One of two films made at the same time in South (or was it North?) Dakota – the other was Ski Troop Attack – for Roger Corman’s Filmgroup. Like that, it stars Michael Forest and was written by the legendary Charles B. Griffith. The script is a remake of an earlier Griffith/Corman work, Thunder Over Hawaii, about a group of criminals who pull off a heist and flee to an exotic, distant location. In Thunder it was the islands, in this one it’s a ski resort. The latter factor gives this overtones of High Sierra; of course the Key Largo influence is obvious too.
It’s not a bad script, better than Ski Troop Attack, with interesting characters. The group of criminals include the head gangster's moll who is attracted to the dull but decent stick who leads the group across country on skis, not knowing they are criminals. (The baddy’s girl falling for the goodie was used in Atlas).
This starts our fairly interestingly – some neat dynamics among the gangsters, the threat of the creature (which turns people into webs), there is movement going from hotel to skiing. But then it gets bogged down with lots of chat the characters don’t really develop and not enough monster stuff. As for monster action, the idea of people being trapped in webs is creepy and effective, actually quite low budget scary (the creature itself isn’t scary, it’s a man with a lot of hair). A promising debut from director Monte Hellman.
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