Due to the year in which it was released, 1976's "Grizzly" seems to get summed up as a land-locked "Jaws" wanna-be, but people tend to forget that even before "Jaws," drive-ins were well stocked throughout the 1970s with a near endless series of killer animal/"nature takes revenge" flicks (i.e. "Squirm," "Frogs," "Night of the Lepus," etc.). So if anything "Grizzly" can merely be accused of having excellent timing, as it rode the coat-tails of "Jaws" to the tune of $39 million in box office and briefly held the title of most profitable independent movie (till it was unseated by the original "Halloween").
As for the movie itself, it's a fairly typical killer animal flick. A rogue Grizzly bear has suddenly begun tromping around a national park, munching on campers and back-packers, and the park's bad-ass head ranger (Christopher George) has to hunt it down and kill it, assisted by his two best friends, a naturalist (Richard Jaeckel) and a redneck chopper pilot. Due to its low budget nature, we don't see much of the actual bear till the film is three-quarters of the way finished, till then "attack" scenes are shown from the bear's eye view so all you see is a hairy paw reach from off camera and lots of growling on the soundtrack. Those attack scenes are still fairly brutal and gory (particularly when the bear goes after a young boy and his mother, and we see the poor kid thrown to the ground with his leg bitten off!), and when we finally do get to see the Grizzly in all his glory, he's a fearsome looking S.O.B. indeed. I won't reveal whether or not Ranger Smith (haha) manages to defeat Yogi Bear in their climactic battle, but I will say that it's the best scene in the movie, due to the total overkill weapon used by George's character.
Director William Girdler keeps the suspense level up and Christopher George is a suitable tough-guy hero, making "Grizzly" a decent night of schlocky-but-fun creature-feature entertainment, 1970s style.
