Format: DVD from Rockford Public Library on the New Portable.
Every now and then, a movie changes the game. The Matrix affected just about everything that came after it for the next few years. Jaws had that kind of effect as well. In the years that followed its release, there were all sorts of “animal goes on a human-killing rampage” films. One of the first to attempt to capitalize on the trend was Grizzly that followed the next year. Lots of movies owe a debt to Jaws in that respect, but few are so obviously clear about their position as this one. Grizzly really wants to be a land-based Jaws and it makes no bones about it.
When I say that this wants to be a land-based Jaws, I mean that as clearly and as sincerely as I can. Grizzly has almost the same beats and pretty close to the same body count. It even goes for about the same distance into the movie before showing us the big ol’ bear who is doing the attacks. The problem is that Grizzly uses a trained bear for the animal photography and what is clearly an artificial bear paw on a stick for the attack sequences. Every character in Jaws has an analogue here, and, for the main characters, all but one suffers the same fate. Even the ending is almost identical—so much so that I’ll put it under a spoiler later.
