One from the Vaults: Shriek of the Mutilated

Witness the terror as four grad students follow their obsessed professor into the woods of North Eastern New York in search of the mysterious and elusive yeti! Marvel at the power of the mythical beast! Quake in terror as tragedy strikes! This, my friends, is the field trip of the damned, and no one gets out alive!

 

Shriek of the Mutilated bursts onto the screen from the past like an aged stripper out of the top of a stale birthday cake. This gem from 1974 is truly something else. Terrible special effects, night scenes shot entirely in broad daylight without even the benefit of a blue filter, barely audible dialog, barely any mutilation, very little shrieking, and the worst yeti costume ever on film, 'Mutilated' would have been prime fodder for an episode of MST3K.

 

Dr. Prell (Alan Brock) teaches archeology, or anthropology, or possibly cryptozoology at the local university. His classes are not popular, but he still manages to convince his four students, Karen, Keith, Tom, and Lynn, to drive out to a heavily forested island with him in search of a yeti. The night before their fateful trip, several of the students go to a party where they encounter one of Prell's former students. The lone survivor from Prell's previous field trip, Spencer St. Claire is all sorts of off his rocker and a practicing alcoholic on top of it. Hearing that the students are going out to the woods, he launches into a drunken diatribe about the horrible fate that befell his fellow classmates, and how Prell is to blame. In a drunken stupor, he and his girlfriend go home where he slices her throat and she dumps a toaster into his bathtub... all because of Prell and the yeti!

 

The students pay no attention, and the next morning they join Prell and drive out to the island. They meet up with Prell's colleague, Dr. Karl Werner, who lives on the island with Laughing Crow, his manservant and possible former member of the Village People. Werner informs the group that he heard the yeti howling the night before. The next day the group sets out to see if they can find the beast, when tragedy strikes One by one the students begin dying at the enormous hands of the creature. Prell, more determined than ever to capture the beast, decides the only solution is to use their corpses at bait.

 

It's about this time that the average viewer may begin to wonder why Prell isn't at all worried that this is the second group of students he's inadvertently led to their deaths, how he's managed to hang onto this teaching license, or why he isn't concerned about being charged with abuse of a corpse. With half his young students dead, it is suddenly revealed that the whole yeti story is a ruse designed so that Prell and Werner can kill them all and have all their cannibal friends over for breakfast!  

 

The cannibal sub-plot shouldn't come as any surprise to viewers who have managed to stay awake this long into the movie, because all through the firm Dr. Prell and his friends treat the students to tasty meals made from 'gin sung'. This fabulous mystery meat can be had at one exclusive restaurant near the school, and possibly tastes something like a sick bear. Suddenly our two kindly old doctors are sharing a snifter of brandy while congratulating each other over scaring one of the girls to death and making calls to the members of their coven that breakfast is on. Oh, it's on, my friends! It is on!

 

The second half of the story is a riot. Prell's 'coven' is really just a group of weirdos from around the globe (the missing members from the Village People?) in town to sample the local meat. One of the students, Keith, is kept alive to carry the yeti myth back to town, but lo and behold he finds out about the cannibalistic cult and vows to make Prell pay. But wait! Prell, in a 'tricky' psychological ploy, convinces Keith not turn him in based on the fact that Keith liked the gin sung. He's just as guilty of enjoying the taste of human flesh, so he might as well join Prell and guests as they carve up Keith's girlfriend. Keith is forced to do some serious soul searching and as himself the most difficult of questions: White meat, or dark?

 

Shriek of the Mutilated is silly, predictable, but still managed to be great for a few laughs. Highly recommended for a Saturday afternoon matinee.