As you can imagine its about a Grizzly bear running amok in an American National Park and eating the campers. There are some tense moments amongst the ranger chatter, especially as the beast approaches its prey and virtually no-one goes home without a bear hug.
It was panned at the time of its release as a brazen JAWS clone and to be fair there are many elements that the director has nicked from Speilberg: the der-der music during stalking, the flying severed arm and most starkly, the ending, which I've leave at that in case you watch it!
But I enjoyed GRIZZLY. I always wanted to be a National Park ranger in the UK. I studied nature conservation for 3 years including national park management but alas in the 80's all the jobs were in Cities and I ended up part of the urban conservation 'industry' and got based in a Leeds environmental charity, where I stayed for 20 years! I am a creature of habit if nothing else! I certainly never came across any Grizzly bears.
I also like GRIZZLY because it captures something I imagine has gone in the US, the atmospheric olde-worlde mountain restaurant where the walls are made of redwood logs and the big wood fire is always burning, casting a soft light onto healthy-looking hikers sipping brandy from huge bowled glasses. Aah.
It also reminds me of two other films I enjoyed; Prophecy about a mutated bear monster and the very similar Snowbeast repleat with chisel-jawed mountain men too. Grizzly was very successful financially and I bet it beat these two into a cocked hat.
GRIZZLY had one 'official' bit of merchandise as far as I can tell and its quite sought after by the looks of it: the GRIZZLY rubber bear by Imperial Toys [yes, they who brought us Apollo Moon Exploring!].
The Imperial bear seems to have been an example of the 'hey, quick, slap a header card on that old toy and get it in the shops and we'll make a few bucks!" school of marketing!
They already had a growling polar bear in stock and when GRIZZLY came out they painted it and shipped it out. I imagine the header card was the first thing to go and few will have survived unlike the tough rubber bear.
Having said that I found this pic online of three Imperial Grizzlies all with their 'official' card labels present and correct! Looking at it again I see that the word Grizzly, in its correct film font, is TM'd on the card. Could Imperial have actually got a licence for this toy?
Did you or do you have a Grizzly?
I have not seen the film, but the movie poster reminds me of the Aurora Prehistoric Scenes Cave Bear. The pose is very similar. This kit was originally to have been a Grizzly Bear, and part of the Wildlife series, but never made it in to production. In the 1970s it was resurrected as a Cave Bear. Atlantis announced they were re-issuing this kit last year - it is now due out in early 2024.
ReplyDeleteFascinating Paul. You really know your kits!
DeleteAs far as Predator films go, I never daw Grizzly, but I did see Prophecy. I suppose that's more of a "mutant on the loose" flick as opposed to a "nature's revenge on Man" movie.
ReplyDeleteA bona fide eco-horror Looey!
Delete