TL;DR: Recommended
A very well-made drama with some nice scares, and very human-focused story, which is worth tracking down.
It’s interesting that when you think of all the horrors that can beset people in movies, bears don’t make many appearances as the beast. Heck, there are more shark movies than bear movies. Perhaps it’s because bears, even as they are eating us, remain cute, whereas sharks are always frightening, no matter how you see them.
The odds of us meeting a bear on a nature walk are greater than the odds of running into a shark, so what is it?
While there are some great killer bear SCENES, there are few movies where the whole movie works. THE REVENANT has an amazing bear scene, as does THE EDGE. THE EDGE for my money, is arguably the best killer bear movie out there, a movie that makes the animal horrifying, but handles it like they did in JAWS, sparingly.
That is what works so well in GRIZZLY NIGHT, that instead of trying to make it a slasher film with a bear, it’s a drama with the attacks at the heart of things.
GRIZZLY NIGHT is a film set over the course of one night in 1967. The movie follows a park ranger set to keep an eye on the forest in case the recent lightning strikes have set off fires. As the park fills with guests, we quickly see that the bears of the area are a little too comfortable around humans, getting into their trash, and walking into campsites for food. The park rangers assure guests that the local grizzlies won’t attack, but that evening things change. As the night becomes filled with pained screams, the young ranger must head into the darkness to find a bear attack victim, and hope that she and the rest of the search party don’t run into the culprit.
This is a very well-made, and well acted film. The director chooses to keep the bear attacks off-screen for the most part, so that the film doesn’t become a horror story. That’s for the best, because the strength of the film is with actors. The tension, and terror work so well because we care about the characters. The scenes with the bears are good, but they are treated like acts of nature, like storms, and this isn’t a movie about the storm, but about surviving it.
Two things you must keep in mind with the film is that 1. this is a drama, not a horror film, and that 2. the bears are not the focus. Looking at the poster for the film, you get an image of grisly (HA!) bear attacks, but this is a more subtle story about how humans had to change how we co-exist with bears. The big strike on the film is that the bears scenes are too safe, but I’d rather a director is smart with their actors – and the bears are actors here – and doesn’t push things too far.
The movie works.
And works well.
It’s a scary, emotional film about the horror of these attacks, and what happens afterward. With a slight run-time, and a good pace, I recommend it if you want a bear attack movie, but without the buckets of blood.
3.75 out of 5
The Spooky World of Chris Ringler 