Grizzly is a 1976 natural horror/thriller film directed by William Girdler and starring Christopher George, Richard Jaeckel, and Andrew Prine. While regarded as a Jaws ripoff for using several similar plot elements as the shark thriller, Grizzly was box office success upon release.
Plot[]
Helicopter pilot Don Stober(Andrew Prine), a forest guide, gives some senators from Washington an aerial tour of the national park hes lived in his whole life and attempts to gain support from the government to protect the area from the spread of civilization and preserve its natural beauty. Elsewhere Chief Park Ranger Michael Kelly(Christopher George) instructs his people to do the best they can to keep an eye on the abnormally large post-season crowd of campers in the forest and picks up his girlfriend, Allison, from her father's restaurant and takes her into the forest to help her get photos of the changing seasons for her publisher. Meanwhile, after talking to a ranger named Tom in the park, a pair of female campers are attacked by a large bear. One attempts to hide in a shack, but the bear breaks in and kills her. Kelly and Allison encounter Ranger Tom, whom they accompany to find the female campers when they don't arrive at the Ranger HQ when they said they would. When they reach the shack, Kelly finds the mangled body of the female camper and organizes a search party to find the bear. Allison goes along and accidentally finds the half-buried body of the second camper, much to her horror.
Park Supervisor Charley Kittridge(Joe Dorsey) angrily confronts Kelly and demands to know why he wasn't informed of the incident. When Kelly states that his friend, naturalist Arthur Scott(Richard Jaeckel), could not have missed a bear since he knows them all, Kittridge demands to see him. Kelly calls in Scott from the field. Later, Ranger Tom leaves his girlfriend, Ranger Gail, to go and search alone for a bit and the bear finds and kills her. Kelly recruites the aid of Don Stober, also a friend of his, to help find the bear. They find Scott tracking the bear, and he informs them that the bear is not one of theirs, but rather a prehistoric Grizzly bear (a fictional Artodus ursos horribilis of the pleistocene era(based off the real-life Artodus simus), standing at least fifteen feet tall. Kelly and Don both scoff a the notion, but accept his word. That night, the Grizzly attacks a campsite, tearing down a tent and killing a woman. After this, Kittridge allows a large number of amatuer hunters to enter the park. One of the hunters is stalked and chased by the bear, but he manages to escape.
Later, a trio of hunters encounter a bear cub they suspect might belong to the grizzly, and attempt to use it for bait. However, the grizzly finds and eats the cub without them noticing. Scott asserts from this that the grizzly is a male, as only male bears are known to be cannibals. Kelly assigns Ranger Tom to a tower nearby to help spot the grizzly. However, the bear manages to sneak to the tower without being seen, then tears down the structure, killing Tom. When Kelly requests Kittridge close the park, he refuses and they have a fallout.
Scott goes out on his own to search for the grizzly after Kelly is left distraught. Later, the grizzly attacks a house on the outskirts of the park, maiming a young boy and killing his mother. Stunned by this development, Kittridge finally allows Kelly to close the park and ban all hunters. Kelly allows Don to remain with him and Scott during the hunt and thanks him for being so generous about his help as they load up Don's helicopter with various gear and supplies, including a rocket launcher. They kill and gut a buck and hang it to attract the grizzly, but it sees through the ruse and tricks them into following it, allowing it to circle back and take the buck. Retiring for the night, Don and Kelly return to the helicopter. The next day, Scott, still tracking the grizzly on horseback, finds the half-eaten body of the buck and calls Kelly on the radio. Kelly tells him to leave the area, but Scott decides to drag the buck to the halfway point between them against Kelly's wishes. Don and Kelly attempt to fly to his rescue, but the grizzly ambushes Scott, killing his horse and knocking him out cold. Later, Scott awakens to find himself half-buried in the ground, but as he starts to get up, the grizzly returns and kills him. Don and Kelly are saddened upon finding his body, and take back the air, Don saying he is now ready to kill again and can't wait(Don killed 200 hundred men during the Vietnam War and promised never to kill again after the war ended).
Don points out that the grizzly is returning to the scene of his first kill and Kelly spots its below them. Don angrily flies lower after the bear, eventually terrifying the grizzly. He suggests they use the rocket launcher to blast the grizzly, but Kelly tells him to land so they can go in after it, fearing the grizzly was too tired and scared to come back out. As they land, Don grabs the wrong rifle and the grizzly attacks the helicopter, causing Don to be thrown clean. As the grizzly starts to turn on Kelly, Don shoots it twice, emptying the rifle and causing the grizzly to turn on him. Don decides not to run and to use the rifle for a club, as Kelly begins to shoot the grizzly from behind. Don hits the bear in the face, before being caught. Despite Kelly's desperate attempts to save him, Don is crushed to death in the grizzly's forearms. As the bear turns on him, Kelly retrieves the rocket launcher from the helicopter and blasts the grizzly as it rears up on its hind legs, blowing it to pieces. Kelly sadly stares at the grizzly's burning remains for several seconds, before walking over to Don's body and quietly mourning the loss of his friend.
Similarities and differences with Jaws[]
Many critics heavily panned Grizzly for being a thinly-veiled ripoff Jaws, as it utilizes several of the same plot elements. Similarities include-
- Similar character formula between Chief Park Ranger Michael Kelly and Chief Martin Brody. Both are very skilled at doing their jobs, but lack experience in dealing with their respective threats, causing them each to rely on the aid of a pair of experts in the field.
- The pairs of experts that Brody and Kelly rely on also have similar character formulas, as naturalist Arthur Scott is shown to have a deep passion for his work and to be a highly knowledgeable expert on the Grizzly threat, similar to Matt Hooper, who shows the same traits in Jaws. Don Stober is a war veteran and professional guide, and a skilled enough hunter to be considered a professional, just like Quint, Don being a Vietnam War veteran and forest guide and Quint a World War 2 veteran and sea guide. Don and Quint both also serve as the comical reliefs of their films, as they are both the funniest characters out of each. Don and Quint both also serve as the irony of their respective films, as both are killed by the animals they hoped to kill. Quint being eaten by the shark and Don being ultimately crushed to death by the grizzly.
- When things get worse, Kelly requests Park Supervisor Charley Kittridge to close the park, but the latter refuses, similar to how in Jaws, Brody and mayor Larry Vaughn disagree on that the beaches should be closed, as it would ruin the summer tourism and with it, the town's economy.
- In Jaws, Quint tells his story of his past as a survivor of the U.S.S. Indianapolis and how he lost a friend and many sailors to sharks. In Grizzly, Don tells a similar story about a tribe of indians that once lived in the forest and were devoured one winter by a herd of grizzlies, with only at most a few healthier braves surviving, implying himself to either be one of them or to be a descendant of one of them.
- Both Quint and Don have their vehicles attacked by their threats, as the shark wrecks and causes Quint boat, the Orca, to sink, and the Grizzly attacks Don's helicopter and damages it.
- The grizzly and the shark both meet their ends in a similar fashion, as they both have their demise dramatized by being blown up.
To be fair about film's similarities with Jaws, Grizzly does have a number of things about its similarities that are different from Jaws. Such examples include
- Head Park Ranger Micheal Kelly, and his aides, Don Stober and Arthur Scott are all friends before the start of the film, whereas in Jaws, Chief Brody doesn't even meet either Matt Hooper or Quint until after the shark already makes its presence known.
- Kelly and Kittridge are shown not to be friends and almost always have little respect for one another, whereas in Jaws, Brody and Vaughn are friends and were always very respectful to one another, even when they didn't see eye to eye on something.
- Matt Hooper and Arthur Scott's fates are completely different, as Hooper survives the ordeal with the shark, whereas in Grizzly, Arthur Scott is killed by the bear.
- In Jaws, Chief Brody is happily married and has two sons. In Grizzly, Chief Park Ranger Micheal Kelly is a divorced man with a girlfriend.
- Though Don and Quint were both professional hunters and guides, Quint was a specialist shark hunter who had spent his entire life since the war(roughly 30 years) killing sharks, whereas Don is not a specialist bear hunter, and was instead good at hunting anything in the forest and whats more, had not hunted since before the Vietnam War.
Trivia[]
- The films main three actors, Christopher George, Richard Jaeckel, and Andrew Prine, were all very good friends in real-life and had all acted together before.
- Andrew Prine really flew the helicopter in the film himself.
- Grizzly has an, as of yet, unreleased and uncompleted sequel film, entitled Grizzly 2: The Predator.