The Beast and the Vixens — The Beast and the Vixens ( Blu Ray)
The Beast and the Vixens (aka The Beauties and the Beast, and Desperately Seeking Yeti) is a 1974 erotic/ comedy/ bigfoot horror movie from director Ray Nadeau (producer of Snakes, Ride the Hot Wind and The Midnight Graduate), The Beast and the Vixens remains his only directorial effort. The cast includes Jacqueline Giroux (To Live and Die in LA, American Sunset and The Sexcapades of Don Diego), Russ Meyer alumni, Uschi Digard (Beneath the Valley of the Ultravixens, Supervixens and Ilsa, Harem Keeper of the Oil Sheiks), Marius Mazmanian (The Vanishing, Wham Bam Thank You Spaceman and Video Vixens) and Susan Westcott (Drop Out, Blood of Ghastly Horror and Hollywood Babylon)
Shot on location at Big Bear Lake in California, The Beast and the Vixens tells the story of a sex crazed yeti roaming the woods looking for beautiful young women to kidnap and hold prisoner in his cave. That really is about all there is to this one. Enter into this scenario, a couple of lovely young ladies (Digard and Giroux) who are staying in a cabin in the woods. They end up hooking up with a bunch of hippies who live in a local commune. The hippies have been leaving out food for the last 8 months for the creature without realising what it was.
The Beast and the Vixens may be the most ineptly made film of all time. This trashy sleezefest is nothing more than a bad excuse for some of the worst yeti makeup you are ever going to see, and some cheap exploitative soft-core sex, however it is gloriously good, trashy fun. Ok, so it has barely any storyline, the cast is dreadful, and the whole thing looks like a bunch of home movies strung together with some of the worst cutting I’ve ever seen, but none of that manages to spoil your enjoyment. There were originally two versions of the movie created, a horror one and a soft-core porn version. Dark Force has used surviving 35mm prints of the horror version and re-added the sex scenes. My highlight of the movie is the utterly ridiculous beast, which is actually a bloke in a really awful gorilla suit and some of the worst monster makeup I’ve ever seen, but that’s part of its charm.
This new Blu-Ray release from Dark Force features an 80-minute cut of the movie that uses 35mm prints of the horror version of the movie and re-adds the softcore sex scenes. This new 2k scan means it looks better than it has any right to look. The only bonus material is a rather interesting audio commentary track from Joe Rubin from Vinegar Syndrome films and David Gregory from Severin. Overall, this is a gloriously trashy slice of sleaze that should be one of the worst movies ever made, but it’s not, it’s good, ineptly created fun that I find far more interesting than the latest instalment of the Scream or Paranormal Activity franchises.