GRIZZLY (1976) Blu-ray
Director: William Girdler
88 Films

"The most dangerous jaws on land" take a bite out of the forest in William Girdler's GRIZZLY, on Region B Blu-ray from 88 Films.

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 transporting the district's bears up north where food is plentiful was his responsibility. At first, 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, inviting hillbilly hunters in to track the bear and 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before achieving notoriety with the American International-distributed "black EXORCIST" film ABBY which was promptly withdrawn when Warner Bros.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 (it has been officially unavailable 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 following most luxuriously-budgeted film THE MANITOU (which was released after his death). Viewers who first caught GRIZZLY on television in the eighties or nineties may be 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 a hit for Girdler and distributor Film Ventures – it was the most successful independent horror film at the box office until John Carpenter's HALLOWEEN broke its record two years later – the film is often more laughable than terrifying. Girdler, his cameraman, and his editor cannot quite make us believe that the live grizzly bear ever shares the same frame with the actors (with victims getting the "bear hug" from a suited double). The dramatics between the usually top-of-their-game George and Dorsey are contrived by the script, while the buddy scenes of George, Prine, and Jaeckel compare poorly to those of 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 cinematographer William Asman's Todd-AO photography is full of bumpy tracking and crane shots, while the shallow focus of some two shots seem to have more to do with low lighting than a foreground/background rack focus setup (in a couple intimate scenes, George or McCall have only to move an inch or two off their marks to go out of focus), 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. DEVIL TIMES FIVE's Joan McCall – who was married to the film’s 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 (JAWS author Peter Benchley also cameos as a reporter). The same grizzly later used in DAY OF THE ANIMALS, and also the mother of "Bart the Bear" from THE GREAT OUTDOORS, LEGENDS OF THE FALL, and THE BEAR among others.

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 featured a number of extras including a commentary featuring co-star McCall and her co-writer/producer husband Sheldon, a forty-minute retrospective featurette, an original promotional featurette, among others. Scorpion's 2014 dual-layer disc featured a progressive, anamorphic, 2.35:1 widescreen transfer came from new HD master that they reissued a year later on a 3,000 copy limited edition Blu-ray available exclusively from Screen Archives.

While Scorpion's Blu-ray offered up both filtered and unfiltered encodes of the feature on a BD50 as well as the options of the original, rich mono mix in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0 and a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 remix, as well as an isolated music and effects track in DTS-HD Master Audio 2.0, 88 Films' 1080p24 MPEG-4 AVC 2.35:1 widescreen Blu-ray – derived from the same master provided by Film Ventures library rights owner Multicom – suffers from the same weaknesses as the domestic edition. The colors are rich and detail good in the daylight exterior setups, but shadowy in sunny daytime shots evince more grain from underexposure while the night scenes and low-lit interiors still look softer and flatter due to the photography rather than overzealous DVNR. The only audio track is a great-sounding LPCM 2.0 mono track that delivers O'Ragland's sweeping score nicely within the confines of mono along with clear dialogue and plenty of roars. Optional English HoH subtitles are also provided.

88 has not carried over any of the Shriek Show or Scorpion extras, with the only video extra being “What a Guy... David Del Valle Remembers Christopher George” (23:43) which is as much an appreciation of the appeal of the macho actor in exploitation cinema as of the "cheese factor" of GRIZZLY. Del Valle suggests that George needed to go into exploitation cinema to play the hero since he had a genuine sense of danger absent in more conventional leading men then and now who are more malleable to being shaped by the director and the camera, likening him to Oliver Reed but also suggesting that wife Lynda Day George was a stabilizing influence. He also touches upon George's Playgirl centerfold – along with Prine's for Viva – and his early death from a massive heart attack due to years of drinking compounded by lungs compromised in an accident suffered on the set of the series RAT PATROL. The film's theatrical trailer (1:09) is also included. Packaged in the case along with a reversible cover is a four-page booklet by Calum Waddel which frames the film in the context of "animals attack" films of the period from the grindhouse likes of STANLEY to the more mainstream JAWS retreads like ORCA. A limited run of copies ordered directly from 88 Films comes with a slipcover. (Eric Cotenas)

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