Grizzly (1976)

Watching Grizzly makes one long for the good old days when movies were pure, blatant rip-offs and not prissy "re-imaginings" or worse yet, the dreaded "re-interpretation". Michael Bay (2003’s TCM), Zombo and I are talking to you buddy. Anyone with a wee bit of horror movie knowledge knows what film Grizzly is cashing in on (hint: it has a shark in it), and the producers of this film will be the last ones to tell you that their movie is "not a rip-off', or the ever popular "our script was written way before theirs". You know, the typical babble that emanates whenever someone is accused of doing a copycat film. And while Grizzly, is indeed a rip off, and the first major one of the previously mentioned shark movie, it’s refreshing to hearken back to a day and age when rip-offs were a practically new idea...at least in the realm of nature gone mad kind of flicks.

Grizzly is really just Jaws on land (duh), where we get an eighteen foot grizzly munching on campers in a state park. Every character from Jaws is recreated practically verbatim, as we get a Brody type park ranger, a Hooper styled naturalist, a mayor who refuses to close the state park...you get the idea. The whole thing basically works in the following fashion.

1.) Bear mauls helpless camper.
2.) Rangers try to figure out how to capture bear.
3.) Bear mauls helpless camper.
4.) Rangers try to figure out how to capture bear.
5.) Bear mauls helpless camper.

Hmmm...notice the pattern here? What works for Grizzly is that the acting is fairly decent, with my man Christopher George doing a terrific job as the head park ranger (i.e. Chief Brody) who’s trying to outwit the killer bear. It may take him awhile to do it, but Mr. George is the man for the job. To be fair to our rangers, this is a prehistoric grizzly, so we’re told, who’s just a tad smarter than the average bear or the average park ranger for that matter. To be sure, average bear this guy ain’t, as he tears apart people/lookout towers/helicopters with gleeful abandon. This bear is pissed and mighty hungry. The kill scenes themselves are somewhat laughable, but charming in their own "this movie was made thirty years ago" kind of way. They go something like this. Nitwit decides to wander out in the woods, camera cuts to bear POV shot, nitwit hears "something", big fake bear paw worn by extra lops off nitwit’s head. While listening to the radio spots on the DVD’s extras it’s amazing to hear the ads proclaim this as being rated PG. While fake as all get out, the attacks are rather bloody with a particularly disturbing scene of a young child becoming grizzly fodder. You won’t see that nowadays friends, and I don’t think this would get a PG rating today.

On the negative side, some rather slow points in the movie bog down the pacing, and while the acting is fairly decent, not all of the actor’s scenes quite “gel” as it were. However, the beautiful cinematography, pissed as all hell killer bear attacks and Christopher George chewing the scenery make it all worthwhile. Makes you long for the days when rip-offs were rip-offs...grrrrrrrrrr.