Proving that there’s nothing so crappy it can’t inspire someone, this cheap knock-off of Grizzly tells the tale of one man’s Ahab-like quest to rid the Alaskan wilderness of what might be a supernatural being, or a gigantic grizzly bear, or a smallish black bear, or the taxidermist’s handiwork, depending on what shot we happen to be looking at.
Those new to this film should be warned that it features a particularly tragic ending, from which this viewer is yet to recover…
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#1 by Ed on June 7, 2009 - 7:32 pm
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Cool, I always wondered about this film. Nice review.
#2 by El Santo on June 7, 2009 - 8:54 pm
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Good lord… The antique VHS copy (big box and everything) I rented from the Route 2 Blockbuster in Severna Park all those years ago wasn’t exactly in pristine shape, but the one you got stuck with looks appalling!
#3 by Scott David Hamilton on June 7, 2009 - 9:07 pm
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So I was overtaken with insatiable curiosity: How could the movie have an ending that was so disturbing to Liz?
Well played.
#4 by ProfessorKettlewell on June 7, 2009 - 11:22 pm
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“muttermuttermutterrippedoffmuttermuttermutter”…..
Did you intend this to be an onomatopoeia for the sound of a small helicopter (an Alouette II if my rec skills are up to scratch)? Because it’s a perfectly good one 😉
But that print certainly is horrible.
#5 by lyzard on June 8, 2009 - 12:04 am
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Ah, ya get what you pay for; after having OOP VHS copies of Claws waved in my face for $60.00 and upwards, I was glad enough to snag this dub for around a tenth of that. Its opening logo is Video Gems, if that means anything to you guys.
As for the rest of it, I wouldn’t be so upset if they hadn’t taunted me with that helicopter and the terrible weather conditions for about half an hour before it literally flies off into the sunset. And now I need to watch Prophecy even more: the helicopter pilot gets his head bitten off in that, yes?
…muttermuttermutternoididntthinkofthatmuttermuttermutter…
#6 by El Santo on June 8, 2009 - 2:51 am
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“the helicopter pilot gets his head bitten off in that, yes?”
That’s the way I remember it, anyway.
#7 by Ed on June 8, 2009 - 10:12 am
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Not to mention one of the greatest klills in bad horror movie history. You’ll know it when you see it, trust me.
#8 by David lee Ingersoll on June 8, 2009 - 12:13 pm
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Ed – Feathers?
#9 by lyzard on June 8, 2009 - 4:03 pm
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Which ALSO has a precedent in Claws! (Uh, without the feathers.) I’m really starting to believe that someone watched this thing and thought, “Well, that was pretty good, but you know what would make it better? An environmental message delivered like a baseball bat to the skull!”
#10 by KeithA on June 8, 2009 - 4:45 pm
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Upon first glance at the screencap accompanying this post, I thought “Is that…is that…a grizzly bear shooting lightning from its paws?”
And I will read the review as soon as I call the Sci-Fi Channel…errr…I mean SyFy.
#11 by lyzard on June 8, 2009 - 5:23 pm
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Whoa, there, boy! Let’s get Great White Squid in the can first, shall we? And let’s face it, after Mega-Shark Vs Giant Octopus, the time has never been riper. (I wonder how The Asylum would feel if people started ripping them off?)
#12 by The Rev. D.D. on June 8, 2009 - 6:49 pm
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What a nice way to start a week!
I have a feeling the Asylum would be flattered, and maybe confused. As long as they had the sense not to make an issue of it…
After reading the review, I have to concur about the begatting of Prophecy. I think you’re on to something there. And even though they added that as-subtle-as-screaming-in-your-face environmental message, they did at least have the good sense to add back in the ‘copter attack. (I don’t remember the pilot’s head getting bitten off, but it’s been a while.) That counts for something, right?
#13 by Chad R. on June 8, 2009 - 7:29 pm
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I have a friend from Montana (and OF COURSE she can use a rifle) and she told me two things Montana has a fair abundance of are grizzly bears and meth labs. Imagine this. Lorenzo Lamas is a tough-as-nails, by-the-book DEA agent investigating a new hyper-potent form of methamphetamine being produced by neo-Nazi bikers in the Montana wilderness. Angel Boris is a free-spirited rookie forest ranger probing an unprecedented series of brutal bear attacks in Glacier National Park. It’s GRIZZLIES ON SPEED! Next on SyFy!
#14 by lyzard on June 8, 2009 - 8:20 pm
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[Homer Simpson drooling noises]
#15 by Ed on June 8, 2009 - 9:21 pm
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Great White Squid? That sounds great!
#16 by The Rev. D.D. on June 8, 2009 - 9:29 pm
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Someone get Chad R. a budget!
Along with the guy who thought up GWS!
#17 by El Santo on June 8, 2009 - 10:11 pm
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“It’s GRIZZLIES ON SPEED!”
You can already watch something not too far from this, you know. I’ve never seen it, but there’s a movie from the mid-80’s (I’m pretty sure it’s Italian, to the suprise of absolutely nobody) by the name of Wild Beasts, in which the threat is the entire animal population of a large city zoo, all out of their minds on PCP.
#18 by lyzard on June 8, 2009 - 10:54 pm
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And lotsa real animal violence, which is why I haven’t either.
#19 by Read MacGuirtose on June 9, 2009 - 1:01 am
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Oh, wow. This sounds like a truly incompetent and horrible movie, but incompetent and horrible in absolutely hilarious ways. Though I get the impression it’s far more hilarious in the summarized form of the review than it would be to watch the actual movie; I suspect that as entertaining as it may be to read about such features as the endless wavy flashbacks (especially the sappy running-through-wildflowers one), in a viewing of the movie the tedium would very quickly outweigh the humor.
Still, I have to say… I think “a flock of broody elephants” is probably the most sidesplittingly ludicrous metaphor I’ve ever heard that wasn’t apparently intended to be a joke…
#20 by lyzard on June 9, 2009 - 2:18 am
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When a film can’t make a bear attack exciting, you just know the love scenes are going to mean DEEP HURTING.
Far from being a joke, the expression “A flock of broody elephants” is used to convey to Chris the deadly seriousness of the situation. Really.
#21 by MatthewF on June 9, 2009 - 4:22 am
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If you ripped off an Asylum film, which was obviously a knock-off of an existing movie, preferably a sequel to a remake, and had a hit, then the Asylum would have to rip your film off in turn, and the whole b-movie world would instant be sucked into itself and dissapear.
It’s worth pointing out that this happened many times in Italy in the 1970s.
#22 by MatthewF on June 9, 2009 - 4:33 am
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…and the taxidermy shots remind me of that Hammer movie called, I think, Prehistoric Women, where these time travellers are repeatedly threatened by a completely immobile paper-mache statue of a white rhino.
#23 by KeithA on June 9, 2009 - 12:55 pm
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Great White Squid is my as-yet unfinished script about a giant squid whose tentacles end in great white sharks. It’s a follow-up to my first unfinished script Cobra-Shark Versus Croco-Lion, which, given the Sci-Fi Channel’s penchant for colons in titles, has been renamed Cobra-Shark: Venom of the Deep Versus Croco-Lion: Beast King of the River: The Showdown. Electro-Grizzly: Paws of Lightning will follow shortly.
#24 by Scott David Hamilton on June 9, 2009 - 1:49 pm
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Okay Keith, just admit it: You’re really Roger Corman’s sock puppet.
#25 by KeithA on June 9, 2009 - 2:30 pm
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I just need someone to draw promotional poster art based on my movie titles, then we’re pretty much 90% of the way to a complete AIP movie.
#26 by lyzard on June 9, 2009 - 3:50 pm
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And 99% of the way towards me becoming your professional apologist.
#27 by ProfessorKettlewell on June 9, 2009 - 6:43 pm
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“I just need someone to draw promotional poster art based on my movie titles, then we’re pretty much 90% of the way to a complete AIP movie.”
But are you taking into account that Things featured on posters for AIP films are forbidden by Union regulations to actually appear in the film?
#28 by Onion on June 9, 2009 - 10:09 pm
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But the audience doesn’t know that!
#29 by The Beerman on June 11, 2009 - 3:10 am
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To be fair, the only quick, dry-fart of sympathy I had while watching Prophecy was for the wounded helicopter pilot as he’s abandoned by our “heroes” to his grisly fate.
Hee-hee. Camper go poof!
#30 by lyzard on June 11, 2009 - 4:54 pm
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Yes, along with “Celebrity Bear Fights”, I think it’s past time we had a list of Cinema’s Greatest Sleeping-Bag Scenes. (Am I wrong to rank that scene in Prophecy so far ahead of the one in For Whom The Bell Tolls??)
#31 by Scott Hamilton on June 11, 2009 - 5:05 pm
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Maybe it’s because I don’t camp, but I’ve never been into bear movies. I think I’ve seen Prophecy, and that’s about it. But now that you guys have opened my eyes to the age old feud between bears and helicopters I may have to check them out. Anyone have a list? Oh, and was there ever a Blue Thunder/Grizzly crossover?
#32 by Blake Matthews on June 11, 2009 - 7:23 pm
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Not a modern bear film, but there’s Night of the Grizzly, which is I guess more of a cowboy vs. bear film.
#33 by lyzard on June 11, 2009 - 9:22 pm
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There are plenty of films with b’ars in them, but surpringly few outright killer b’ar films. There were a couple recently, though, weren’t there? BEARS IN SPAAAAAAACE, and some other one? Damn, where’s Scott Foy when you need him?
Why must you taunt me?
#34 by Scott David Hamilton on June 11, 2009 - 9:30 pm
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In retrospect, an Airwolf/Grizzly crossover would me more sense.
#35 by El Santo on June 11, 2009 - 9:36 pm
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“the age old feud between bears and helicopters”
It’s not so much an age-old feud between bears specifically and helicopters as it is an age-old feud between helicopters and rampaging animals of all species. It just happened to be a bear that started the feud.
#36 by ProfessorKettlewell on June 11, 2009 - 11:17 pm
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“In retrospect, an Airwolf/Grizzly crossover would me more sense.”
Just so long as the Grizzly got to fly a tiger-patterned Hughes 500D with rocket pods and cannon in the climactic dogfight…..
#37 by MatthewF on June 12, 2009 - 2:52 am
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Now I thought it was sharks that hated helicopters.
Or perhaps loved them, as a tasty snack.
#38 by lyzard on June 12, 2009 - 6:22 pm
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This conversation is making me want to watch L’Ultimo Squalo again.
Although, granted, most things do.
#39 by The Rev. D.D. on June 12, 2009 - 10:39 pm
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“BEARS IN SPAAAAAAACE, and some other one?”
That would be Savage Planet and (I can’t believe you forgot this) Grizzly RRRRRAAAAAAAGE!!!!
And let’s not forget 1997’s The Edge.
I’d like to see L’Ultimo Squalo for a first time…
#40 by lyzard on June 13, 2009 - 3:00 am
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You WILL believe that a man can continue to hang on to a helicopter while being bitten in half by a great white shark.
#41 by The Rev. D.D. on June 13, 2009 - 9:31 pm
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I dunno….unless the man’s Adam West, that sounds like a stretch…
Well, if I can believe a big-ass shark can eat a goddamn jet, I can believe anything.