Grizzly II: Revenge

It is just bad. Has some big names well before they were big names, but it is so bad. Writing is terrible, editing is nonexistent, soundtrack is dismal, effects about as awful as low budget can get, and there's a concert amidst the movie- and I for the life of me don't know where they found people this bad.

Thankfully the movie is short and abruptly ends.

I don't have the whole story, but my father was sent to Budapest during filming to represent an investor in the film. He has a poster for the concert that featured Nazareth (the rock band) that was part of the film. I know he also has hidden somewhere still pictures of the filming and events surrounding the making of the movie. He came back home early from Hungary because of events described in other notes and incredibly disappointed that the investor he represented lost a great deal of money that was never recovered because of certain folks taking advantage of the investors involved. My dad still talks about how he thought it was a great script and a high quality movie with a quality cast. Two big mistakes: producer didn't take care of the investments of others and they didn't use a real bear for some of the scenes opting for a mechanical puppet that didn't operate the way they hoped. I don't know much about this, but I assume that many creative types are not good business people and many can't manage a budget wisely. Is there a copy available for public viewing at this point? It would be interesting to see the attention it would receive with a cast that includes George Cluny, Charlie Sheen, and Laura Dern from the beginnings of their careers.

Grizzly II (1987)

Ahh, don't you just love lost movies? This sequel to William Girdler's 1976 cult favorite GRIZZLY was a Hungarian production that started filming in 1983 but for some reason it was never fully completed. Rumor has it that something illegal was done during the production and local authorities pretty much shut the film down. For nearly two-decades this film was surrounding in quite a myth as many believed it was never actually filmed while others thought they simply ran out of money and couldn't complete it. Then around 2005 or so, a workprint turned up and thankfully the majority of the film was complete. Being a killer grizzly film I guess it's fitting that the only thing actually missing are the bear attacks. Apparently the producers were going to film everything involving the bear in the final weeks of production so this never happened. The rest of the movie is pretty much complete but whenever something with a bear is about to happen the footage is simply missing. You still see the people attacked but there's just no actual footage of the bear doing it. With that said, if GRIZZLY II were to be released, completed or not, it would become an instant cult classic. Hell, it already is even with the missing footage. Let see what all this film has to offer:

* Academy Award winner Louise Fletcher.

* Deborah Raffin from DEATH WISH 3.

* John Rhys-Davies from the Indiana Jones series.

* Charles Cyphers from HALLOWEEN.

* Deborah Foreman of VALLEY GIRL.

* A soundtrack that illegally uses countless Michael Jackson songs.

* GRIZZLY star Christopher George was signed to play the lead but died of a heart attack shortly before production.

Wait there's one more big thing.......

* George Clooney, Charlie Sheen and Laura Dern in the same scene together.

GRIZZLY II has a, what else, grizzly eating people just as a State Park is about to hold a major concert. The owner (Fletcher) refuses to alert the media about the bear fearing it won't sell tickets so she demands the lid be put on it. Soon enough a group of rednecks (led by Cyphers) are trying to track down the bear while innocent campers (Clooney, Sheen, Dern) are eaten alive. Unfinished or not, GRIZZLY II is a must see for fans of bad cinema or just those who enjoy the "nature attacks" genre. There's so much wackiness in this movie that it really does seem as if you're watching about twenty-different campy movies rolled into one. You can start with the god-awful "concert" footage, which actually takes up a very big portion of the running time. The music is so awful that you can't help but have a good time with it and even though you'll want to cover your ears you just can't simply because of how funny it is. The men dancing around in tight shorts isn't any better and the silly redneck hunters are just downright crazy. There's one hilarious scene where one of the hunter's loses his brother to the bear and the only thing his buddies can do is tell him to just forget about it so they can go make money. More campiness arrives when the big three are out campy. Dern does a striptease for Clooney who is in a sleeping bad. The scene has them both cuddling in the bag when they're attacked by the bear. Just watch how Clooney appears more interesting in touching Dern than actually fighting the bear. This is followed up by Sheen getting attacked and just wait until you hear that scream of his, which has to be one of the worst in film history. There are so many campy moments in this film that you really can't help but just sit back and enjoy them. It's really too bad that the film was never completed but looking at the movie it probably wouldn't take too much money or time to fill in the missing pieces. The attack sequences really wouldn't take that long to film and when you see how many known stars are in the movie you can't help but think they'd have a terrific selling point. GRIZZLY II, so far, remains unreleased and it's a real shame because camp fans would have another classic to add to their library.

...is so obviously hilariously NOT from the original 1983 footage. (For those that care, they're called The Dayz and have an Instagram page; kudos to them for being one of a BILLION bands to be randomly selected for a very hyped cult film release! Perhaps they know the producer??) It's obviously a modern day band (the sound is different, they didn't even ATTEMPT to make it sound like a live performance), the hair styles and clothes are different (a man bun? A dude in a backwards baseball cap and a shirt that says GREENPOINT?? In 1983 when no one outside Brooklyn had even heard of Greenpoint??) and the footage of them playing is clearly not at a concert! They're playing in a studio or perhaps warehouse. Furthermore they keep using the SAME shots (guy on saxophone! Female member headbang in slow motion), with quick cut aways to wide shots of the actual 1983 live audience in hopes you won't notice. Well, we did!

This is one of the worst executed movie that I ever watched. Yes, this movie got delayed and most of it's part was lost due to producers incident but then also.

Starting 20 minutes looks like we are watching Animal Planet and rest of the movie looks like we are watching some rubbish band concert. There was nothing about Grizzly in this movie. Overall, it was a total headache.