Grizzly II: Revenge

Grizzly II (1983) is a movie that I recently watched on Prime. The storyline follows Yellowstone National Park setting up for a concert when a killer bear starts collecting victims. The bear 🐻 is so huge it threatens to kill everyone at the concert. Can anyone stop a monster this huge?

This movie was directed by André Szöts in his directorial debut and stars John Rhys-Davies (Lord of the Rings), George Clooney (From Dusk till Dawn), Laura Dern (Jurassic Park), Louise Fletcher (Flowers in the Attic), Charlie Sheen (Major League), Deborah Raffin (Death Wish 3) and Dick Anthony Williams (Edward Scissorhands).

The history of this movie is crazy. Charlie Sheen turned down the lead role in the Karate Kid to be in this movie. This movie was filmed in Hungary and ran out of money before it began, so Clooney, Charlie Sheen and Dern carried the equipment and helped with set setup. The infamous concert was a lie where they told the locals Nazareth was performing. They played Nazareth songs, the entire concert was fake and the audience didn't know it wasn't actually Nazareth performing. When the movie team ran out of money, and didnt pay the Hungary for the time in the park or anything else they promised, Hungary seized all the film equipment, the rights to the movie, sets, and footage and sold most of it to get some of the money they were owed. Thirty-seven years later the movie showed up illegally on the internet and is now available to be seen. A huge robotic bear was built for this movie but it never worked, so you only see it the last few clips of the movie.

Sheen, Dern and Clooney are barely in the movie; however, the cast is really good overall. The cinematography is solid but the CGI and special effects are awful. The entire movie you're waiting for something to happen, it doesn't until the end. The concert scenes are way too long. The bear scenes at the end are funny and you never really get to see the bear attack and eat someone the entire film. The ending is a fairly ridiculous but as you'd expect for this genre.

Overall, this movie had potential but is dreadful. I would score this a 3/10 and strongly recommend seeing this monstrosity once.

This movie is easily one of the worst hack jobs I have ever seen. Why in the love of fudge would you take an unfinished film from the 1980s and pad it out with stock footage from the 2010s instead of using stock footage that was around when production was initially halted? Those clips stick out like a sore thumb and completely take me out of the film. This movie is all a giant train wreck from start to finish, every decision they made while stitching together this Frankensteinian abomination is the absolute wrong, worst possible choice they could have made.

William Girdler made Grizzly, Day of the Animals, and The Manitou which are all amazing films. I'm willing to bet that had he been alive to see what became of this movie, cease and desist orders would have been sent out fast enough to make your head spin. This is a complete insult to his legacy that no doubt has him turning in his grave. I myself have zero film-making experience and I could have put this film together better. Ed Wood could have done a better job!

If this is the best they could have done, they shouldn't have even bothered. Nothing in the new footage syncs up with the old stuff, things that are meant to be in the same location look like they are miles away. This "movie" is little more than a compilation of stock footage with the thinnest plot possible and it's a complete waste of time, effort, and money. Not just yours, but everyone who "finished" it. Shame on all of you.

Oh this was bad.

Right, well I was lured in by this 2020 release of a movie that apparently was made 37 years prior to being released. Now, how or why something like that could or would happen is simply beyond me. But I think a movie such as "Grizzly II: The Predator" is one that should just have remained buried and unreleased, given whatever problematic circumstance prevented it from being released 37 years earlier.

I was, of course, intrigued when I saw that the movie had Charlie Sheen, George Clooney and Laura Dern listed on the movie's cover/poster. And yeah, sure they were there, all young and such, but come on. They weren't even in the movie for a good whole 5 minutes. Then aside from them having something less than a cameo in the movie, "Grizzly II: The Predator" boasted the likes of John Rhys-Davies and Jack Starrett. So this wasn't really a star studded movie after all. I will say, though, that it was actually a blast to have Jack Starrett in the movie, just a shame he didn't have a bigger role and more on-screen time - but then again, most performers in the movie had little screen time, as it was eaten away by pointless concert footage.

And not once did director André Szöts actually convince me that there was a huge and mean grizzly bear within close proximity of any of the actors or actresses, and it never felt like anyone was in any real danger. As such, the movie just failed to provide entertainment and didn't pass as being believable.

While we are on the topic of entertainment, then "Grizzly II: The Predator" is showing an abundance of pointless concert footage that served as nothing but filler in the movie. It was horrible and laughable.

This movie is without a doubt a complete and utter waste of time. It is not even a campy guilty pleasure movie. Nay, "Grizzly II: The Predator" is just downright boring and pointless.

My rating of "Grizzly II: The Predator" lands on a two out of ten stars. I would say that it is hardly worth the time, money or effort.

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.

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.