Rating: R | Runtime: 93 minutes
Release Date: April 10th, 2026 (USA)
Studio: Well Go USA Entertainment
Director(s): Gene Gallerano & William Pisciotta
Writer(s): Gene Gallerano & William Pisciotta

We need monsters. Keep us from going places we don’t belong.

An oil man (Corbin Bernsen’s Merriell Sunday Sr.) and an explorer (William Sadler’s Hollis Bannister) journey into the arctic winds of the Alaskan territory circa 1947 to drill some wells. Well, that’s the story at least. The latter’s daughter Ellie (Brittany Allen), despite not having seen or heard from him in decades, knows her father would never partner with someone like Sunday for money. There must be another reason and it’s a mystery worth following.

Filmmakers Gene Gallerano and William Pisciotta pour a lot of expositional background into this character so she will reluctantly join Merriell Sunday Jr. (Eric Nelsen) on a rescue mission once their fathers and the rest of their team go radio silent after an SOS signal. Ellie wears a brace on her bad leg, hasn’t left her cartography office in years, and is very vocal about being able to make a difference in her field without leaving home.

Is her decision therefore a product of toiling for years without the respect she deserves? Perhaps an excuse to prove the doubters wrong by saving the man they all adore as a means to dismiss her? Or is it simply an opportunity to prove to herself that she’s more than her fear? That she can be the person Merriell Jr. says she is even if he’s merely blowing smoke to cajole her onto the team as a glorified mascot? Whatever the reason, her arrival gets The Yeti started.

One could say this is a result of Ellie being the only character on-screen given the time and effort to be more than a stereotypical, affected cliché en route to suffering a gruesome death at the claws of the titular beast (a fully practical, ten-foot creature that gets its moment to shine after what’s mainly a less-is-more approach to the carnage it inflicts). Merriell Jr. is her mirror (a child who uses his father’s shadow as a security blanket) and the others fulfill utilitarian roles.

There’s Dr. Lamb (Christina Bennett Lind, whose twin sister Heather also plays the character’s twin) and Parker (Elizabeth Cappuccino) as the team’s heart wanting to discover their stalker and understand its place in history and nature. There’s Dynamite Dan (Gallerano) spewing so much period-specific misogyny that he’s destined to go out early, Coates (Linc Hand) as their tortured protector, and Booker’s (Jim Cummings) calm and sensitive pragmatist on coms.

Each is here to progress the plot, augment the obvious tensions between Merriell Jr. and Ellie once the former starts (wrongly) positioning himself as “leader,” and become playthings for the monster hunting them with every step taken towards their outpost destination. They push and prod Ellie to a breaking point wherein she will either accept defeat via the voices she cannot escape or realize she’s had it in her to be the hero she was born to become … but on her own terms.

That’s the central theme to the film and the reason for all the parent/child dynamics whether Coates’ story about his daughter, Parker’s about her father, Merriell Jr. and Ellie falling prey to the large shoes they should never have been forced to fill, and the protective nature of an animal searching for its cub. It’s also about learning to accept that everything that goes wrong isn’t inherently your fault. That most of your guilt and shame is a product of external forces.

The Yeti is much more dramatic and heartfelt in its narrative progression and aesthetic style as a result. Yes, there’s an ample amount of blood and gore to satisfy the horror lovers taking a chance on a low-budget, soundstage-shot (in my hometown of Buffalo, NY) indie such as this, but the feel of the whole (from Joel Froome’s lingering close-ups to John Hunter’s score) is conversely driven by emotion. Allen, Cummings, Hand, and Lind lead the way there.

Nelsen adds some nice touches too, though. His Merriell Jr. does well to show what happens when fear consumes rather than inspire (as it does Ellie). We believe it when he apologizes despite doing exactly what he apologized for again shortly after. We believe that he has a good heart even as he ignores it to pretend to be the man his father wants him to be. It’s a tragic character that’s necessary to understanding how strong Ellie is by comparison.

Does the script give Allen enough to really run with that? Maybe not. But the filmmakers are leaning into their heightened genre trappings so the whole is marketable to horror audiences and thus don’t quite have the room to dedicate to the characters as you might hope. This is a surprisingly big cast and each actor needs a little time of their own to be more than just a statistic, so we must accept that Ellie’s trajectory towards self-confidence is enough.

I’d argue it is because that’s literally the main through line. How does Ellie go from teacher in self-exile to explorer realizing all the tools necessary to survive were inside her the whole time? I’ve also seen people complaining her inevitable reunion with dad is lacking because of his actions, but they’re missing the point. Everything they dislike about it is intentional because it confirms he was always in the wrong. Ellie never needed him. She’s succeeded despite him.

---

Corbin Bernsen and Eric Nelsen in THE YETI; courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment.