Cover Art

Credits

Director: Tom Skull Starring: Glenn Morshower, Kavan Reece, Shedrack Anderson III, Randy Wayne Screenplay: Tom Skull Country: USA

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Grizzly Park is about a group of troubled teens in a community service/rehabilitation program. Their job is to clean up rubbish left in Grizzly Park (which doesn't have any grizzlies anymore, so maybe they should change its name), and they have to hike off into the wild and collect trash under the supervision of a ranger. The ranger says to watch out for killer coyotes, which draws his credibility into question, and keeps going on about the dangers of this park that doesn't seem dangerous at all. One thing that may actually be dangerous that he doesn't even mention is the escaped serial killer on their trail, but something appears to be stalking him as well. Perhaps the claim that there are no grizzlies left in the park is wrong?

Don't let the very well done title sequence fool you, Grizzly Park is pretty shit for the most part. From the early scene introducing us to the serial killer with very forced exposition, you know you're not in for a great story. The characters are all stupid and say stupid things. This goes beyond your usual stupid character stuff; there's a comic relief idiot girl, but her "funny" stupid lines aren't that different from what the rest of the characters are saying. The gore can be very remedial, with a joke store quality severed arm and a paper-maché head being the lowest points. There're also a lot of shots of the stars in their underwear, which begs the question why the filmmakers didn't just hire someone who'd do nudity, however…

Maybe that's because they spent their money getting a REAL grizzly bear. There are a few scenes featuring a guy in a bear costume for cast interaction, but otherwise it's a real bear. It's about 40 minutes in until we get to see the bear, and unfortunately the first bear scene is the best. It's the only one with the bear fully interacting with a member of the cast (played by the bear's trainer), and there're some rough edits, but the ending of it is awesome. I laughed, cheered, and started shouting at my partner to appreciate my great purchase all at once, but I maybe crowed too soon, as nothing else lives up to this moment.

Also, there's this wolf, seemingly hunting on its own, that keeps turning up. Why is there only one wolf in the park? I've reconsidered: The money spent on the wolf should've gone towards getting people to take their clothes all the way off.