Grizzly (1976)

Another Sunday means it’s time for another installment in our A-To-Z watch through. This week, for the letter “G”, we are heading into the woods with Grizzly (1976).

Title: Grizzly

Director: William Girdler

Released: May 21, 1976

Available to stream on: Shudder and Freevee

IMDb synopsis: An eighteen-foot-tall grizzly bear terrorizes a state park, leaving it up to a Park Ranger to save the day.

A helicopter is flying over Generic National Park when the pilot informs us that the woods below remain untouched since Native American inhabited the land. Chief Park Ranger Michael Kelly (Christopher George) is about to find out just how untouched as he and Allison Corwin (Joan McCall) decide to see if they can find two female hikers. Well, it turns out that they did find the hikers, just not before something else got to them and tore them to pieces first.

While at the hospital, Chief Ranger Kelly is informed that it was a bear that killed the two female hikers. Kelly’s boss, Supervisor Kittridge (Joe Dorsey) blames this on Kelly since he was to be sure that all bears were moved prior to tourist season. After some brief back and forth over whether the park should stay open, Kittridge wins out, the park stays open. As a compromise, hikers are removed from the mountain and the campers are restricted to the lowland areas. But someone still needs to take care of that pesky bear.

The hunt is on. How will an eighteen-foot grizzly be stopped? Does the bear develop a refined taste for human flesh? Will man or beast prevail?

If you’re sitting there thinking, “Hey, this sounds like if Jaws was in the woods.”, you’d be correct. This is exactly what you’d get if Jaws took place in the woods…and wasn’t any good. There are points where it feels like you’re watching a badly dubbed foreign film. The writing and acting are both equally difficult to try and get past.

But hey, let’s not focus on the negatives. There has to be some positives in this, right? Well, believe it or not there are. These positives, they rely heavily on the bear wreaking havoc and the surprising amount of gore in what is a PG rated film.

For example, when one of the hikers loses their arm to the bear, it’s shot in a way that makes it look like the bear high fived the arm clean off of the hiker. There’s the waterfall scene that looks like it’s about to turn into a shampoo commercial before the bear hilariously covers the woman’s mouth as it drags her into the cave. We can’t not mention the horse scene that is memorable for all the wrong reasons. Much like the hiker’s arm before, this horse has its head swiped clean off by our grizzly bear.

However, the best it most certainly saved for last. Yes, that’s right, the bazooka scene. Because who doesn’t carry a bazooka in their helicopter at all times? It is only fitting that a movie as ridiculous as Grizzly ends with a bazooka.

I always say that everything deserves at least one viewing, and I stand by that. But if you’ve already seen Grizzly (1976) and this somehow made you feel like you needed to watch it instead, don’t. Do yourself a favor and just watch the fan-made body count videos like the one below. You get all the best parts of the movie and save yourself an hour and twenty-nine minutes in the meantime.

Yeah, this was bad. But it wasn’t exactly “so bad it’s good”. Sure, it had moments, but overall, this was a rough watch. Bonus half a star though for being able to pack that much gore into a PG movie.

So, what are your thoughts on Grizzly (1976)? Let me know in the comments below or by reaching out on social media!

You know what to do, get those recommendations in for the what the letter “H” watch should be. I’ll announce it across social media come Wednesday evening.