WILD GRIZZLY

The small mountain community of Pine Lake has been thrown into panic since a grizzly bear, escaped from its refuge, roams undisturbed through the woods showing a certain ferocity due to an annoying infection in a tooth. All the inhabitants of the town are shocked, so the ranger Frank Bradford organizes a capture expedition for the big animal. Josh, a young man recently arrived with his mother in the town, along with his friend Terri, the ranger's daughter, will also set out on the bear's trail with the hope of capturing and healing it without resorting to drastic measures. No, it is not a joke; the film in question really has the courage to stage a large grizzly bear that goes around roaring and terrorizing campers simply because it is struck by a bizarre toothache. Such a silly idea that it makes you miss the often overused idea of genetic manipulations. But even if one wanted to overlook this small, but ridiculous, detail, it would still be impossible to save the film from failure, as it is really of very low quality overall. The first thing one asks oneself, after having watched the film helplessly, is whether it was really necessary to make a film like this. Probably there could have been interesting elements, given that there are not many beast movies that use the figure of the fierce bear (we can remember, among these, the beautiful "Grizzly – the bear that kills" or the more recent but still interesting "L'Urlo dell'Odio"), but the main flaw of "Wild Grizzly" is that it succeeds in throwing, in a totally singular way, into anonymity and flatness any frivolous idea. Essentially, one does not even have the impression of watching a real beast movie, as it seems, more than anything else, to be watching an innocuous adventure film typical of children's television; a moralistic and at times even saccharine film created specifically for those happy families who are looking for a film that can be suitable for their little children who must grow up with a concept of "violence" quite banal and superficial. We must forget, therefore, the atrocities proposed masterfully in "Grizzly – the bear that kills" (William Girdler, 1976), in which we could admire a really fierce bear capable of tearing apart even a defenseless child; in "Wild Grizzly" everything is so light, banal, and saccharine (to cite the horrible ending under the sign of the most ostentatious goodism) to assimilate the work to any spin-off of the television series "Furia" or even better "Lessie". But if noticing a total absence of "strong" scenes was also quite predictable (we must make it known that it is a small film for television), what was not imagined was seeing a bear that does nothing threatening from start to finish (and for a reason, it is not bad, it only has a terrible toothache!), so there will be no crime (except for a poor dog) and even the attacks tend to be scarce. To catapult the task even more into anonymity and banality also collaborates a very thin screenplay, unable to create adrenaline-filled situations and to provide rhythm to the work, as well as it fails to characterize the various characters moving on the scene in an interesting way. We can notice individuals cut with the axe who drown in the most total stereotype: from the young protagonist who, due to his teenage status, feels misunderstood and therefore poses as a rebel until he starts to develop an interest in bears (but what a coincidence!), passing through the greedy bad guy of the moment (although here less bad than usual) who only thinks about money (played by an always out-of-place Daniel Baldwin), up to the ranger Bradford (played by a quite charismatic Fred Dryer, protagonist of the television series "Hunter"), a 360° positive utopian character who does not keep skeletons in the closet and is destined to find a remedy to the situation. "Wild Grizzly" is therefore an innocent television film for children that struggles to be considered relevant to the horror genre and that is really the emblem of uselessness. No one needed to see a film like this, so it is advisable to avoid it at all costs.