premise. Part of this may in fact be due to the setting, which simply seems too wide and open to offer the same sort of claustrophobic thrills that Rear WIndow did, this despite the fact that large swaths of the film play out in Preston’s cabin. Performances are actually surprisingly decent for the most part, though many of the women have little to do but scream and look terrified before their characters are excised from the proceedings.

Abominable Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Abominable is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of MVD Rewind with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 1.78:1. MVD Rewind is touting a "brand new 2K high definition transfer from the original camera negative", and this instantly jumps to the head of the pack in terms of video quality of the MVD Rewind releases I've reviewed thus far. Detail levels are routinely excellent in the more brightly lit moments, and fine detail even manages to make it through somewhat intact in the many dark nighttime sequences. A tendency to grade some of the nighttime scenes pretty heavily toward blue tones does tend to minimize detail levels at times, and there are a few deficits in shadow definition along the way, too. The IMDb lists this as having been shot with Arriflex 35 IIIs, and the one element that may concern videophiles is a fairly unobservable grain field (I in fact thought that perhaps this had been digitally captured considering its relatively recent genesis). That said, there's really no waxy, smeary appearance here that would suggest over aggressive noise corrections.

Abominable Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Abominable's DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track offers some good rumbly energy with regard to the titular beast, but most of the surround activity here comes from ambient environmental noises, especially when various characters are outside. There's also some fun directionality in terms of more "mundane" sound effects within the confines of the cabin. Dialogue is presented cleanly and clearly and is always smartly prioritized. There are no issues with damage or distortion.

Abominable Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Introduction by Writer/Director Ryan Schifrin (1080i; 8:35) can be found under the Play Menu.


• Back to Genre: Making Abominable (480i; 37:15) is a fun EPK, with some good interviews and lots of snippets from the film.


• Deleted and Extended Scenes (480i; 6:14)


• Outtakes and Bloopers (480i; 4:09)


• Shadows (480i; 8:08) is Ryan Schifrin's student film from his USC days (in black and white).


• Basil and Mobius: No Rest for the Wicked (720p; 16:16) is another, evidently newer, short.


• The Original 2005 Version of Abominable (480i; 1:33:55)


• Poster and Still Gallery (480i; 3:42)


• Storyboard Gallery (480i; 2:43)


• Trailers includes two Trailers for Abominable (both 1080p; 1:19) as well as Trailers for a number of other MVD Rewind releases.


• Audio Commentary with Writer/Director Ryan Schifrin, Actors Matt McCoy and Jeffrey Combs is found under the Setup Menu.

Additionally, a (folded) mini poster is included in the keepcase.

Abominable Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Abominable has a winning concept and at least one fun kill, but it never really works up much "fear factor", and in fact comes across as patently silly some of the time. (Somewhat tangentially, but perhaps of interest to some, it looks like DreamWorks has an animated film about Bigfoot called Abominable that's due in late 2019.) Fans of the film should be generally pleased with the technical merits of this release, and the supplementary package is quite enjoyable.