“Tomorrow we may find out whether the Snow Devils really exist.”
A weather station in the Himalayas is attacked. The crew is killed and the commander, Captain Harris (Renato Baldini) is missing. Commander Rod Jackson (Giacomo Rossi-Stuart) and his partner Frank Pulasky (Goffredo Ungar), from the space station Gamma One have been assigned to the case.
Tales of Yeti type creatures being responsible for the attack get back to Jackson. The local legend calls them the Blue Devils. Jackson and Pulasky hire a Sherpa guide named Sharu (Wilbert Bradley) to take them into the frozen wilderness. Harris’s fiancée Lisa Nielson (Ombretta Colli) secretly joins the caravan into the mountains. The bearers have also heard about the Blue Devils and are afraid. During the night they abandon the caravan. The only ones left to continue the search are Jackson, Pulasky, Lisa and the Sherpa Sharu.
They stumble upon a cave. While exploring it they are captured by a race of bluish giants. The leader snow devil (Giuliano Raffaelli) tells them they are a race from a doomed solar system. They have established a base in the Arctic. They are called the Aytia and they are from a frozen world. They plan on taking over Earth and making it an ice planet. To do that they need to first melt the polar ice caps. Once the planet is flooded, they can freeze it. Their home base is on one of Jupiter’s moons. Once the ice caps are melted, they will invade Earth. Apparently Bill Nye, the science guy, is wrong. Climate change is not the fault of humans but of giant blue skinned Snow Devils. Jackson and his crew manage to sabotage the secret base in the Arctic, but the climate catastrophes are still happening. Jackson needs to destroy the alien home base on Jupiter’s moon, or Earth will be flooded.
“The Snow Devils” was released in 1967 and was directed by Antonio Margheriti. It is the fourth and last in what is known as the Gamma One Quadrilogy, a series of four movies by Margheriti in cooperation with MGM that take place on or around a futuristic space station, Gamma One. All four movies were made back to back in 1964 and 1965. Originally made to be made for TV movies they were released theatrically in some countries.
A lot of the actors from “War Between the Planets” are also in “The Snow Devils”. Some are reprising their roles. Some have similar roles but different names and some have totally different roles and names. It can get a little confusing. For example; Ombretta Colli who played Lt Terry Sanchez and Jackson’s girlfriend in “War” is now Lisa Nielson in “Snow”. Halina Zalewska who played Janet Norton in “War” is now Lt. Teri Sanchez and Jackson’s girlfriend in “Snow”.
There is also some confusion as to which movie belongs in what sequence. Most sources I’ve been able to find fix the sequence as; 1. “The Wild, Wild Planet” 2. “The War of the Planets” 3. “War Between the Planets” (also known as “Planet on the Prowl” to some die hards) 4. “The Snow Devils”.
“The Snow Devils” has gotten a lot of flack for being a crappy movie and the worst of the bunch. Not fair. How can you hate a movie about blue space Yetis? To me “Wild, Wild Planet” was the best and I was intrigued by the thought of a rogue planet being a life form. As for the remaining two Gamma One movies, at least the monster in “The Snow Devils” was something original and not just a bunch of green smoke.