What would you get if you took out the water, shark, Oscar-caliber acting, solid script and overall power of Jaws and replaced it with a forest, a grizzly bear, C-grade acting, a script that was written by a crazy man and ended up with a film that has absolutely nothing going for it except laughs?  You’d get Grizzly: a film that has almost nothing going for it except for laughs, explosions and a baby-meets-bear scene that has to be seen to be believed.  It almost comes off as a spoof on Jaws, except you can tell the filmmakers were actually trying to make a good film, and because it was so horrible it falls into the “so-bad-it’s-good” category.

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Now, when I say that it ripped off Jaws, I don’t mean in the sense of all the creature-run-amuck films to come out since 1975 (Alligator, Deep Blue Sea, Anaconda).  No, no.  I mean they literally ripped-off EVERYTHING in Jaws.  I’m surprised Spielberg, or anyone at Universal for that matter, has let this film slide for so long.  I don’t even need to give a plot synopsis because if you’ve seen Jaws (and who hasn’t?), then you’ve seen Grizzly.  You’ve got your Police Chief (Christopher George), the modern thinking man (Andrew Prine) and the nature badass (Richard Jaeckel).  Hell, they even threw in the non-believing Park Supervisor, to stand in for the Mayor in Jaws, (Joe Dorsey).  I mean, based on my description take a wild guess at how this is going to end, and you’re probably right.

But, the blatant ripping-off of Jaws is what makes the film so great.  They take scenes that were left to the audience’s imagination and made them fully realized.  Take the first attack sequence.  In Jaws we’re given amazing underwater shots, imitating the shark as it moves gracefully through the murky water, while cutting back and forth with a raging party of drunken kids.  This sets up the rest of the movie, and brings the tension to a boiling point.  In Grizzly the film opens with the camera imitating a bear, pushing through underbrush while some semi-thrilling music plays.  The scene cuts back and forth between the camera and two girls getting ready to leave their campsite for the day.  One girl goes off to “do her business” leaving the other girl behind at the campsite.  What happens next is so over-the-top as the bear ends of mauling both women.  The fake bear arm comes into view and the fun begins as Grizzly kicks off with two extremely campy, bloody deaths.

Remember that excellent scene from Jaws where Quint (Robert Shaw) gives his stirring speech about how his ship went down during the war?  It was powerful, moving and unforgettable.  In Grizzly, we get a similar speech that has none of the emotion of sway.  Here’s the speech given in Grizzly by Don (Andrew Prine):

Don: Well let me tell you a little story boy. A long time ago their was a tribe of Indians up here in these woods. They were all laying down in these parts… or something I can’t remember. Any way these herd of grizzlies smelt them out. They came in an they ate them. They thorn them all up. Little children, sick ones everybody! Their were few braves to go out on the hunt. They came back and them grizzlies turned on them! So their you got yourself a little situation. A whole herd of man-eating grizzlies. Just running around tearing up them Indians!

Arthur Scott: That’s kind of hard to believe Don.

Don: Unless of course you happen to be one of them Indians!

Grizzly drags for long periods of time.  In between bear attacks or ridiculous banter, the audience has to suffer through periods of helicopter shots, that look nice at first, but after a while it would just be better to get on with the story.  Besides the four main characters the actors are extremely weak and one-dimensional.  I guess that’s what I should have expected from a film that was churned out as quickly as possible to bank on the Jaws phenomena, but I guess I hoped for more.  I’d also like to point out that the poster says the grizzly is 18 feet, the characters say it is 15 feet, and the largest one caught (I think) is 12 feet. 

That’s not to say that Grizzly isn’t a super entertaining flick.  Because it is.  The grizzly kicks all sorts of ass, the characters try their best to stop the beast and along the way we learn a few key points, such as:  don’t leave your child unattended with a rooster in the front yard, don’t use perfume in the woods, don’t get naked for no good reason in the forest and, most importantly, don’t, whatever you do, ignore the voice of reason in a park ranger.  It’ll ruin your tourist season.  When the big climax came a guy in the row behind me said, “That was a bit overkill, don’t you think!” and in regards to the scene he was talking about yes it was, but it was awesome.

Overall, Grizzly is an entertaining film, piggybacking on the success of a much better, well-written film.  I recommend it to any fan of creature-run-amuck films, as they are almost always entertaining and worth wasting the hour and half drinking beers and laughing at the screen. 

Kelly: But there’s something I’m not doing!

Allison Corwin: Sure you’re not killing the bear!

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Don Stober: If ya feel a wet snout in ya face, whatever you do, don’t move. And don’t kiss it back ’cause it ain’t me.