In Shriek of the Mutilated, one of the few films in which director Michael Findlay does not indulge his psychosexual kinks, college professor Dr. Prell (Alan Brock) takes four of his students on a field trip to Boot Island, in hopes of finding and capturing a yeti. Seven years earlier, a similar sojourn ended in tragedy, but in the immortal words of the great philosopher Shoeshine Boy, aka Underdog, if at first you don’t succeed, try, try again.
Their mission’s HQ is the home of Prell’s fellow academic, Dr. Werner (Tawm Ellis), who employs a mute and “harmless old buzzard” American Indian, Laughing Crow (Ivan Agar, 1968’s Behind Locked Doors), to do his bidding. (His tasks include the preparation of meals; one Laughing Crow recipe is human head stew.) With Prell barking orders, the armed students venture into the woods to rustle up a yeti; I am spoiling nothing by noting that not only do they find their prey, but become the prey.
Shriek will make you do just that, with the kind of delight only offered by the well-meaning Bs. While I’m not sure what was up with the decapitation prologue since it has no bearing on the film that follows, Findlay lucked into an actual story — not his usual playing field — but it’s still rife with goofiness. For example, scored by Hot Butter’s novelty hit “Popcorn,” an early party scene has Spencer (Tom Grail), a survivor of Prell’s previous yeti hunt, flip the fuck out when he learns his old prof is still obsessing over such an abominable quest. So naturally, Spencer goes home, slits the throat of his wife (Luci Brandt) and, still clothed, hops in the tub with a can of Coors. While he soaks and scrubs and burps, his not-quite-dead spouse manages to crawl into the bathroom and toss a plugged-in radio in with him. Why this sequence merits inclusion is not worth pursuing.
Anyhoo, that yeti: Despite initial camera tricks (Findlay’s wife, Roberta, handled cinematography) to keep him obscured, Shriek of the Mutilated gives viewers plenty of plain-sighted views of the creature with “a rank, foul odor,” so worry not about being gypped. (Worry plenty about amateurish performances, since few cast members have a filmography that goes beyond a credit of one.) The monster looks like Disney’s Shaggy Dog standing upright. The uncredited man within the hirsute suit is producer Ed Adlum, who co-wrote with his Invasion of the Blood Farmers partner, Ed Kelleher, and the two deserve some sort of recognition for their laughable twist ending. I mean, how often can one say it would satisfy the disparate fan bases of Martha Stewart and Herschell Gordon Lewis? —Rod Lott
However one pulls off a successful documentary about the making of a book, Kent Jones has done it with Hitchcock/Truffaut. Borrowing its title from the 
Although film cameras ironically were not present for the men’s talks, an audio recorder was; Jones lucks into having their actual voices at his show-don’t-tell disposal, along with a smattering of behind-the-scenes photographs. Without these, the doc would lose what makes it special. He doesn’t rely solely on his subjects, either, opening the floor to such celebrity admirers as Martin Scorsese, David Fincher and Wes Anderson, all avowed fans of the classic book, which has inspired and informed work of their own. 
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