Snow Devils (1967)

La Morte viene dal pianeta Aytin
Snow Demons
Space Devils
The Devil Men from Space
Gamma I Quadrilogy Vol. 4

Cast:

Giacomo Rossi-Stuart is Cmdr. Rod Jackson
Ombretta Colli is Lisa Nielson
Renato Baldini is Capt. Frank Pulasky
Wilbert "I was an assistant choreographer for Ferris Bueller's Day Off?!?!" Bradley is Sharu
Enzo Fiermonte is General Norton

What the really short attempt of plot is:

Aliens plot to freeze the Earth as a replacement for their doomed home planet.

Plot:

In a futuristic weather station in the Himalayas, the window breaks and something strikes.

On Space Station Gamma 1, General Norton orders to talk with Commander Rod Jackson or his exec, Captain Frank Pulaski. Unfortunately, both men are on shore duty. Let the video calls ensue. Jackson is finally found.

Jackson and Pulaski return to Space Command and see how the glaciers are acting strange. At HQ, he learns that the temperatures have risen around the glaciers. Some sort of energy beam is being emitted from the Himalayas. Norton tells him about the weather station being destroyed, everyone killed except for Lieutenant Jim Harris who disappeared, and of strange animal tracks left behind. Jackson and Pulaski are to handle things.

Jackson and Pulaski are to act like scientists when they meet the head porter, Sharu. Later he overhears the men talk about the Yeti. Lisa, Harris’s fiancée, is sure that her man is still alive but is forbidden from coming on the expedition. However, the discussion is ended when the group’s heli-jet explodes. They’ll have to climb the mountain now.

Weather reports about climactic shift and flood conditions are explained in pseudo-Day after Tomorrow fashion.

The intrepid men trek up the mountainside. Jackson radios General Norton. Trodding on, they ponder how to handle the Abominable Snowman. The porters refuse to go any farther. Jackson pays them more to keep going. It is discovered that Lisa snuck along with the group disguising herself as a porter.

Jackson has to put the movies on Lisa.

The group is down to Jackson, Pulaski, Sharu, and Lisa. Taking shelter in a cave, Lisa stays behind while the others explore. The Yeti grabs her. Jackson and Pulaski trail her when another Yeti gets Sharu. Jackson versus the Yeti. Kung Fu chops can only be effective for so long. Lisa and Sharu are taken to the others.

They are taken to the alien base. The ape-men like aliens come from a cold world that is about to be destroyed. They plan on melting the polar icecaps and then to refreeze them when the floods are over the world to create a massive glacial plain. It is discovered that Lieutenant Jim is still alive.

Using the air vent in the cell to escape, they reach a storage room. Rigging up a way to create ether to gas the aliens to sleep is fixed. Gassing the Yetis ensues. The alien leader is the last one left conscious. He opens fire on our heroes who dodge the blasts. Jackson rushes the leader and knocks him off of a second floor scaffold.

They contact General Norton. Back at United Democracies Space Command base, Jackson and Pulaski report. The weather is still acting strangely. The aliens have another base that Jackson must find.

Rocket launch to Gamma 1 ensues. Frazzled scientists keep up the search before eventually finding it. 3 ships take off towards Jupiter and must go through a fierce meteor storm.

They detect the advanced alien base on Callisto. Jackson sends a scout ship out but is promptly destroyed. An energy field surrounds the moon. It prevents electronics from entering like missiles. Seeing a meteor go through the field, Jackson gets an idea.

Jackson’s ships head for the asteroid field. They manage to rig numerous cables to asteroids and tow them back to towards the alien base and cut them free the meteors head straight through the screen at the base. Let the explosions ensues.

Jackson, Pulaski, etc take off on leave with all being well.

What I say:

Italy is known for running a genre into the ground after seeing one movie actually be successful. It was done with barbarians, the post apocalpyse, zombies, pick any sub-genre of sci-fi or horror they have probably run it into the groung...Can't say I'm too familiar with the 1960s sci-fi Italian movies especially the other movies in the Gamma 1 series: The Wild, Wild Planet, War of the Planets, Planet on the Prowl, this weeks review, Snow Devils. Normally, I try to review movies in sequence. This is one of the cases that's not going to happen. From my research (yes, I try to research these movies to some degree so quit laughing), they were mainly filmed with all the same props and actors but continuity is as a foreign word as Ghar'Rhnasti is to me.

The 1960s sci-fi movies typically had the swinging sci-fi vibe of the era. Star Trek inspired quite a bit of this subgenre but wasn't the original inspiration. The typical 60s sci-fi had the future was set a few decades ahead with easy space travel, high technology but no PSP or I-Pod. The future only had hot chicks in miniskirts that were typically nurses almost always falling over the rugged he-manly military officers that probably would have made Patton tell them to not act as smug. At least that was what I learned from Green Slime.

Somehow, Commander Jackson makes Captain Kirk seem deep and insightful. Think about that for a minute. Well, there are still some commanders in 60s Italian sci-fi movies like Vince Rankin in the Green Slime that make Commander Jackson seem more humble than Mother Theresa.

Does the United Nations have a copyright to prevent being mentioned in movies? That can't be why this movie has the United Democracies Space Command. Remember this was more than 25 years before the international space station was launched. So, some sort of new space organization would have been logical, especially since ther was never any indication of far in the future this movie was set whether it was set in the 1980s or 1990s.

Normally, after the heroes destroy the evil aliens base, that it. However, this time after destroying the Earth base, the offplanet base still has to be finished off, too. Well, they trod over a snow clad mountain and battled evil aliens. What is the point of having 60s sci-fi without at least one rocket ship? The toy rocket agaist a dark background shows the travels through space.

Cold-blooded evil aliens, and Yetis trying to freeze Earth. Evil aliens plan on flooding the world. Climate changing stuff was never really touched in 60s sci-fi movies. As the decades have passed, however, global warming isn't that insidious enough unless a massive conspiracy of industrialists are involved in some manner. After the massive flooding, the aliens will then re-freeze the world whether using a giant refrigerator with its door open or not was left undiscussed, to create a massive ice plain that covers most of the surface area of the planet.

Quotable Dialogue
You are a scientist from Muoscow?"
"Isn't this where the snow devils are supposed to live?"
"So this is night life in Garundi?"
"At 10,000 foot mark, thermographic reads normal."
"You're aliens from another world?"
Morals of the Story
Space stations resemble metallic bicycle wheels.
Bikini miniature golf for hot nobility chicks is the GREATEST!
Flames cause avalanches.
All air vents are human sized.
The military can draft meteorologists.
Aliens wear unitards.
Fires can burn without any oxygen in space.
Jupiter has no rings.