"The most dangerous jaws on land" take a bite out of the forest in William Girdler's GRIZZLY, back on DVD from Scorpion Releasing.

When the Indian Springs national park is suddenly beset by a series of grizzly bear attacks, ranger Kelly (Christopher George, CITY OF THE LIVING DEAD) has park supervisor Kittridge (Joe Dorsey, WARGAMES) on his case since tagging all of his district's bears and transporting them up north where there is plenty of food was his responsibility. The question is what has brought one of the bears back down from the mountains until eccentric naturalist Scott (Richard Jaeckel, STONEY) examines the attack sites and declares that they are up against a two-thousand pound, fifteen foot grizzly bear. Publicity-minded Kittridge does not buy the grizzly story and goes over Kelly's head and invites hillbilly hunters in to track the bear, posing a danger not only to all of the park's wildlife but also the rangers. When the grizzly makes its way to town and attacks a mother and child, Kelly and pilot Don (Andrew Prine, NIGHTMARE CIRCUS) take it upon themselves to track the grizzly back into the mountains to destroy it even as Scott has gone off on his own to attempt to capture the bloodthirsty wonder of nature.

The biggest theatrical hit of William Girdler, an ambitious young Kentucky-born filmmaker who made a string of well-distributed regional flicks staring with ASYLUM OF SATAN and THREE ON A MEATHOOK before achieving notoriety with the American International-distributed "black EXORCIST" film ABBY which was promptly withdrawn when Warner Bros. filed a lawsuit and unavailable officially since then. GRIZZLY was one of two "animals attack" films Girdler mounted (the superior one being DAY OF THE ANIMALS which also featured George and Jaeckel). Girdler was killed in a helicopter crash at the age of thirty while scouting locations for his next film (his most luxuriously-budgeted film THE MANITOU was released after his death). I first caught GRIZZLY on television in the 1990s and was completely unprepared for the limb-ripping and face-clawing; a bear claw glove reaching in the frame and grabbing people was about the most you saw on TV prints at that point (although Katarina Leigh Waters intimates in the PG rating might have fooled television broadcasters and some of the violence might have gotten through to seventies and eighties airings).

Although a hit for Girdler and distributor Film Ventures (according to Scorpion Releasing's hostess Katarina Leigh Waters, GRIZZLY was the most successful independent horror film at the box office until John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN broke its record two years later), GRIZZLY is more laughable than terrifying. Girdler, his cameraman, and his editor cannot quite make us believe that the live grizzly bear (the same grizzly later used in DAY OF THE ANIMAL, and also the mother of "Bart the Bear" from THE GREAT OUTDOORS, LEGENDS OF THE FALL, and THE BEAR among others) ever shares the same frame with the actors (with victims getting the "bear hug" from a suited double), and the dramatics between the usually top-of-their-game George and Dorsey are contrived by the script (the buddy scenes of George, Prine, and Jaeckel also compare poorly to those in JAWS). Shot just before DAY OF THE ANIMALS, GRIZZLY's production value is in the exploitation cast, the helicopter (and aerial shots), and the score of Robert O. Ragland (THE SUPERNATURALS) performed by the National Philharmonic Orchestra. Girdler regular William Asman's Todd-AO cinematography is full of bumpy tracking and crane shots, and the shallow focus of some two shots seeming to have more to do with the low lighting than a foreground/background rack focus setup), a lack of fill lighting during some of the sunny exteriors results in some harsh contrasts while the older anamorphic lenses seem more prone to flare here (wide angles also exhibit bowing along straight lines). DEVIL TIMES FIVE's Joan McCall – who was married to the films co-writer/producer David Sheldon (Girdler's 'SHEBA BABY) – plays George's plucky love interest while the film's other co-writer/producer Harvey Flaxman also plays a "the public has a right to know" sensationalist news reporter.

Released on VHS in a panned-and-scanned transfer by Media Home Entertainment, GRIZZLY first hit DVD in what was probably the same master from the late nineties budget label DVD Video which licensed a number of Film Ventures titles from their current rights owner including DAY OF THE ANIMALS, DON'T GO IN THE HOUSE, and THE GRIM REAPER (all from old video masters). Media Blasters' Shriek Show two-disc DVD edition fared better than their DAY OF THE ANIMALS release due to better source materials (Scorpion's DAY release would benefit from the recovery of the film's IP which was apparently not available earlier on), and had a number of extras including a commentary (moderated by Scorpion's Walt Olsen) featuring co-star McCall and her co-writer/producer husband Sheldon, a forty-minute retrospective featurette, an original promotional featurette, among others. Scorpion's dual-layer disc features a progressive, anamorphic, 2.35:1 widescreen transfer from a brand new HD master. It doesn't impress as much as DAY OF THE ANIMALS' HD bump-up but that has much to do with the original photography. Night exteriors and shadowy daytime shots evincing more grain from underexposure (I'd say that Scorpion's DVD is the best way to see the film if they hadn't also released a Blu-ray edition, although that is only available directly through the Code Red Big Cartel site). In addition to the clean Dolby Digital 2.0 rendering of the original mono track, the disc also includes – like Scorpion's DAY OF THE ANIMALS release – a Dolby Digital 5.1 surround remix that spreads out some of the nature sounds and gives greater breadth to Ragland's score.

Although the film does not feature a "Katarina's Nightmare Theater" wraparound, hostess Katarina Leigh Waters does appear in a "Fun Facts and Trivia" (8:13) segment which opens with a sketch in which she is mauled by a stuffed bear. She covers the careers of Girdler, George, Jaeckel, Prine, and McCall, as well as the titular grizzly (and her progeny), the film's box office success, and GRIZZLY II: THE PREDATOR with Charlie Sheen, George Clooney, and Laura Dern shot in Hungary but left unfinished when the producer disappeared with the funds to do the bear effects. Prine and Sheldon appear in a Q&A Session at the New Beverly (12:06) during a double bill of the film with SIMON, KING OF THE WITCHES. Sheldon discusses the film's debt to JAWS as well as a co-writer Flaxman's camping story of a bear scare, and his original intention to direct the film himself (he had a deal with Girdler that they would alternate directing, but Girdler said he could raise the money himself for it if he directed himself). Rather than wait for the studio development deal, they got the production going in three weeks and recalls that they had to use the live bear more often than planned because the mechanical bear had been left in the rain. Prine keeps the audience in stitches with his recollections about the production (including playing his scene with the bear hungover).