Five members of the Towa University mountaineering
club meet with grave misfortune when two of their
members wind up vanishing in a blizzard during
a skiing trip in the mountains. Though one member,
Kaji, is found deceased, a student named Takeno
remains unaccounted for. What makes this affair
so bizarre is that unusual patches of fur and
large footprints are discovered nearby.
With the help of renowned zoologist Dr. Koizumi,
the three survivors form an expedition and return
to the area in Spring. However, when they venture
into the dreaded Garan Valley, their guides swiftly
take leave. One night, a mysterious figure wanders
into camp and begins to caress Michiko's face.
In the ensuing chaos, the unknown creature flees
with Takashi in close pursuit, but the latter
takes a rough tumble down a steep incline and
finds himself in the midst of another party. It
turns out that a carnival owner named Oba and
his henchmen were closely observing the students'
activities, concerned that they would stumble
across the monster that Oba was so diligently
seeking to exploit for profit.
After a violent struggle, Takashi takes yet another
tumble and awakens in a secret village, nursed
back to health by a local woman named Chika. It
turns out that this hidden community treats the
beast that Takashi had earlier encountered as
their master. The violent tribal chief, intolerant
of the interference of outsiders, harshly punishes
Chika and has Takashi strung from the edge of
a precipice. Appalled by such wretched treatment,
Chika makes a deal with two of Oba's henchmen,
both of whom she believes to be Takashi's fellow
students. She reveals the location of the monster's
cave in return for the promise of getting to meet
the other members of their party.
Meanwhile the enigmatic creature, resembling
some sort of an apeman, appears at the precipice
with a freshly killed carcass slung over his shoulders.
Takashi is reeled in by the beast, who surprisingly
sets the young man free. A series of churlish
grunts... and the monster is gone...
Oba's men arrive at the hulking hominid's cave
and capture the apeman's only son. When the boy's
father returns from the hunt, the child is used
as bait, and the drop of a net and swift application
of a sedative-soaked rag quickly subdue Oba's
quarry. The young one manages to escape and later
drops in on the caged lorry by which Oba prepares
to transport his prize out of the valley. Alas,
the child is also captured, but when his father
regains consciousness, he strangles the driver
through the bars and uses his immense strength
to pry open the back hatch. After a series of
unsuccessful shots, Oba's very last bullet downs
the beast's progeny. The enraged father makes
very short work of the sinister carnival owner,
and in an inconsolable rage, further attacks the
hidden village, killing the tribal chief in the
process.
Takashi finally makes it back to camp and reveals
that the furry behemoth he had earlier encountered
resembles reports of the Abominable Snowman! Shortly
thereafter, the lumbering cryptid approaches the
camp and in the ensuing confusion, Takeno's sister
Michiko is kidnapped! With the help of Chika,
they track the pair back to the Snowman's cave,
where they manage to locate Takeno's remains and
his final writings. It is revealed that Takeno
was actually cared for by the beast following
an injury sustained from an avalanche on the night
of the blizzard. Unfortunately, he was very weak
at the time of his writing and correctly predicted
that he wouldn't make it...
Further exploration reveals the existence in
the cave of the fly agaric, a mushroom Dr. Koizumi
believes killed off the majority of the Snowpeople.
Finally, the Snowman is discovered carrying Michiko
in his arms like a rag doll. Scaling a tall speleothem,
he ascends to a higher level of the cave as the
others follow in close pursuit. Chika bravely
distracts the Snowman, allowing Michiko to escape
the creature's grasp. During their struggle, the
Snowman endures two bullet wounds, and both he
and Chika ultimately plummet into a geothermically-active
pool below... likely boiled alive. |