Claws

When a giant,killer grizzly bear terrorizes the countryside three men go on a dangerous hunting mission to bring it down."Claws" is not as good as "Grizzly"(1976)-in fact it's pretty dull at times.There is no gore to speak of and no suspense.The photography of Alaska wilderness is outstanding.The acting is pretty good and the climax is fairly exciting.Still the special effects are not too hot."Claws" is tough to find,but if you liked "Grizzly" give this one a look.

Its pretty obvious where this one got its inspiration from - Claws even sounds like Jaws. After Spielberg's big fish classic became one of the ultimate blockbusters, many films followed in its wake, with tales about animals going on the rampage. This is one of the ones involving a grizzly bear. In it, a massive bear is shot by illegal hunters, instead of going off to die it instead goes completely radge and becomes a local menace for several years. This leads to a group of hunters going out to track it down - you know the drill. This one is a bit scrappy in some ways but benefits quite a bit from its on-location shooting in the Alaskan wilds.

CLAWS is another grizzly bear attack horror film, packed with footage of a grizzly going on the rampage and butchering a number of innocent folk. It was recently shown on TV here in the UK to tie in to the cinema release of THE REVENANT, along with NIGHT OF THE GRIZZLY. This low budget effort is the worse film of the two, thanks to a very undistinguished execution. There's virtually no characterisation, no attempts at suspense, just a lot of repetitive scenes instead.

The whole film feels sluggish and rather dull despite the proliferation of outdoor nature footage (the movie was shot in Alaska). I appreciate that a real bear was used for many of the shots, but the whole thing is directed in such a matter-of-fact way that it gets rather boring very quickly. The one point at which things do get exciting is at the over-the-top climax, but by then it's too little, too late.

Notable for it gratuitous use of flashbacks, even by 70's standards. This is a pure drive-in flick, the one your parents didn't want to stay awake for, so they drove home halfway through it. Right off the bat, you're introduced to bad stock footage, interesting color changes during scenes, and a so-called SATAN BEAR! Cheezy and vaguely energetic enough to be funny for awhile, halfway through it begins to lull the mind into a satisfying sleep. However, impressionable young minds might actually be frightened by this flick, since getting mauled by a rogue bear during a boy-scout outing is actually quite a plausable fear; as opposed to, say, getting mauled by Bigfoot...

But that's a different movie.

This movie is not a good killer grizzly movie. I just don't know why they also call it Devil Bear because it is not scary enough to be called that. The movie is very dark. Sometimes you can't see certain things and the sound in the movie is bad. Most of all, the movie is boring. 2.5 stars out of 5 for my rating.