February 2, 2025 • 40 mins
This week on Shelf Criticism, we’re trekking deep into the wilderness to examine Grizzly (1976), a film that asks, “What if Jaws, but with a bear?” and answers with a bazooka.
Yes, this unabashed Jaws ripoff swaps the ocean for a national park, a great white for a 2,000-pound prehistoric grizzly, and Quint’s boat for a helicopter that a bear literally swats out of the sky. And somehow, Grizzly still tries to play it straight.
Join Stephen as he breaks down the many, many, many similarities between Spielberg’s classic and this landlocked imitation, marvels at the campy absurdity, and shares some truly ridiculous behind-the-scenes trivia—including how our terrifying monster, Teddy the bear, was really just hoping for a marshmallow.
Plus, in Shelfless Endeavors, Stephen finally made it back to the theater to check out Wolf Man, a film with solid acting, fantastic sound design, and a whole lot of underlighting (because apparently, seeing what’s happening in a horror movie is out of fashion).
So, grab your bear spray—or maybe a bazooka—and join us1 for another episode of Shelf Criticism!
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
(00:00):
Boy, if you ain't a big bag of grits, what the hell you done if you caught that big brown?
(00:05):
It isn't a big brown. It's a grizzly.
Grizzly?
Mm-hmm.
Ain't no grizzlies up here. I used to hunt these woods for years. It can't be a grizzly.
Come on, Scotty, they were killed off years ago. Big bounty on them, remember?
This was revived.
I'm telling you, it can't be.
I'm telling you, we got a grizzly and then some.
(00:38):
Welcome to Shelf Criticism. Meet your host, Stephen, a scholar of literature and film by day,
and by night, a cinematic archaeologist with a penchant for everything from art house to popular to outright trash cinema.
Over the past quarter century, Stephen has amassed an eclectic DVD collection,
now occupying five shells of a curio cabinet in his living room.
(00:59):
Each week, he bravely selects one of these titles to dissect.
Join him as he unearths everything from obscure gems to cinematic missteps.
From blockbuster hits to forgotten flops, each film gets the critical once over it probably doesn't deserve but will absolutely receive.
So grab your popcorn and settle in.
It's time to dive into the diverse world of Shelf Criticism.
(01:30):
Welcome to another episode of Shelf Criticism.
We're skipping along through the second season or perhaps limping along.
My apologies for the delay in dropping this episode.
Apparently, since all the cool kids were doing it, I decided to go and try out that influenza thing.
0 out of 10 would not recommend.
But after several days now of fever and chills and hacking and cursing my white blood cells for not working hard enough,
(01:54):
I'm at least somewhat slowly approaching my ray of sunshine self again.
Of course, it had to hit at the beginning of the busiest month of my entire year, but alas,
life doesn't always make the same plans we do, right?
We began in December on this show with a run of Christmas films.
Pause to reflect on the year-end film that was for New Year's.
(02:16):
And oh yeah, to hate on Christmas vacation to Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure,
which literally no hyperbole is the worst film ever made.
Ever.
And I'm going to keep banging that drum.
With that unpleasant experience behind us though, we're moving ahead to the next major event of the nascent New Year.
No, no, not Valentine's Day.
I suppose I could do a romantic comedy for that date, but then I'd have to watch a romantic comedy.
(02:39):
So, nah.
No, I'm talking about the George Lindsay UNA Film Festival.
It's always one of my favorite events of the year, and as always, I'm involved in the planning, hospitality, and the Q&A sessions.
This year we're also holding a series of discussions at the Florence Lauderdale Public Library,
all of which are centered around the idea of costuming in film, which will be featured at the film festival.
So, put this on pause and grab your calendar, because I'm about to throw some dates at you.
(03:03):
Okay, fine. Open your calendar app up then.
I guess I'm the only old man who still has a physical planner he writes in.
And eyeballing that calendar, I can tell you that on February 13th, the day before that Valentine's Day I mentioned,
you can take your sweetheart right to the FLPL at 5.30 to hear my colleague Dr. Sydney Blaylock talk all about costumes in fantasy film.
The next week, on Saturday the 22nd of February 2 p.m., Dr. Brenna Wardell,
(03:27):
who some of you may remember from her guest appearance on Real Lit, where she joined us to discuss the birds,
she'll be talking about pre-Hayes Code costuming.
I assume not Hedy Lamarr in ecstasy, however, is, well, not much costume to discuss there, eh?
And sandwich riding between those two, Saturday, February 15th, also at 2 p.m.,
my Real Lit co-host, the sartorial, impeccable Mackenzie, will do back-to-back presentations with me,
(03:50):
hers focusing on costumes in fairy tales and folklore film, and mine, big surprise to my regular listeners,
will be looking at the County Brownie, both sheriff and park ranger uniforms, in Animal Horror Cinema.
Got all that jotted down?
I'm sure the FLPO will also be creating Facebook events for you to RSVP as well,
and as soon as they do, we'll share those on both this podcast and Real Lit's Facebook pages.
(04:11):
So close your calendar, open up Facebook, and follow us there too, if you haven't already.
You don't want to get left out, do you?
So, that lengthy explanation and a shameless plug later, all that was set up to explain that the theme of the last episode,
this one, and the next following couple, perhaps, will be focused on animal attack films.
Be sure to check out last, well, not last week, two weeks ago now,
to dive into the waters of Piranha 3D, and open that calendar app back up.
(04:35):
Remind yourself to tune in next week as I weave a web of analysis of arachnophobia.
Today, however, toss on your pack, get your camping gear ready, and be sure not to forget your bear bag.
Not that it matters. This ill-tempered Ur-Sign isn't interested in your trail mix.
He's a carnivore, and his favorite snack is unsuspecting hikers.
This ain't no teddy bear picnic.
(04:57):
We're on the hunt in 1976's film, Grizzly.
For our shelf pick, picking out my DVD copy.
This was a film that labored in relative obscurity for a while, actually.
But one of the great production companies that are remixing and reissuing DVDs is Severin, which is the copy that I have.
I've mentioned Arrow films before, a couple of others. Severin's doing kind of the same thing.
(05:21):
And I probably won't talk much about that right now, because I do have a few more Severin discs on my shelf,
and at some point I will get to those. There's just so much to cover with Grizzly.
But I do have the Severin Blu-ray reissue, the front cover. Wow.
You may just want to Google this thing. I don't know that I can describe it all.
Down at the very bottom, we have the words Grizzly in all caps, and then there's just hand-drawn sketches of scenes from the film that are bonkers all over the place.
(05:45):
In the very background, we've got the huge Grizzly bear towering, roaring.
There's the falling watch tower. There's Gail, the ranger who decides to dip into the waterfall.
Let's see, there's one of him attacking the mother and son. There's some hunters in a jeep.
There's, who did they call her, Margaret, the first victim screaming. There's a helicopter.
(06:07):
Ah, there's the bazooka being shot. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on here, really tiny.
You have to get a magnifying glass, I think, to see some of it.
Again, it's a very crazy, very busy opening cover, but it is reminiscent of those Grindhouse and B-movies from the 70s.
We flip this thing over to look at the back. We have a quote, the gold standard.
It's the definitive knockoff, a masterclass of thrilling exploitation with astounding scenes of mayhem from, oh, the horror.
(06:35):
Not sure what media outlet that is, but they sound pretty cool, right?
I do like that now this film is really just leaning into the idea that it is a knockoff, and believe me, we'll be talking about it being a knockoff.
Underneath that, 18 feet of gut-crunching, man-eating terror remastered with all new special features.
Less than a year after the release of Steven Spielberg's Shark Blockbuster, director William Gerdler, Day of the Animals,
(06:57):
and infamous distributor Film Ventures International, Great White, brazenly unleashed their own jaws-with-claws sensation
that would become one of the most successful independent horror films in history.
Incidentally, it was the most successful independent horror film until a couple years later, a little film called Halloween took that title.
Christopher George, Pieces, Andrew Prine, Barn of the Naked Dead, and Richard Jackle, The Dark,
(07:21):
star in this, quote, bloody, sexy, and immoral trash classic, Mondo Digital.
About an 18-foot tall Ursus Actress Horribilis on a carnivorous rampage through a state park full of campers
and the ranger, chopper pilot, and naturalist who must stop it.
Grizzly now roars with a 2K scan from the Internegative Plus special features produced exclusively for this edition.
(07:43):
And then, underneath that, in red, we have another quote,
Grizzly rules hardcore, a jaws rip-off in the absolute best way.
It's got gore, plenty of tension, and a great Christopher George performance, says bloody disgusting.
We have these special features listed, Nightmare USA, Arthur Stephen thrower on the career of William Gerdler,
Making Movies with Gerdler, audio interview with business partner and friend J. Patrick Kelly III,
(08:08):
accompanied by his personal collection of stills, posters, and newly scanned 8mm home movies,
The Towering Fury, an interview with actor Tom Arkiragi,
The Grizzly Details, interview with producer David Sheldon and actress Joan McCall,
audio commentary with Mondo Digital's Nathaniel Thompson and film writer Troy Howarth,
movie making in the wilderness, vintage making of, Jaws with Claws, archival featurette, radio spots, and trailer.
(08:35):
And then, as usual, we've got some pictures at the bottom.
We have Ranger Kelly holding the bazooka, which we'll also be talking about.
Then we have, down at the bottom, let's see, four more pictures.
We've got Kelly Scott and Don Stober down in the wilderness talking.
We have a picture upside down of Margaret, the very first victim.
We have a picture of the bear with his head thrown back as he roars.
(08:59):
And then we've got a very close-up picture of Scott being buried by the bear after he was sort of not really killed at that point.
It was a really weird scene, wasn't it?
We thought he was killed, the bear buried him, he wakes up, he digs out, we think he's going to get away,
and then the bear just comes along and kills him again.
I don't know what that was all about.
Strange plotting in that particular point.
Not the strangest thing in this film, though.
(09:21):
We'll get to all that.
How I came to own it.
As mentioned before, and probably a thousand other times in this podcast,
my current area of study is animal attack fiction, particularly with a focus on this era, the 70s and 80s, roughly.
While these types of stories have been around since the earliest days of literature,
I mean, Gilgamesh features a battle with the Bull of Heaven, after all,
there is a notable swell in the mid-70s to roughly mid-80s when, aside from a few aberrations,
(09:46):
they vanish until the late 90s, and then thanks to the sci-fi channel Sharknado and that ilk,
as well as ever cheaper special effects and CGI, they never really go away again, and I doubt they will.
The way I got on this line of research is probably worth noting.
I had attended the ACIDA conference on the sympathetic imagination.
To articulate just how much my focus has changed, I was presenting on Marie de France's Lays,
(10:08):
a late 12th century collection of poems in Anglo-Norman.
To articulate how much I haven't changed, I was reading them through the lens of Laura Mulvey's concept of the male gaze,
which she articulated in her seminal essay, Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema.
The keynote speaker at that conference was Dr. Kurt Kernut, who had recently edited a collection called
Literature in Transition, 1970-1979.
The lecture he delivered was on the literature of the 70s, and I was inspired.
(10:32):
It's a decade I've always been interested in.
I mean, I was technically born in the 70s, but I'm pretty sure we'd flipped the calendar over into the 80s before I had my first memory.
As he spoke, the gears were already spinning in my head, and then he mentioned Jaws.
I had read the Benchley bestseller a couple of times, and it's a decent enough novel.
They're a far better sure, but this is about a friggin' shark,
so that automatically skyrockets it up the tiers of my estimation.
(10:56):
But the film Jaws?
I get asked what my favorite film of all time is, and it's an impossible to answer question,
but I indulge and simplify.
And I know I should say something like Corasal or Fellini, perhaps,
and frankly, if I instead was asked what I thought was the greatest cinematic achievement of all time,
I mean, I'm gonna say Bergman's The Seventh Seal, but favorite is different, isn't it?
(11:17):
Still, Jaws is so much more than a summer blockbuster popcorn flick.
That three-man-on-a-boat speech, the USS Indianapolis, show me the way to go home.
There's some intellectual heft and substance there, too, so I don't feel bad at all saying Jaws.
Still, I was more in a literary analysis mindset, so my first thought was Peter Benchley.
He'd penned several more novels, a few of which I'd read, so I did a little digging,
(11:40):
and surprisingly, there's almost little on the fellow's output,
almost like there was a gap in scholarship that was screaming for someone to enter it.
While still a far cry from home in Troy—that's Troy, Alabama, not a city being sieged by Agamemnon's troops—
I discovered that Benchley also wrote The Deep, a novel about a killer giant squid.
Oh, and there was Girl of the Sea of Cortez, a reverse Jaws sort of, where a girl befriends a manta ray.
(12:03):
Then I started digging into Jaws' adjacent films, thinking I might also incorporate a little of my budding interest in film studies,
and that's when I discovered the Jaws' knockoffs—Piranha, Great White, and, surprise, surprise, Grizzly, which is essentially Jaws on land.
My animal attack search led me to combing through used bookstores, thrift stores, antique malls, anywhere where musty old paperbacks appeared.
Mostly, however, it was Amazon's used booksellers who provided me with the out-of-print forgotten schlock
(12:27):
that hasn't stood the test of time, nor should most of it.
Incidentally, at one of those antique stores, I came across a novelization of Grizzly, a pulpy paperback with yellowed pages.
I snagged it for a whopping quarter price tag, and it sits proudly on my shelf with so many other aging novels about killer bees, rats, bats, cats, and—I'm not even kidding—one of Bluefin Tuna.
I've never read the Grizzly novelization, however, and I had also never seen the film.
(12:51):
I was keenly aware of its existence and had read plenty about it, but I never got around to watching it. Not until last week.
Researching for my library talk on the 15th, I knew this film was going to contain some of the thematic elements I needed to explore.
I also knew that unless I was going to somehow figure out how sleep would not be necessary for a human being,
I was going to have to do double duty and research the talk while also making podcast episodes.
(13:14):
But I didn't have Grizzly on DVD, the single criterion for a film to appear on shelf criticism.
Hey, I put in an order for a batch of discs at least once a month anyway, and I was overdue.
So when I went to Amazon to see what was on sale for ridiculously low prices, I also made sure to toss in a Blu-ray of Grizzly into my cart.
That went at full price. Never say I'm not dedicated to this podcast.
I mean, sure, it was streaming on Prime for free, but I wanted to add it to my collection anyway, and this gave me a perfect excuse.
(13:39):
So now I've got another notch in the enormous subgenre of animal horror cinema under my belt.
One that, let's face it, should have been checked long ago. So what are my thoughts?
Oh, I do have them. But first, let's see what the critics had to say.
The critical reception. As a B movie at best, Grizzly didn't attract much critical attention at the time of its release,
and there's still not much more today, even with its later DVD issue.
(14:01):
Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a surprising 45%, though that's based on only 11 reviews, most of them from the DVD era reevaluation.
I suspect Grizzly has aged better with time. Modern reviews seem more forgiving, with some even finding charm on this blatant jaws on land approach.
Some might speak to a modern sightgeist, where we're more accustomed to reboots, remakes, and homages, and more attuned to the meta aspects of filming.
(14:24):
However, reviews from 1976 were far less kind. On Metacritic, which has only four contemporaneous reviews, the film scores a dismal 25.
While the sample size is tiny, it reinforces my suspicion that modern audiences are more tolerant of this kind of homage.
Since my options are so limited, I'll turn to Vincent Canvey's New York Times review, William Girdler's not-quite-so-toothsome Grizzly.
(14:47):
Let's see what he has to say.
So Canvey begins,
Jean-Luc Godard proposed some years ago that the only adequate way to review one film is to make another in response.
A director named William Girdler apparently agrees. He's on his way to the creation of an entire oeuvre of such movies.
Abbey, made in 1974, was the repository of the Girdler Meditations upon the Exorcist.
(15:09):
His latest, Grizzly, is the story of a man-eating grizzly bear that terrorizes the campers in a national park.
It is Mr. Girdler's answer to Jaws, and if I had the facilities, I'd review Grizzly by making a movie about a teensy-weensy insect walking amok.
It would be called Flea.
Grizzly, which opened up yesterday at the Rivoli and other theaters, is such a blatant imitation of Jaws that one has to admire the depth of flattery it represents, though not the lack of talent involved.
(15:34):
Woo, look at you opening with a Godard nod. You fancy.
You know how I've praised the rhetorical skill of critics I disagree with on past episodes? It's not gonna happen here.
Canvey's attempt at humor falls flat. His reference to Godard feels like posturing, and his flea analogy, while facetious, fails to offer any meaningful insight.
Sure, we know Grizzly isn't Jaws, but that comparison adds nothing constructive. If anything, it highlights the laziness of his critique.
(16:00):
There's a way to call out Grizzly for being derivative while still engaging with its charm or its place within the broader landscape of animal horror cinema,
but Canvey opts for a snarky, clunky opening that ironically lacks the bite he claims Grizzly doesn't have.
Sometimes the simplest critique is the best. Instead of all the jargon and hypotheticals, just say Grizzly's a shameless Jaws knockoff that doesn't live up to the original and just call it a day.
(16:22):
He's right that Gerdler had already helmed Abby, which is a bonkers film and blast from the past, a film I talked about briefly in the third episode of this show ever, which covered the avenging Disco Godfather.
In particular, I mentioned Carole Speed, who stars in both, and is an actor who never got the laurels I feel she deserved.
But yes, if Grizzly is a Jaws on land, it can be as correct that Abby is the blaxploitation exorcist.
(16:43):
It was even tied up in a lawsuit, which eventually was dismissed, but only after Gerdler's passing. He never saw a penny of the profits.
Gerdler would also go into Direct Day of the Animals, which is often mistaken as a sequel to Grizzly.
It had a very similar plot, an attacking bear again, and even some of the same cast from the earlier film, although also a young Leslie Nielsen in that one.
It wasn't, though there was a sequel in the making. Something we'll put a pin in for the moment and probably circle back around to.
(17:08):
Still, to say Gerdler was less than original always isn't accurate either. His last film was certainly a concept new to me, though it's one that has passed my notice now and again.
I've never sat down and given it a look. It's called The Manatee? I'll read the synopsis from IMDB.
A psychic's girlfriend finds out that a lump on her back is a growing reincarnation of a 400-year-old demonic Native American spirit. Imagine the pitch meeting for that one.
(17:34):
Canby goes on to say about Gerdler and his writing and production crew,
Lights like theirs don't fit under bushels. The national park, that is the location of Grizzly, is never identified.
The one would suppose it had to be somewhere in the American Northwest, where one might conceivably find a grizzly bear, and not Georgia, where the movie was actually made.
It doesn't help the film that the Georgia forests, while pretty, look somewhat less menacing than Central Park, and that the grizzly who plays the lead, though large and probably dangerous, can't quite shake his Winnie the Pooh image.
(18:01):
That is the one strong point of this film. It's gorgeously shot. We open with sweeping overhead shots of miles and miles of pristine green forests.
And allow me to drop a fun fact to perhaps mitigate some of Canby's surprise.
The state with the largest percentage of square footage that is forest is Oregon. The next two? Georgia and Alabama.
You learn a lot when you produce a documentary short about Bigfoot sightings.
(18:24):
When I looked at those shots, my first thought was it had to be the corner of Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, right in that part just south of Appalachia.
And sure enough, it was filmed in Clayton, Georgia, the northernmost county in that state.
Yes, the scenery is more lush than scarier and posing, sure. Central Park in the 1970s certainly had a reputation, so I don't doubt the reviewer here.
But this film, like Jaws, is a daylight horror, a genre I've spoken about often on this podcast, so I won't rehash it.
(18:51):
Check out my episodes on the Wicker Man or Lords of Salem, as well as Reel It's episode on Jaws, for a deeper exploration of that concept.
The bear. Now, the bear is perhaps a bit of a flaw. The animatronic bear and the practical effects are so laughable they could never be scary.
And as for the live-action bear wandering around, well, he's just so adorable you want to hug him and bury your face in his fur, even if he would probably maul you.
(19:13):
Nearing the end of his mercifully short review, Canby states,
(19:37):
Alright, fair enough. This isn't a scary film, not by a long shot. There's literally zero tension to be had in any given moment.
The gore is so horribly fake it's actually hilarious. Unlike Canby, whom I'm already assuming is one of those you-must-be-fun-at-parties sort of fellas,
I can see here that this film is never going to cut it as a down-the-middle horror. It's going to have to ramp up the camp, no pun intended, this time I swear, in order to salvage anything.
(20:02):
The first kill, made on an unwitting camper, sees a painfully obvious prosthetic bear claw swipe and then a severed arm gets tossed into the air. It only gets worse from there.
And while normally I get bent out of shape when animals are killed, especially domesticated ones, the aforementioned horse decapitation is so hilarious that it has zero emotional resonance.
Again, it's just a hard cut as an obviously fake head goes spinning. By contrast, the only other beheaded horse scene I can think of, the much more famous one, used a real equine head.
(20:30):
And of course here I refer to Jack Waltz's shocking awakening in The Godfather. They were going to use a fake, but Coppola thought it looked too fake.
Well, if it looked anything like the one in this film, he wasn't wrong. I still know how I feel about the ethics of such a prop, but I can assure you it doesn't work in Grizzly.
And in an anticlimactic conclusion, Canby says,
I would hope intelligent adults would avoid it and that parents would give it a personal X. Officially it's been rated PG. Oh Lord, I'm not having another discussion on the ratings, the creation of PG-13, what X originally meant, and so forth.
(21:01):
Again, there are plenty of episodes in my catalog to explore that avenue. I'd recommend starting with the Grimlands.
But with Canby's critique out of the way, let's move on to my take. Let's start with what works in this film, perhaps, beginning with some of the camera work.
This will surprise absolutely no one, but we do get a lot of shots of the bear's POV.
Again, this is a hallmark of Jaws, and while not the cliche it would become, still seen in other precursors, specifically Peeping Tom, Psycho, but we've never gotten a bear POV before, not to my knowledge.
(21:29):
As the titular Grizzly is stalking his first unsuspecting prey, we move through the branches, hearing him snort and growl lowly.
Upon coming to the clearing, he sees the woman, who's credited as Margaret, though I'm not sure we ever hear her name. Disposable fodder would have been just as accurate.
But when he does despise something to wreak carnage on, he rares up on his hind legs, as bears are wont to do.
(21:51):
Still, however, we don't see him, but we know this because the camera suddenly raises to extreme heights.
Not only does this clearly articulate what the unseen creature is doing, it also creates a high angle shot looking down on Margaret.
These types of shots make the subject beneath appear vulnerable, as she certainly is.
Now, the camera is never used to the same degree of success it is in this early sequence, but I was at least impressed with what I saw there.
(22:13):
Aside from that, well, I mean, I already mentioned the beautiful nature sequences.
Seriously, I wish a true HD existed back then. This film would pop so beautifully.
And no, that was not an invitation for a filmmaker to remake it. Please, spare us.
By the way, the remaster work is pretty well done. Good looking film. There's only so much you can do with those negatives.
Honestly, the only other positive is a perceived negative for most. It's the campiness.
(22:37):
It's just so silly, and I don't think it strives to be.
Case in point, during the park-wide grizzly hunt, Rangers Tom and Gail are riding around.
They stop at the edge of a waterfall, and Tom says he's going to get up on the ridge.
Gail says she'll stay there, and she wants to kind of relax by the water.
Well, she doesn't mean by, and I should mention here that Gail is played by Victoria Johnson, a name that meant nothing to me.
(22:59):
She's not a scream queen or a denizen of even the most obscure trash cinema I consume,
but it turns out she was a well-known penthouse pet at the time, and I think you see where this is going.
She peels off her Ranger uniform, almost like I noticed that because I'm focusing on costuming, huh?
She does stop at her undergarments, of course, because this is a PG film, but still, gratuitous skin on screen, check.
It's so foolish. Why in the middle of a hunt for a crazed bear?
(23:22):
One, incidentally, who has already been said to prefer females.
Why would she be left alone, for starters?
But furthermore, why just strip down to your skivvies and go gallivanting in a waterfall?
Do I even need to tell you the big bad bear is behind the falls?
See what I mean? Foolish, but foolish to the point of being funny.
While it isn't breaking the fourth wall, it's worth noting that Gail is making her way over to the falls,
(23:43):
and we again see the bear POV as he's watching her through the cascading water.
Then we pivot to a perspective across the water as she walks into the falls,
turning to let the water splash on her.
She doesn't look directly at the camera, but she gets close.
And then, big fake bear claw.
It's interesting to see how we switch so suddenly from the Predator's POV to the audience again,
making us a voyeur in this spectacle, a sordid blend of sensuality and violence that indicts us for reveling in it.
(24:08):
Why does the bear prefer women, incidentally?
Because it's a lopping 2,000 pound ball of fur and horror cliches.
That I can understand.
There's even a throwaway line that the bear has to be male because only males are carnivorous.
There was such a chance here to go for some depth,
make it a subtle statement about the sexual politics of the time,
but for some reason the bear just suddenly decides he's bisexual in his diet.
(24:33):
Also, there's a great article in the Atlantic about how grizzlies are mostly vegan,
but human encroachment on their habitat has led them to change their feeding habits.
By this point in the 1970s, many of the animal horror cinema films were already touting a strong ecological message,
and this film could have followed that trend.
But nah, we get the laughable explanation from wildlife biologist Arthur Scott
that this bear is a descendant of some Pleistene-era bear called Arctos Ursus Horribilis.
(24:59):
Yes, that's really what he says.
And no, that's not an actual extinct species of bear.
But that makes this guy bigger, grumpier, and more carnivorous.
And Scott says it with such conviction too, leading me to believe he's not much of a scientist.
I mean, we all learn the scientific method in middle school, right?
And there are a few more steps than just simply pull a harebrained hypothesis out of your butt and insist you're right.
(25:21):
Furthermore, on top of missing some opportunities to bring some substance to the film,
it also leaves some plot threads dangling.
We begin with Alison Corwin coming home to help out her father's restaurant,
which is presumably in or near the National Park.
It's struggling, and she's trying to help him make a profit, though he refuses to raise prices.
And she also takes photographs because she's a photographer for... somewhere.
(25:45):
She also says something about an editor.
She's clearly the love interest for George Kelly.
They have that bickering like the stereotypical characters in the film always do.
And we all know it's really just pent-up sexual tension.
She's around for the first two acts, even if she is just mostly in the background.
And then when the action really ramps up, she wants to go out in the forest as well.
Only now we remember the bear likes women.
(26:06):
Then again, at least Ranger Gale would have had a gun in training.
Alison might momentarily blind the bear with her flash, but that's about it.
Kelly puts his foot down, absolutely refusing, though he does give her a quick peck on the lips before going out there,
so I guess that's your romantic payoff.
Because there's no more Alison.
Nothing about Corwin's restaurant.
Did it recoup its losses? Will it stay in business?
(26:27):
No, the film just ends because it wants to end.
During the big showdown, Kelly shoots the bear with a bazooka.
You heard that right.
Bazooka. And we roll the credits.
You know, it almost feels wrong to critique the performances in a movie where the final boss fight involves a bazooka,
but hey, this is show-off criticism and I have a job to do.
So let's talk standout performances.
Am I a bad judge of acting skills?
(26:49):
I know I'm far from capable of portraying another person on stage or film,
but I like to think I understand enough of the theory and nuances that I can at least tell when something's noteworthy,
for the right or wrong reasons.
Nothing here seemed particularly bad.
That doesn't mean it was good and there were some deliveries that were flat or monotone.
So it wasn't enough to ridicule.
The women who are there just to scream, they do their job well.
(27:11):
That really is talent.
When you have an actress who can't scream, it can break a horror film.
Christopher George has a laziness to his presence and a delivery that's perfectly fitting.
He's a cool guy, level-headed, doesn't get bent out of shape.
Perhaps he could have shown a little more fire towards the end after the tragic attack on that woman and her child.
But he does have a sort of clenching of his jaw that gives a quiet but seething rage in that moment,
(27:33):
and that's pretty effective.
Richard Jackle, I'm hoping I'm saying that right, J-A-E-C-K-E-L.
He plays the wildlife biologist Arthur Scott.
He's a strange cross between a mad scientist and a backwoods hermit.
He could have taken that further, probably should have.
For a guy who wants to chase a prehistoric carnivore on the rampage,
even wears a bearskin on his back to attract him, one does not really expect a subdued performance.
(27:56):
And then there's Andrew Prine as Don Stober, the Vietnam vet turned tour guide?
Something. It's never made clear.
He flies a chopper.
He has this snarky attitude and delivers his sardonic quips with a deadpan earnestness.
He does have the best singers in the film, and even though it's more on the account of the screenplay,
he does take them and make them his own.
Though he's from Florida, he had a Texas drawl that is very distinct, or perhaps was distinct.
(28:21):
I'll bet if you closed your eyes and listened to a line of dialogue,
you wouldn't be able to tell if it was Prine or Matthew McConaughey.
Either way, he's fun to watch, and unlike the bickering between Allison and Kelly,
his barbed insults actually land.
It might not be spectacular, but it's above middling, which makes it stand out above the rest of the cast.
Now that adorable bear would perhaps also be in consideration,
except rather than being menacing, he just looks like he needs some scritches behind his ears.
(28:45):
Sorry, Teddy. Yes, that's what they named him.
You weren't selling anyone on being fierce.
We will talk about that bear, but we can't talk about Grizzly without addressing the giant fish-shaped shadow looming over it.
This movie is Jaws in the Woods. I mean, let's be real.
How many times can a film bar from Spielberg before it just becomes a landlocked knockoff?
So let's break it down in cultural context.
Let's start with just the character similarities.
(29:08):
Sheriff Brody, Ranger Kelly, they're both authority figures, unable to deal with the menace.
They both support the closing of the beach slash park, but they're overridden.
Who are they overridden by? Well, of course, Mayor Larry Vaughn, we all know from Jaws,
and then there's Charlie Kitteridge and Grizzly.
They clash with the authority figure, whether it's the sheriff or a ranger,
about whether or not to close parts of the attraction, how to handle the attacks, all that stuff.
(29:32):
Matt Hooper and Arthur Scott, essentially the same character, both scientists, experts.
They clash with the authority figures, but also the folksy everyman figure, who, by the way, is Quint or Don Stover.
An everyman, not educated, formally at least, veteran of a war,
has first-hand experiential knowledge of the animals from being in the environment for so long.
(29:53):
And then there's the antagonistic animal. Both of them are exaggerated in size.
The shark is 20 to 25 feet long, whereas the average size of one is 15 feet.
Grizzly's ones standing on their hind legs are 7 to 8 feet at the tallest and can weigh about 600 pounds.
Scott says this one is 15 feet, and then later, contradictorily, 18 feet, and weighs a good 2,000 pounds.
(30:16):
Both the shark and the grizzly's unusually stalk humans,
and no motivation is ever given or explained why either animal does so.
As far as film stylistic choices, as mentioned before, the animal's POV is often used,
and you can't miss this once you do notice it, but when the grizzly stalks and attacks,
particularly the first time, there's a minor key two-note musical sequence played.
(30:38):
Does that sound familiar to anyone?
As far as plot similarities, early on there's a woman who's signaled to be promiscuous,
both in varying stages of undress, who is a victim.
Gale even gets under the waterfall, thus making both attacks technically in water.
There's a young boy being attacked by the animal who provides the catalyst for both Brody and Kelly
to defy their superiors and obstacles placed in front of them and to go all in to neutralize the animal.
(31:03):
We don't get a three-man-on-a-boat scene, so famous in Jaws, but we do get a two-man-in-a-chopper scene.
Of course, one of the most famous and most moving parts of Jaws, one that really elevates it from,
as I said before, popcorn fare to something deeper, is that USS Indianapolis speech Quint gives.
Well, there's a point where Stobor talks about a group of natives, though he calls them Indians, ick,
being attacked by bears in the woods, and he ends his speech by acknowledging he was one of the survivors of that attack,
(31:28):
a lot like Quint.
The shark, of course, attacks the orca, which is Quint's boat, and the bear attacks Stobor's helicopter.
Yes, this film has a scene of a bear swatting down a helicopter.
You know what, I take back everything I say. This film is a masterpiece.
And then lastly, between the exploding scuba tank and the bazooka, the finale ends with a big ball of fire.
I'm sure there are others I missed. Email me and let me know what you saw.
(31:51):
Still, this is enough to make my case, wouldn't you say?
If it isn't, the fact that every single critic and moviegoer alike seems to make the comparison should also solidify it.
There is one difference, though.
While Jaws did contract a couple of underwater filming experts, Ron and Valerie Taylor,
to shoot the footage you see of real sharks in that film,
the cast only had to deal with a clunky, cantankerous animatronic shark they dubbed Bruce.
(32:14):
The cast of Grizzly, however, did get to be up close and personal with that chonky floofer we see.
So let's talk about Teddy in the trivia.
Teddy was actually untamed, but had been trained.
The ranch where Teddy lived kept him behind an electric fence, having discovered the one thing he did not like was to be shocked.
And then again, who would?
During filming, a green wire was run between the bear and the cast and crew, and they were instructed not to get near it.
(32:35):
The wire was electrified and was supposed to ensure their safety.
Teddy himself is just a bear that would not roar.
They just couldn't get him to roar.
And what's a good Earth-Side Horror without a snarling beast?
So to create the illusion, his trainer would throw a few marshmallows and let him catch them, and then he would hold up another marshmallow.
Eager for another sweet morsel, Teddy would open his mouth wide and hold it.
And then in post-pro, they would end up in an actual roar.
(32:58):
Going back and re-watching some of those scenes, knowing that, and when I hear him roar, knowing he just wants another marshmallow, I mean, could he be any more adorable?
Teddy, by the way, stood 11 feet tall on his hind legs, and at the time he was the tallest bear in captivity.
Still a good bit shy of the 18 feet, though.
And incidentally, I found these tidbits on an Internet message board dedicated solely to bears in film.
(33:20):
I assume a lot of it is people who train bears for Hollywood and the filmmakers wanting to hire them.
But every time I think I have the most niche area of fascination, someone has to come along and one-up me.
So we are moving right along here.
I do want to pause for shelfless endeavors. We haven't had this segment in a while.
But I did manage to get back to the theater, let's see, 12 days ago now?
I had every intention of going a couple more times by this point, but I also thought I'd be recording this episode sooner.
(33:45):
I'm telling you, seriously, don't try that flu thing. It just makes it hard to get stuff done.
So perhaps I'm a little late to the game, but I'm assuming Wolfman should still be playing in theaters.
Though with the way things go nowadays, it might already be streaming.
Did you catch Tarantino's Sundance comments about that? If not, you should look them up.
At any rate, the film wasn't exactly a critical darling, and I can see why.
(34:06):
It's not a perfect film, and it did have a lot to live up to after director Lee Whannell's earlier and far superior
Universal Monster remake, The Invisible Man. It doesn't reach that level, but there's still some to appreciate.
The acting is strong, and I really like the staging of several scenes.
Some people have said the film didn't build up suspense, which I strongly disagree with.
(34:27):
Not unrelated, I was most impressed with the sound design.
During the sequence where the family is trapped inside the house, the beast prowling outside like a horror movie version of The Three Little Pigs,
the sound of claws and snarls move from the back right of the theater, circling around to the front.
It makes you feel encircled and trapped, adding to the tension in a way that few horror films do well.
(34:49):
And the pacing is spot on. While it tries to inject some deeper themes at its core, it's seriously about parenting.
But it doesn't push into elevated horror, pretentious territory, and then it's probably for the best.
It's what, barely an hour and a half, and that's the perfect runtime. Doesn't draw it out.
That said, it does try to do too much with the body horror, and what it does isn't that impressive.
(35:11):
I mean, this film so badly wants to be the fly, but it's nowhere near Cronenberg territory.
Likewise, the hallucinogenic transformation sequences where we see through Blake's perspective, they just feel disjointed and they don't quite land.
The film's worst defense is just it's so ridiculously underlit.
I get it. It's a horror movie. Darkness is necessary. But I can't be scared if I can't see anything.
(35:34):
So many films are guilty of this now. Why not just go for an eerie blue light, since, you know, full moon?
That said, I did appreciate the ending. A couple lines of dialogue had the subtle payoff, and it was so well done.
Not only was it fitting, but the film didn't make it painfully obvious.
No voiceovers, no flashbacks, no characters repeating what was already said.
When a film trusts its audience to be intelligent, then it gets points for me.
(35:58):
So overall, I'd say see it, and see it in the theater. Unless you have a killer Dolby set up at home, this one's worth it.
The sound alone, you know, it makes it an experience.
When you can actually see what's happening, it's pretty visually compelling, too.
All right, toss this joker on a shelf. So new listeners are needed to refresh her.
I have five shelves on my DVD Curio. So essentially I use the bartender's model.
(36:19):
Top shelf for the good stuff, bottom shelf for the rot gut, and in between we have second shelf, mid shelf, fourth shelf.
This film, y'all, what to do with this film?
I mean, I had a blast watching it, though I knew it was not even sniffing in the realm of good.
Yes, jaws rip off, sure, but I don't think that matters as much today as it did when it was released.
It's probably a film that shouldn't have tried to play it straight, even though it did.
(36:43):
But that said, it's inadvertently campy, which makes it all the more endearing.
Since it's no secret that bad films often entertain me, it's sometimes hard for me to get a bead on where they should rank if I'm maintaining a modicum of fairness.
I'm glad I watched this film. But the question I asked myself was, would I want to watch it again?
And the answer is, not really. One sit-through is plenty.
(37:04):
If I do find myself going back for viewing for my research, then it won't be an Augean Stables-sized chore, but I'm sure the fun will be more subdued.
So I'm just going to place this film on...
Fourth shelf. It's not the bottom of the barrel. Not the barn of the naked dead nadir of cinema.
(37:25):
Yes, remember that cover copy on the back that reminds us that Pryan was in a film called The Barn of the Naked Dead?
Which, by the way, I'd actually seen, although I saw it as Terror Circus, these films, they're multiple names.
Pryan actually said that was the one film that he regretted doing in all of his career.
Either way, it's definitely not that low.
But there's only so much amusement you can pillage from Grizzly before it's nothing but dry bones.
(37:48):
So keeping things in line thematically.
Next go-around is with eight-legged web spinning critters. And no, I don't mean four different iterations of Spider-Man from the multiverse.
We'll be looking at a strange outlier in that Animal Horror cinema foray.
This one coming in 1990, about seven years after the trend fizzled out and about seven years before it would ramp back up again.
So call up Delbert McClintock, Infestation Management, because we're revisiting arachnophobia.
(38:12):
So quick programming note. Losing a week's worth of work to the flu has me behind not only in this and the other podcast,
but also my speaking engagements, my work on the film festival. And oh yeah, I actually have to teach too, don't I?
So I'm working to catch up, but it may be a bit more than a week before the next one drops, too.
It will, rest assured. Ah, academia, where you're always taking on too much because the job isn't stressful enough on its own merits.
(38:34):
But in the interim, if you want to wish me a get well soon, even though I'm already well, I suppose,
you want to praise Andrew Pryan's acting chops or warn me off of trying to pet grizzly bears, as if I would listen,
you can send me an email at steven at shelf criticism dot com. And remember that Stephen with a P.H. S.T. P.H.N.
You can follow us on social media at Shelf Criticism. And don't forget about my other podcast, Real It, where I'm joined by the radiant McKenzie.
(38:58):
Again, my cooties caused a delay for our upcoming episode, but we're going to confab in a couple of days and set up an alternative recording time
to keep posted on our alternate schedule as well as keep abreast of all the big news coming from Owls of Palace Productions.
Be sure to give us a follow on social media as well at Real It Podcast. And remember that's R.E.E.L., like a film reel.
(39:19):
So until next time, DVD aficionados, remember to treat yourself to a little shelf indulgence of your own.
Amelia, sing us home.
(39:42):
Shelf criticism is an Owls of Palace production. This podcast is in no way connected with the educational institutions the host is employed by.
The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the host and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other organization with which he is affiliated.
Most images displayed are public domain. Images and stills from films, descriptions of scenes and passages from books are used for educational and critical purposes
(40:07):
and not for profit and therefore fall under the terms of fair use.
Your hands aren't clean either pal. You and your cameras you've made it so exciting, so attractive.
Boy, if you ain't a big bag of grits, what the hell you done if you caught that big brown?
(00:05):
It isn't a big brown. It's a grizzly.
Grizzly?
Mm-hmm.
Ain't no grizzlies up here. I used to hunt these woods for years. It can't be a grizzly.
Come on, Scotty, they were killed off years ago. Big bounty on them, remember?
This was revived.
I'm telling you, it can't be.
I'm telling you, we got a grizzly and then some.
(00:38):
Welcome to Shelf Criticism. Meet your host, Stephen, a scholar of literature and film by day,
and by night, a cinematic archaeologist with a penchant for everything from art house to popular to outright trash cinema.
Over the past quarter century, Stephen has amassed an eclectic DVD collection,
now occupying five shells of a curio cabinet in his living room.
(00:59):
Each week, he bravely selects one of these titles to dissect.
Join him as he unearths everything from obscure gems to cinematic missteps.
From blockbuster hits to forgotten flops, each film gets the critical once over it probably doesn't deserve but will absolutely receive.
So grab your popcorn and settle in.
It's time to dive into the diverse world of Shelf Criticism.
(01:30):
Welcome to another episode of Shelf Criticism.
We're skipping along through the second season or perhaps limping along.
My apologies for the delay in dropping this episode.
Apparently, since all the cool kids were doing it, I decided to go and try out that influenza thing.
0 out of 10 would not recommend.
But after several days now of fever and chills and hacking and cursing my white blood cells for not working hard enough,
(01:54):
I'm at least somewhat slowly approaching my ray of sunshine self again.
Of course, it had to hit at the beginning of the busiest month of my entire year, but alas,
life doesn't always make the same plans we do, right?
We began in December on this show with a run of Christmas films.
Pause to reflect on the year-end film that was for New Year's.
(02:16):
And oh yeah, to hate on Christmas vacation to Cousin Eddie's Island Adventure,
which literally no hyperbole is the worst film ever made.
Ever.
And I'm going to keep banging that drum.
With that unpleasant experience behind us though, we're moving ahead to the next major event of the nascent New Year.
No, no, not Valentine's Day.
I suppose I could do a romantic comedy for that date, but then I'd have to watch a romantic comedy.
(02:39):
So, nah.
No, I'm talking about the George Lindsay UNA Film Festival.
It's always one of my favorite events of the year, and as always, I'm involved in the planning, hospitality, and the Q&A sessions.
This year we're also holding a series of discussions at the Florence Lauderdale Public Library,
all of which are centered around the idea of costuming in film, which will be featured at the film festival.
So, put this on pause and grab your calendar, because I'm about to throw some dates at you.
(03:03):
Okay, fine. Open your calendar app up then.
I guess I'm the only old man who still has a physical planner he writes in.
And eyeballing that calendar, I can tell you that on February 13th, the day before that Valentine's Day I mentioned,
you can take your sweetheart right to the FLPL at 5.30 to hear my colleague Dr. Sydney Blaylock talk all about costumes in fantasy film.
The next week, on Saturday the 22nd of February 2 p.m., Dr. Brenna Wardell,
(03:27):
who some of you may remember from her guest appearance on Real Lit, where she joined us to discuss the birds,
she'll be talking about pre-Hayes Code costuming.
I assume not Hedy Lamarr in ecstasy, however, is, well, not much costume to discuss there, eh?
And sandwich riding between those two, Saturday, February 15th, also at 2 p.m.,
my Real Lit co-host, the sartorial, impeccable Mackenzie, will do back-to-back presentations with me,
(03:50):
hers focusing on costumes in fairy tales and folklore film, and mine, big surprise to my regular listeners,
will be looking at the County Brownie, both sheriff and park ranger uniforms, in Animal Horror Cinema.
Got all that jotted down?
I'm sure the FLPO will also be creating Facebook events for you to RSVP as well,
and as soon as they do, we'll share those on both this podcast and Real Lit's Facebook pages.
(04:11):
So close your calendar, open up Facebook, and follow us there too, if you haven't already.
You don't want to get left out, do you?
So, that lengthy explanation and a shameless plug later, all that was set up to explain that the theme of the last episode,
this one, and the next following couple, perhaps, will be focused on animal attack films.
Be sure to check out last, well, not last week, two weeks ago now,
to dive into the waters of Piranha 3D, and open that calendar app back up.
(04:35):
Remind yourself to tune in next week as I weave a web of analysis of arachnophobia.
Today, however, toss on your pack, get your camping gear ready, and be sure not to forget your bear bag.
Not that it matters. This ill-tempered Ur-Sign isn't interested in your trail mix.
He's a carnivore, and his favorite snack is unsuspecting hikers.
This ain't no teddy bear picnic.
(04:57):
We're on the hunt in 1976's film, Grizzly.
For our shelf pick, picking out my DVD copy.
This was a film that labored in relative obscurity for a while, actually.
But one of the great production companies that are remixing and reissuing DVDs is Severin, which is the copy that I have.
I've mentioned Arrow films before, a couple of others. Severin's doing kind of the same thing.
(05:21):
And I probably won't talk much about that right now, because I do have a few more Severin discs on my shelf,
and at some point I will get to those. There's just so much to cover with Grizzly.
But I do have the Severin Blu-ray reissue, the front cover. Wow.
You may just want to Google this thing. I don't know that I can describe it all.
Down at the very bottom, we have the words Grizzly in all caps, and then there's just hand-drawn sketches of scenes from the film that are bonkers all over the place.
(05:45):
In the very background, we've got the huge Grizzly bear towering, roaring.
There's the falling watch tower. There's Gail, the ranger who decides to dip into the waterfall.
Let's see, there's one of him attacking the mother and son. There's some hunters in a jeep.
There's, who did they call her, Margaret, the first victim screaming. There's a helicopter.
(06:07):
Ah, there's the bazooka being shot. Yeah, there's a lot of stuff going on here, really tiny.
You have to get a magnifying glass, I think, to see some of it.
Again, it's a very crazy, very busy opening cover, but it is reminiscent of those Grindhouse and B-movies from the 70s.
We flip this thing over to look at the back. We have a quote, the gold standard.
It's the definitive knockoff, a masterclass of thrilling exploitation with astounding scenes of mayhem from, oh, the horror.
(06:35):
Not sure what media outlet that is, but they sound pretty cool, right?
I do like that now this film is really just leaning into the idea that it is a knockoff, and believe me, we'll be talking about it being a knockoff.
Underneath that, 18 feet of gut-crunching, man-eating terror remastered with all new special features.
Less than a year after the release of Steven Spielberg's Shark Blockbuster, director William Gerdler, Day of the Animals,
(06:57):
and infamous distributor Film Ventures International, Great White, brazenly unleashed their own jaws-with-claws sensation
that would become one of the most successful independent horror films in history.
Incidentally, it was the most successful independent horror film until a couple years later, a little film called Halloween took that title.
Christopher George, Pieces, Andrew Prine, Barn of the Naked Dead, and Richard Jackle, The Dark,
(07:21):
star in this, quote, bloody, sexy, and immoral trash classic, Mondo Digital.
About an 18-foot tall Ursus Actress Horribilis on a carnivorous rampage through a state park full of campers
and the ranger, chopper pilot, and naturalist who must stop it.
Grizzly now roars with a 2K scan from the Internegative Plus special features produced exclusively for this edition.
(07:43):
And then, underneath that, in red, we have another quote,
Grizzly rules hardcore, a jaws rip-off in the absolute best way.
It's got gore, plenty of tension, and a great Christopher George performance, says bloody disgusting.
We have these special features listed, Nightmare USA, Arthur Stephen thrower on the career of William Gerdler,
Making Movies with Gerdler, audio interview with business partner and friend J. Patrick Kelly III,
(08:08):
accompanied by his personal collection of stills, posters, and newly scanned 8mm home movies,
The Towering Fury, an interview with actor Tom Arkiragi,
The Grizzly Details, interview with producer David Sheldon and actress Joan McCall,
audio commentary with Mondo Digital's Nathaniel Thompson and film writer Troy Howarth,
movie making in the wilderness, vintage making of, Jaws with Claws, archival featurette, radio spots, and trailer.
(08:35):
And then, as usual, we've got some pictures at the bottom.
We have Ranger Kelly holding the bazooka, which we'll also be talking about.
Then we have, down at the bottom, let's see, four more pictures.
We've got Kelly Scott and Don Stober down in the wilderness talking.
We have a picture upside down of Margaret, the very first victim.
We have a picture of the bear with his head thrown back as he roars.
(08:59):
And then we've got a very close-up picture of Scott being buried by the bear after he was sort of not really killed at that point.
It was a really weird scene, wasn't it?
We thought he was killed, the bear buried him, he wakes up, he digs out, we think he's going to get away,
and then the bear just comes along and kills him again.
I don't know what that was all about.
Strange plotting in that particular point.
Not the strangest thing in this film, though.
(09:21):
We'll get to all that.
How I came to own it.
As mentioned before, and probably a thousand other times in this podcast,
my current area of study is animal attack fiction, particularly with a focus on this era, the 70s and 80s, roughly.
While these types of stories have been around since the earliest days of literature,
I mean, Gilgamesh features a battle with the Bull of Heaven, after all,
there is a notable swell in the mid-70s to roughly mid-80s when, aside from a few aberrations,
(09:46):
they vanish until the late 90s, and then thanks to the sci-fi channel Sharknado and that ilk,
as well as ever cheaper special effects and CGI, they never really go away again, and I doubt they will.
The way I got on this line of research is probably worth noting.
I had attended the ACIDA conference on the sympathetic imagination.
To articulate just how much my focus has changed, I was presenting on Marie de France's Lays,
(10:08):
a late 12th century collection of poems in Anglo-Norman.
To articulate how much I haven't changed, I was reading them through the lens of Laura Mulvey's concept of the male gaze,
which she articulated in her seminal essay, Visual Pleasure in Narrative Cinema.
The keynote speaker at that conference was Dr. Kurt Kernut, who had recently edited a collection called
Literature in Transition, 1970-1979.
The lecture he delivered was on the literature of the 70s, and I was inspired.
(10:32):
It's a decade I've always been interested in.
I mean, I was technically born in the 70s, but I'm pretty sure we'd flipped the calendar over into the 80s before I had my first memory.
As he spoke, the gears were already spinning in my head, and then he mentioned Jaws.
I had read the Benchley bestseller a couple of times, and it's a decent enough novel.
They're a far better sure, but this is about a friggin' shark,
so that automatically skyrockets it up the tiers of my estimation.
(10:56):
But the film Jaws?
I get asked what my favorite film of all time is, and it's an impossible to answer question,
but I indulge and simplify.
And I know I should say something like Corasal or Fellini, perhaps,
and frankly, if I instead was asked what I thought was the greatest cinematic achievement of all time,
I mean, I'm gonna say Bergman's The Seventh Seal, but favorite is different, isn't it?
(11:17):
Still, Jaws is so much more than a summer blockbuster popcorn flick.
That three-man-on-a-boat speech, the USS Indianapolis, show me the way to go home.
There's some intellectual heft and substance there, too, so I don't feel bad at all saying Jaws.
Still, I was more in a literary analysis mindset, so my first thought was Peter Benchley.
He'd penned several more novels, a few of which I'd read, so I did a little digging,
(11:40):
and surprisingly, there's almost little on the fellow's output,
almost like there was a gap in scholarship that was screaming for someone to enter it.
While still a far cry from home in Troy—that's Troy, Alabama, not a city being sieged by Agamemnon's troops—
I discovered that Benchley also wrote The Deep, a novel about a killer giant squid.
Oh, and there was Girl of the Sea of Cortez, a reverse Jaws sort of, where a girl befriends a manta ray.
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Then I started digging into Jaws' adjacent films, thinking I might also incorporate a little of my budding interest in film studies,
and that's when I discovered the Jaws' knockoffs—Piranha, Great White, and, surprise, surprise, Grizzly, which is essentially Jaws on land.
My animal attack search led me to combing through used bookstores, thrift stores, antique malls, anywhere where musty old paperbacks appeared.
Mostly, however, it was Amazon's used booksellers who provided me with the out-of-print forgotten schlock
(12:27):
that hasn't stood the test of time, nor should most of it.
Incidentally, at one of those antique stores, I came across a novelization of Grizzly, a pulpy paperback with yellowed pages.
I snagged it for a whopping quarter price tag, and it sits proudly on my shelf with so many other aging novels about killer bees, rats, bats, cats, and—I'm not even kidding—one of Bluefin Tuna.
I've never read the Grizzly novelization, however, and I had also never seen the film.
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I was keenly aware of its existence and had read plenty about it, but I never got around to watching it. Not until last week.
Researching for my library talk on the 15th, I knew this film was going to contain some of the thematic elements I needed to explore.
I also knew that unless I was going to somehow figure out how sleep would not be necessary for a human being,
I was going to have to do double duty and research the talk while also making podcast episodes.
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But I didn't have Grizzly on DVD, the single criterion for a film to appear on shelf criticism.
Hey, I put in an order for a batch of discs at least once a month anyway, and I was overdue.
So when I went to Amazon to see what was on sale for ridiculously low prices, I also made sure to toss in a Blu-ray of Grizzly into my cart.
That went at full price. Never say I'm not dedicated to this podcast.
I mean, sure, it was streaming on Prime for free, but I wanted to add it to my collection anyway, and this gave me a perfect excuse.
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So now I've got another notch in the enormous subgenre of animal horror cinema under my belt.
One that, let's face it, should have been checked long ago. So what are my thoughts?
Oh, I do have them. But first, let's see what the critics had to say.
The critical reception. As a B movie at best, Grizzly didn't attract much critical attention at the time of its release,
and there's still not much more today, even with its later DVD issue.
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Rotten Tomatoes gives the film a surprising 45%, though that's based on only 11 reviews, most of them from the DVD era reevaluation.
I suspect Grizzly has aged better with time. Modern reviews seem more forgiving, with some even finding charm on this blatant jaws on land approach.
Some might speak to a modern sightgeist, where we're more accustomed to reboots, remakes, and homages, and more attuned to the meta aspects of filming.
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However, reviews from 1976 were far less kind. On Metacritic, which has only four contemporaneous reviews, the film scores a dismal 25.
While the sample size is tiny, it reinforces my suspicion that modern audiences are more tolerant of this kind of homage.
Since my options are so limited, I'll turn to Vincent Canvey's New York Times review, William Girdler's not-quite-so-toothsome Grizzly.
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Let's see what he has to say.
So Canvey begins,
Jean-Luc Godard proposed some years ago that the only adequate way to review one film is to make another in response.
A director named William Girdler apparently agrees. He's on his way to the creation of an entire oeuvre of such movies.
Abbey, made in 1974, was the repository of the Girdler Meditations upon the Exorcist.
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His latest, Grizzly, is the story of a man-eating grizzly bear that terrorizes the campers in a national park.
It is Mr. Girdler's answer to Jaws, and if I had the facilities, I'd review Grizzly by making a movie about a teensy-weensy insect walking amok.
It would be called Flea.
Grizzly, which opened up yesterday at the Rivoli and other theaters, is such a blatant imitation of Jaws that one has to admire the depth of flattery it represents, though not the lack of talent involved.
(15:34):
Woo, look at you opening with a Godard nod. You fancy.
You know how I've praised the rhetorical skill of critics I disagree with on past episodes? It's not gonna happen here.
Canvey's attempt at humor falls flat. His reference to Godard feels like posturing, and his flea analogy, while facetious, fails to offer any meaningful insight.
Sure, we know Grizzly isn't Jaws, but that comparison adds nothing constructive. If anything, it highlights the laziness of his critique.
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There's a way to call out Grizzly for being derivative while still engaging with its charm or its place within the broader landscape of animal horror cinema,
but Canvey opts for a snarky, clunky opening that ironically lacks the bite he claims Grizzly doesn't have.
Sometimes the simplest critique is the best. Instead of all the jargon and hypotheticals, just say Grizzly's a shameless Jaws knockoff that doesn't live up to the original and just call it a day.
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He's right that Gerdler had already helmed Abby, which is a bonkers film and blast from the past, a film I talked about briefly in the third episode of this show ever, which covered the avenging Disco Godfather.
In particular, I mentioned Carole Speed, who stars in both, and is an actor who never got the laurels I feel she deserved.
But yes, if Grizzly is a Jaws on land, it can be as correct that Abby is the blaxploitation exorcist.
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It was even tied up in a lawsuit, which eventually was dismissed, but only after Gerdler's passing. He never saw a penny of the profits.
Gerdler would also go into Direct Day of the Animals, which is often mistaken as a sequel to Grizzly.
It had a very similar plot, an attacking bear again, and even some of the same cast from the earlier film, although also a young Leslie Nielsen in that one.
It wasn't, though there was a sequel in the making. Something we'll put a pin in for the moment and probably circle back around to.
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Still, to say Gerdler was less than original always isn't accurate either. His last film was certainly a concept new to me, though it's one that has passed my notice now and again.
I've never sat down and given it a look. It's called The Manatee? I'll read the synopsis from IMDB.
A psychic's girlfriend finds out that a lump on her back is a growing reincarnation of a 400-year-old demonic Native American spirit. Imagine the pitch meeting for that one.
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Canby goes on to say about Gerdler and his writing and production crew,
Lights like theirs don't fit under bushels. The national park, that is the location of Grizzly, is never identified.
The one would suppose it had to be somewhere in the American Northwest, where one might conceivably find a grizzly bear, and not Georgia, where the movie was actually made.
It doesn't help the film that the Georgia forests, while pretty, look somewhat less menacing than Central Park, and that the grizzly who plays the lead, though large and probably dangerous, can't quite shake his Winnie the Pooh image.
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That is the one strong point of this film. It's gorgeously shot. We open with sweeping overhead shots of miles and miles of pristine green forests.
And allow me to drop a fun fact to perhaps mitigate some of Canby's surprise.
The state with the largest percentage of square footage that is forest is Oregon. The next two? Georgia and Alabama.
You learn a lot when you produce a documentary short about Bigfoot sightings.
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When I looked at those shots, my first thought was it had to be the corner of Georgia, South Carolina, and Tennessee, right in that part just south of Appalachia.
And sure enough, it was filmed in Clayton, Georgia, the northernmost county in that state.
Yes, the scenery is more lush than scarier and posing, sure. Central Park in the 1970s certainly had a reputation, so I don't doubt the reviewer here.
But this film, like Jaws, is a daylight horror, a genre I've spoken about often on this podcast, so I won't rehash it.
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Check out my episodes on the Wicker Man or Lords of Salem, as well as Reel It's episode on Jaws, for a deeper exploration of that concept.
The bear. Now, the bear is perhaps a bit of a flaw. The animatronic bear and the practical effects are so laughable they could never be scary.
And as for the live-action bear wandering around, well, he's just so adorable you want to hug him and bury your face in his fur, even if he would probably maul you.
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Nearing the end of his mercifully short review, Canby states,
(19:37):
Alright, fair enough. This isn't a scary film, not by a long shot. There's literally zero tension to be had in any given moment.
The gore is so horribly fake it's actually hilarious. Unlike Canby, whom I'm already assuming is one of those you-must-be-fun-at-parties sort of fellas,
I can see here that this film is never going to cut it as a down-the-middle horror. It's going to have to ramp up the camp, no pun intended, this time I swear, in order to salvage anything.
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The first kill, made on an unwitting camper, sees a painfully obvious prosthetic bear claw swipe and then a severed arm gets tossed into the air. It only gets worse from there.
And while normally I get bent out of shape when animals are killed, especially domesticated ones, the aforementioned horse decapitation is so hilarious that it has zero emotional resonance.
Again, it's just a hard cut as an obviously fake head goes spinning. By contrast, the only other beheaded horse scene I can think of, the much more famous one, used a real equine head.
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And of course here I refer to Jack Waltz's shocking awakening in The Godfather. They were going to use a fake, but Coppola thought it looked too fake.
Well, if it looked anything like the one in this film, he wasn't wrong. I still know how I feel about the ethics of such a prop, but I can assure you it doesn't work in Grizzly.
And in an anticlimactic conclusion, Canby says,
I would hope intelligent adults would avoid it and that parents would give it a personal X. Officially it's been rated PG. Oh Lord, I'm not having another discussion on the ratings, the creation of PG-13, what X originally meant, and so forth.
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Again, there are plenty of episodes in my catalog to explore that avenue. I'd recommend starting with the Grimlands.
But with Canby's critique out of the way, let's move on to my take. Let's start with what works in this film, perhaps, beginning with some of the camera work.
This will surprise absolutely no one, but we do get a lot of shots of the bear's POV.
Again, this is a hallmark of Jaws, and while not the cliche it would become, still seen in other precursors, specifically Peeping Tom, Psycho, but we've never gotten a bear POV before, not to my knowledge.
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As the titular Grizzly is stalking his first unsuspecting prey, we move through the branches, hearing him snort and growl lowly.
Upon coming to the clearing, he sees the woman, who's credited as Margaret, though I'm not sure we ever hear her name. Disposable fodder would have been just as accurate.
But when he does despise something to wreak carnage on, he rares up on his hind legs, as bears are wont to do.
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Still, however, we don't see him, but we know this because the camera suddenly raises to extreme heights.
Not only does this clearly articulate what the unseen creature is doing, it also creates a high angle shot looking down on Margaret.
These types of shots make the subject beneath appear vulnerable, as she certainly is.
Now, the camera is never used to the same degree of success it is in this early sequence, but I was at least impressed with what I saw there.
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Aside from that, well, I mean, I already mentioned the beautiful nature sequences.
Seriously, I wish a true HD existed back then. This film would pop so beautifully.
And no, that was not an invitation for a filmmaker to remake it. Please, spare us.
By the way, the remaster work is pretty well done. Good looking film. There's only so much you can do with those negatives.
Honestly, the only other positive is a perceived negative for most. It's the campiness.
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It's just so silly, and I don't think it strives to be.
Case in point, during the park-wide grizzly hunt, Rangers Tom and Gail are riding around.
They stop at the edge of a waterfall, and Tom says he's going to get up on the ridge.
Gail says she'll stay there, and she wants to kind of relax by the water.
Well, she doesn't mean by, and I should mention here that Gail is played by Victoria Johnson, a name that meant nothing to me.
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She's not a scream queen or a denizen of even the most obscure trash cinema I consume,
but it turns out she was a well-known penthouse pet at the time, and I think you see where this is going.
She peels off her Ranger uniform, almost like I noticed that because I'm focusing on costuming, huh?
She does stop at her undergarments, of course, because this is a PG film, but still, gratuitous skin on screen, check.
It's so foolish. Why in the middle of a hunt for a crazed bear?
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One, incidentally, who has already been said to prefer females.
Why would she be left alone, for starters?
But furthermore, why just strip down to your skivvies and go gallivanting in a waterfall?
Do I even need to tell you the big bad bear is behind the falls?
See what I mean? Foolish, but foolish to the point of being funny.
While it isn't breaking the fourth wall, it's worth noting that Gail is making her way over to the falls,
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and we again see the bear POV as he's watching her through the cascading water.
Then we pivot to a perspective across the water as she walks into the falls,
turning to let the water splash on her.
She doesn't look directly at the camera, but she gets close.
And then, big fake bear claw.
It's interesting to see how we switch so suddenly from the Predator's POV to the audience again,
making us a voyeur in this spectacle, a sordid blend of sensuality and violence that indicts us for reveling in it.
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Why does the bear prefer women, incidentally?
Because it's a lopping 2,000 pound ball of fur and horror cliches.
That I can understand.
There's even a throwaway line that the bear has to be male because only males are carnivorous.
There was such a chance here to go for some depth,
make it a subtle statement about the sexual politics of the time,
but for some reason the bear just suddenly decides he's bisexual in his diet.
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Also, there's a great article in the Atlantic about how grizzlies are mostly vegan,
but human encroachment on their habitat has led them to change their feeding habits.
By this point in the 1970s, many of the animal horror cinema films were already touting a strong ecological message,
and this film could have followed that trend.
But nah, we get the laughable explanation from wildlife biologist Arthur Scott
that this bear is a descendant of some Pleistene-era bear called Arctos Ursus Horribilis.
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Yes, that's really what he says.
And no, that's not an actual extinct species of bear.
But that makes this guy bigger, grumpier, and more carnivorous.
And Scott says it with such conviction too, leading me to believe he's not much of a scientist.
I mean, we all learn the scientific method in middle school, right?
And there are a few more steps than just simply pull a harebrained hypothesis out of your butt and insist you're right.
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Furthermore, on top of missing some opportunities to bring some substance to the film,
it also leaves some plot threads dangling.
We begin with Alison Corwin coming home to help out her father's restaurant,
which is presumably in or near the National Park.
It's struggling, and she's trying to help him make a profit, though he refuses to raise prices.
And she also takes photographs because she's a photographer for... somewhere.
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She also says something about an editor.
She's clearly the love interest for George Kelly.
They have that bickering like the stereotypical characters in the film always do.
And we all know it's really just pent-up sexual tension.
She's around for the first two acts, even if she is just mostly in the background.
And then when the action really ramps up, she wants to go out in the forest as well.
Only now we remember the bear likes women.
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Then again, at least Ranger Gale would have had a gun in training.
Alison might momentarily blind the bear with her flash, but that's about it.
Kelly puts his foot down, absolutely refusing, though he does give her a quick peck on the lips before going out there,
so I guess that's your romantic payoff.
Because there's no more Alison.
Nothing about Corwin's restaurant.
Did it recoup its losses? Will it stay in business?
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No, the film just ends because it wants to end.
During the big showdown, Kelly shoots the bear with a bazooka.
You heard that right.
Bazooka. And we roll the credits.
You know, it almost feels wrong to critique the performances in a movie where the final boss fight involves a bazooka,
but hey, this is show-off criticism and I have a job to do.
So let's talk standout performances.
Am I a bad judge of acting skills?
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I know I'm far from capable of portraying another person on stage or film,
but I like to think I understand enough of the theory and nuances that I can at least tell when something's noteworthy,
for the right or wrong reasons.
Nothing here seemed particularly bad.
That doesn't mean it was good and there were some deliveries that were flat or monotone.
So it wasn't enough to ridicule.
The women who are there just to scream, they do their job well.
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That really is talent.
When you have an actress who can't scream, it can break a horror film.
Christopher George has a laziness to his presence and a delivery that's perfectly fitting.
He's a cool guy, level-headed, doesn't get bent out of shape.
Perhaps he could have shown a little more fire towards the end after the tragic attack on that woman and her child.
But he does have a sort of clenching of his jaw that gives a quiet but seething rage in that moment,
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and that's pretty effective.
Richard Jackle, I'm hoping I'm saying that right, J-A-E-C-K-E-L.
He plays the wildlife biologist Arthur Scott.
He's a strange cross between a mad scientist and a backwoods hermit.
He could have taken that further, probably should have.
For a guy who wants to chase a prehistoric carnivore on the rampage,
even wears a bearskin on his back to attract him, one does not really expect a subdued performance.
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And then there's Andrew Prine as Don Stober, the Vietnam vet turned tour guide?
Something. It's never made clear.
He flies a chopper.
He has this snarky attitude and delivers his sardonic quips with a deadpan earnestness.
He does have the best singers in the film, and even though it's more on the account of the screenplay,
he does take them and make them his own.
Though he's from Florida, he had a Texas drawl that is very distinct, or perhaps was distinct.
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I'll bet if you closed your eyes and listened to a line of dialogue,
you wouldn't be able to tell if it was Prine or Matthew McConaughey.
Either way, he's fun to watch, and unlike the bickering between Allison and Kelly,
his barbed insults actually land.
It might not be spectacular, but it's above middling, which makes it stand out above the rest of the cast.
Now that adorable bear would perhaps also be in consideration,
except rather than being menacing, he just looks like he needs some scritches behind his ears.
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Sorry, Teddy. Yes, that's what they named him.
You weren't selling anyone on being fierce.
We will talk about that bear, but we can't talk about Grizzly without addressing the giant fish-shaped shadow looming over it.
This movie is Jaws in the Woods. I mean, let's be real.
How many times can a film bar from Spielberg before it just becomes a landlocked knockoff?
So let's break it down in cultural context.
Let's start with just the character similarities.
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Sheriff Brody, Ranger Kelly, they're both authority figures, unable to deal with the menace.
They both support the closing of the beach slash park, but they're overridden.
Who are they overridden by? Well, of course, Mayor Larry Vaughn, we all know from Jaws,
and then there's Charlie Kitteridge and Grizzly.
They clash with the authority figure, whether it's the sheriff or a ranger,
about whether or not to close parts of the attraction, how to handle the attacks, all that stuff.
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Matt Hooper and Arthur Scott, essentially the same character, both scientists, experts.
They clash with the authority figures, but also the folksy everyman figure, who, by the way, is Quint or Don Stover.
An everyman, not educated, formally at least, veteran of a war,
has first-hand experiential knowledge of the animals from being in the environment for so long.
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And then there's the antagonistic animal. Both of them are exaggerated in size.
The shark is 20 to 25 feet long, whereas the average size of one is 15 feet.
Grizzly's ones standing on their hind legs are 7 to 8 feet at the tallest and can weigh about 600 pounds.
Scott says this one is 15 feet, and then later, contradictorily, 18 feet, and weighs a good 2,000 pounds.
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Both the shark and the grizzly's unusually stalk humans,
and no motivation is ever given or explained why either animal does so.
As far as film stylistic choices, as mentioned before, the animal's POV is often used,
and you can't miss this once you do notice it, but when the grizzly stalks and attacks,
particularly the first time, there's a minor key two-note musical sequence played.
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Does that sound familiar to anyone?
As far as plot similarities, early on there's a woman who's signaled to be promiscuous,
both in varying stages of undress, who is a victim.
Gale even gets under the waterfall, thus making both attacks technically in water.
There's a young boy being attacked by the animal who provides the catalyst for both Brody and Kelly
to defy their superiors and obstacles placed in front of them and to go all in to neutralize the animal.
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We don't get a three-man-on-a-boat scene, so famous in Jaws, but we do get a two-man-in-a-chopper scene.
Of course, one of the most famous and most moving parts of Jaws, one that really elevates it from,
as I said before, popcorn fare to something deeper, is that USS Indianapolis speech Quint gives.
Well, there's a point where Stobor talks about a group of natives, though he calls them Indians, ick,
being attacked by bears in the woods, and he ends his speech by acknowledging he was one of the survivors of that attack,
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a lot like Quint.
The shark, of course, attacks the orca, which is Quint's boat, and the bear attacks Stobor's helicopter.
Yes, this film has a scene of a bear swatting down a helicopter.
You know what, I take back everything I say. This film is a masterpiece.
And then lastly, between the exploding scuba tank and the bazooka, the finale ends with a big ball of fire.
I'm sure there are others I missed. Email me and let me know what you saw.
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Still, this is enough to make my case, wouldn't you say?
If it isn't, the fact that every single critic and moviegoer alike seems to make the comparison should also solidify it.
There is one difference, though.
While Jaws did contract a couple of underwater filming experts, Ron and Valerie Taylor,
to shoot the footage you see of real sharks in that film,
the cast only had to deal with a clunky, cantankerous animatronic shark they dubbed Bruce.
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The cast of Grizzly, however, did get to be up close and personal with that chonky floofer we see.
So let's talk about Teddy in the trivia.
Teddy was actually untamed, but had been trained.
The ranch where Teddy lived kept him behind an electric fence, having discovered the one thing he did not like was to be shocked.
And then again, who would?
During filming, a green wire was run between the bear and the cast and crew, and they were instructed not to get near it.
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The wire was electrified and was supposed to ensure their safety.
Teddy himself is just a bear that would not roar.
They just couldn't get him to roar.
And what's a good Earth-Side Horror without a snarling beast?
So to create the illusion, his trainer would throw a few marshmallows and let him catch them, and then he would hold up another marshmallow.
Eager for another sweet morsel, Teddy would open his mouth wide and hold it.
And then in post-pro, they would end up in an actual roar.
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Going back and re-watching some of those scenes, knowing that, and when I hear him roar, knowing he just wants another marshmallow, I mean, could he be any more adorable?
Teddy, by the way, stood 11 feet tall on his hind legs, and at the time he was the tallest bear in captivity.
Still a good bit shy of the 18 feet, though.
And incidentally, I found these tidbits on an Internet message board dedicated solely to bears in film.
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I assume a lot of it is people who train bears for Hollywood and the filmmakers wanting to hire them.
But every time I think I have the most niche area of fascination, someone has to come along and one-up me.
So we are moving right along here.
I do want to pause for shelfless endeavors. We haven't had this segment in a while.
But I did manage to get back to the theater, let's see, 12 days ago now?
I had every intention of going a couple more times by this point, but I also thought I'd be recording this episode sooner.
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I'm telling you, seriously, don't try that flu thing. It just makes it hard to get stuff done.
So perhaps I'm a little late to the game, but I'm assuming Wolfman should still be playing in theaters.
Though with the way things go nowadays, it might already be streaming.
Did you catch Tarantino's Sundance comments about that? If not, you should look them up.
At any rate, the film wasn't exactly a critical darling, and I can see why.
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It's not a perfect film, and it did have a lot to live up to after director Lee Whannell's earlier and far superior
Universal Monster remake, The Invisible Man. It doesn't reach that level, but there's still some to appreciate.
The acting is strong, and I really like the staging of several scenes.
Some people have said the film didn't build up suspense, which I strongly disagree with.
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Not unrelated, I was most impressed with the sound design.
During the sequence where the family is trapped inside the house, the beast prowling outside like a horror movie version of The Three Little Pigs,
the sound of claws and snarls move from the back right of the theater, circling around to the front.
It makes you feel encircled and trapped, adding to the tension in a way that few horror films do well.
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And the pacing is spot on. While it tries to inject some deeper themes at its core, it's seriously about parenting.
But it doesn't push into elevated horror, pretentious territory, and then it's probably for the best.
It's what, barely an hour and a half, and that's the perfect runtime. Doesn't draw it out.
That said, it does try to do too much with the body horror, and what it does isn't that impressive.
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I mean, this film so badly wants to be the fly, but it's nowhere near Cronenberg territory.
Likewise, the hallucinogenic transformation sequences where we see through Blake's perspective, they just feel disjointed and they don't quite land.
The film's worst defense is just it's so ridiculously underlit.
I get it. It's a horror movie. Darkness is necessary. But I can't be scared if I can't see anything.
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So many films are guilty of this now. Why not just go for an eerie blue light, since, you know, full moon?
That said, I did appreciate the ending. A couple lines of dialogue had the subtle payoff, and it was so well done.
Not only was it fitting, but the film didn't make it painfully obvious.
No voiceovers, no flashbacks, no characters repeating what was already said.
When a film trusts its audience to be intelligent, then it gets points for me.
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So overall, I'd say see it, and see it in the theater. Unless you have a killer Dolby set up at home, this one's worth it.
The sound alone, you know, it makes it an experience.
When you can actually see what's happening, it's pretty visually compelling, too.
All right, toss this joker on a shelf. So new listeners are needed to refresh her.
I have five shelves on my DVD Curio. So essentially I use the bartender's model.
(36:19):
Top shelf for the good stuff, bottom shelf for the rot gut, and in between we have second shelf, mid shelf, fourth shelf.
This film, y'all, what to do with this film?
I mean, I had a blast watching it, though I knew it was not even sniffing in the realm of good.
Yes, jaws rip off, sure, but I don't think that matters as much today as it did when it was released.
It's probably a film that shouldn't have tried to play it straight, even though it did.
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But that said, it's inadvertently campy, which makes it all the more endearing.
Since it's no secret that bad films often entertain me, it's sometimes hard for me to get a bead on where they should rank if I'm maintaining a modicum of fairness.
I'm glad I watched this film. But the question I asked myself was, would I want to watch it again?
And the answer is, not really. One sit-through is plenty.
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If I do find myself going back for viewing for my research, then it won't be an Augean Stables-sized chore, but I'm sure the fun will be more subdued.
So I'm just going to place this film on...
Fourth shelf. It's not the bottom of the barrel. Not the barn of the naked dead nadir of cinema.
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Yes, remember that cover copy on the back that reminds us that Pryan was in a film called The Barn of the Naked Dead?
Which, by the way, I'd actually seen, although I saw it as Terror Circus, these films, they're multiple names.
Pryan actually said that was the one film that he regretted doing in all of his career.
Either way, it's definitely not that low.
But there's only so much amusement you can pillage from Grizzly before it's nothing but dry bones.
(37:48):
So keeping things in line thematically.
Next go-around is with eight-legged web spinning critters. And no, I don't mean four different iterations of Spider-Man from the multiverse.
We'll be looking at a strange outlier in that Animal Horror cinema foray.
This one coming in 1990, about seven years after the trend fizzled out and about seven years before it would ramp back up again.
So call up Delbert McClintock, Infestation Management, because we're revisiting arachnophobia.
(38:12):
So quick programming note. Losing a week's worth of work to the flu has me behind not only in this and the other podcast,
but also my speaking engagements, my work on the film festival. And oh yeah, I actually have to teach too, don't I?
So I'm working to catch up, but it may be a bit more than a week before the next one drops, too.
It will, rest assured. Ah, academia, where you're always taking on too much because the job isn't stressful enough on its own merits.
(38:34):
But in the interim, if you want to wish me a get well soon, even though I'm already well, I suppose,
you want to praise Andrew Pryan's acting chops or warn me off of trying to pet grizzly bears, as if I would listen,
you can send me an email at steven at shelf criticism dot com. And remember that Stephen with a P.H. S.T. P.H.N.
You can follow us on social media at Shelf Criticism. And don't forget about my other podcast, Real It, where I'm joined by the radiant McKenzie.
(38:58):
Again, my cooties caused a delay for our upcoming episode, but we're going to confab in a couple of days and set up an alternative recording time
to keep posted on our alternate schedule as well as keep abreast of all the big news coming from Owls of Palace Productions.
Be sure to give us a follow on social media as well at Real It Podcast. And remember that's R.E.E.L., like a film reel.
(39:19):
So until next time, DVD aficionados, remember to treat yourself to a little shelf indulgence of your own.
Amelia, sing us home.
(39:42):
Shelf criticism is an Owls of Palace production. This podcast is in no way connected with the educational institutions the host is employed by.
The opinions expressed herein are solely those of the host and do not necessarily reflect the views of any other organization with which he is affiliated.
Most images displayed are public domain. Images and stills from films, descriptions of scenes and passages from books are used for educational and critical purposes
(40:07):
and not for profit and therefore fall under the terms of fair use.
Your hands aren't clean either pal. You and your cameras you've made it so exciting, so attractive.
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