Grizzly (1976)

Grizzly (1976)

Director: William Girdler

Stars: Christopher George, Andrew Prime, A big ass bear

For this special review for the Nature's Fury Blogathon I decided to call in a few favors and have longtime conservation icon Smokey the Bear join me for this review. His comments will be in italics.

  Smokey, I want to thank you for helping me out today. Been a big fan since I was a wee lad in the late 70's.

  Don't put it that way! It makes me sound old. *laughs*

  *laughs* You're only as old as you feel right? 
  

  That's true. Dan, I'm glad you asked me here today because I've wanted to talk about this movie for a long time now.

  I was not aware of that.
  

 Oh yeah. There are some points in this film that I think need to be closely looked at today.

  You mean the movie Grizzly, directed by the late William Girdler in 1976, which stars Christopher George as a park ranger that has to deal with a huge killer bear...
  

  Let me stop you there. That's exactly what I'm talking about.

  What, Christopher George?
  

  No, I'm talking about this ridiculous notion that the title character in this film is a savage ruthless killer, when in fact he's the victim in this.

  Did we watch the same movie? Because I seem to remember the bear being the "bad guy" so to speak in this. I mean, this is after all a Jaws ripoff. An entertaining one for sure, but one nonetheless.

  Why is the bear the bad guy, if I may ask?

  Oh I don't know, maybe walking around and eating a bunch of people. 

  There's the key word, "eat". Bears, like all other living beings, need some sort of food to survive, correct?

  Well...yeah. I guess.

  This so called "killer" needed food to live. And in the woods, sometimes food can be scarce to find. I know I had this one weekend where I was so hungry I ate a tree. You ever eaten a tree?

  I...can't say that I have.
  

  It sucks. So this grizzly is scared and hungry, and here are these humans invading his natural habitat. So of course a bear's going to get desperate. If he hadn't been starving, he probably would have just let those folks know how to put a campfire out when they left.

  With all due respect, I think you're overthinking this a bit.
  

  You need to check your human privilege, meat bag.

  Check my what?
  

  You heard me, asshole. You sit there all smug in your clothing and your hairless bodies...

  You obviously haven't seen my back.
  

  ...Gross. Anyway, you humans have done everything in your power to keep the mighty bear down. Putting us on unicycles, making us wrestle humans, hell even making me wear pants and this dumbass hat. I want my little grizzly to swing free like NATURE intended.

  I'm getting a bit uncomfortable with this, man.
  

  Do I look like your "man"? So you're uncomfortable? GOOD! You should be!

  I don't know what sort of power you think I wield over the bear universe, but I'm not the one doing those things. I just watched this movie, which we're supposed to talk about.
   

 Yeah you watched. And you did nothing about it. Which makes you as bad as Christopher George. How's THAT for talking about the movie!?

  Creative, I admit. But why hate on Christopher George? I mean, this is just a movie! And didn't he cater to the bears by posing nude in Playgirl back in the 70's?
  

  That's an entirely different kind of bear, you moron.

  It is? Huh. So what I was saying is, you're using a movie from 1976 to prove that there is some human agenda to suppress bears?
  

  You damn right there is.

  But you've spent decades helping humans to protect themselves from fires.
  

  I'm not trying to protect you filthy meat bags! I'm trying to make sure you fucknuts don't burn down the woods and kill all my relatives!

  OK, so you want to go down this road, I'm willing to do that. I'd like to mention a certain famous bear that's been allowed to commit crime after crime without any sort of jail time. I'm referring to one Yogi the bear.
  

  Oh here we go...

  Do you or do you not admit that Yogi has been caught, on film no less, multiple times stealing?

   Yes, but it was only picnic baskets. 

  Only picnic baskets? You mean picnic baskets full of food so hungry humans wouldn't starve?
  

  It's not the same thing. You can just go to the grocery store. You ever see a bear in a grocery store? They constantly eye you while you try to find the ripest melons.

  Alright then. I want to bring up something about this movie that really bothered me. In this film, the grizzly kills several people, correct?
  

  Self preservation, but yes.

  I found it quite telling that other than the two main supporting characters, played by Andrew Prine and Richard Jaeckel, and one other ranger, that all the other victims were women?
  

  What do you mean?

  What I mean is, it sure seems like that poor ol' lil grizzly bear sure likes bumping off the ladies. I tend to find that just a wee bit sexist.

 That is preposterous.  

  I don't know. Ripping ladies' arms off, using one as a chew toy in his mouth. Oh, and let's not forget when he mauled that MOTHER who trying to save her CHILD from being an appetizer for this misunderstood bear.
  

  I see what you're doing there, and you're an asshole.

  A toddler, Smokey. Petting a damn cute little bunny rabbit. Did the bear wipe his ass with the rabbit afterwards?
  

  I don't have to take this shit. I'm leaving.

  I think that's for the best. Maybe it's best not to meet one's heroes. They always seem to disappoint.
  

  Fuck you Lashley. Also, don't forget to prevent forest fires. But mainly, fuck you.

Blood Reservoir (2014)

Blood Reservoir (2014)

Director: Mark Anthony Del Negro

Stars: Felissa Rose, Jonathan Tiersten, Hannah Landberg

  I wasted $1.99 on this garbage.

  Not the usual way to start a review, but this particular tidbit bothered me. It's not like $1.99 is going to break me, but it's the principle of the matter. Let me explain. I have Amazon Prime. It's highly recommended just for the free shipping alone, but there's tons of stuff to watch FOR FREE on Amazon Prime video. Lately I've been revisiting those good ol' Jersey boys and girls of the Sopranos. Still as good as I remembered it. The fact is, is this tremendously written and acted show was FREE on Prime video. Blood Reservoir wasn't. You had to pay for the privilege of watching the equivalent of getting kicked in the balls for 54 minutes straight. Yes, that's how long this "movie" is.

  Let's get the dumbass plot out of the way...what sense of it I could make. A group of late 20's jackasses decide to go hiking in an area of woods where people are getting killed by one of several different serial killers or legends. It's never made clear if it's the legend of Pumpkin Jack (who'll make you die tonight, I assume) or the serial killer the Ice Woman (who I guess keeps her victims in those little ice trays for parties). 

  In the midst of this, there's a love triangle of sorts between the biggest...pardon my words...pussy magnet of the tri state area. He's got a girl to pay his bills, but he's got the hots for some eighteen year old who's on the trip as well. The teenager's sister (also on the trip) has daydreams about men in bowler hats strangling women and ordering people around in sepia tone. Oh, and there's the token black guy. I'm not kidding.

  They go to the local general store where they meet the store owner (Rose) and the sheriff, who looks disturbingly like an animatronic Rob Schneider. Let that image sink in. Little did I know robotic Deuce Bigelo is the brother of the Situation. I will rename this guy the Shituation for how badly he acted.

  Look, I'm just going to spoil it for you as best I can. The campers die, even though the flashback having lady set up the whole thing to kill everyone. They are murdered by an overacting Rose and the Shituation. Oh did I mention there's a guy in the woods who's a ghost FBI agent dressed up like the Fonz? That slipped my mind along with around thirty-two brain cells.

  This "movie" is shit. I usually don't call out other sites by name for giving turds like this positive reviews, and I won't here, but that's basically what one unnamed site did. The guy writing the review even admits to doing a promotional article for the director previous to the review...so why have this guy gingerly talk about the problems this movie has? He basically talks about several of the problems I'm about to go into, but then pats Del Negro on the back and go "There there, champ, it's great for a first try!". That's bullshit. Be a shill for the guy if you want, but don't fool people into thinking this movie is good in any way. People don't deserve to waste money like that on misleading shit.

  That takes me to what I did not enjoy about this film (and a few other things).

 Things That Pissed Me Off About Blood Reservoir

- The audio is atrocious. Half the time the music or sound effects are louder than the dialogue, or even better, the actors and the mic are as far away as humanly possible.

- Deeply bothered by the lack of any reference of time. Yeah some movies overdo it on the establishing shots, but this movie is one scene cut to one scene cut to another scene. They're walking, next scene they're all set up camping, and then the next scene everyone is all over the damn place. All in the span of like two minutes.

- The "news segments" are not funny, and did we need four of them within five minutes of each other?

- The acting is bad. Super bad. There's a few actors here I think could do better (Rose for sure) but I blame that on the shitty script. The other actors are just awful. The Shituation is a particularly bad actor.

- Why was the death of the black guy the only one lovingly shown while all the other deaths were offscreen? Hmmm.

- The script. I know Del Negro had a story in mind, and I could even see it at points, but he has no idea how to pace a movie and have it make any kind of fucking sense. I still don't know why flashback girl wanted everyone dead.

- None of the characters are the least bit sympathetic. I'm not talking about the annoying campers trope you see, I mean every character in this film is someone if you saw get on an elevator, you'd take the stairs. You'd rather be in discomfort and tired than to spend thirty seconds with these people.

- When every single executive producer has the last name Del Negro, I know how this was funded. They said the budget was 100 grand? Where did it go?

  Before I mercifully end this, I have to mention something. I know I've been really hard on these people, and no it's not the worst film I've ever seen, but this is why I'm so angry. If you look on Amazon reviews for this film, or even IMDb, you'll see super positive reviews for this film. I get trying to cover a turd in a golden wrapper and calling it a Wonka Bar, but it's dishonest and scummy to go under different names and write fake reviews of your own film. While I don't have "proof" of this, any sort of common sense can tell you these positive reviews come from someone involved with the production.  Don't call your movie shit, but don't try to fool horror fans. 

  If one person reads this and doesn't waste $1.99 on this, then I'll have done my job. I need to review something good next time. This can't be good for my health.

Night of the Demon (1980)

Night of the Demon (1980)

Director: James C. Wasson

Stars: Michael Cutt, Joy Allen, Bigfoot

  I have always wanted to see this film simply for the fact that I personally think that Bigfoot is a gentle creature who merely wants to be left alone. I mean, when that car hit him in Harry and the Hendersons, he didn't get angry, he just hung out with them and taught them the value of family. Sure, he got angry in those beef sticks commercials, but wouldn't you be angry if hipster douchebags kept fucking with you? I know if I had the strength of ten men, I'd be field goal kicking some bespectacled dick right in his freshly shaved asshole. 

  Don't ask me how I know that. 

  So the story here takes place in a hospital, where a badly dressed detective is interviewing a professor whose face has been horribly disfigured (which he covers up with a mask). He tells what happened in the first of many flashbacks. The professor and a group of similarly aged students go out into the remote woods to see if they can get proof of the existence of Bigfoot. I'm not sure what proof they were planning to get or how they were going to get it, because due to flashbacks within flashbacks we find out that Bigfoot has been killin' folks left and right. Wait...killin' folks!? Nah, not Bigfoot. It has to be someone dressed like him.

  The Scooby gang goes into town, where they find out about a crazy girl living alone in the woods who went crazy because she had a deformed baby and it died. See, she's probably the killer. Story over. Time to go...wait, why is the sheriff watching them with disdain in his eyes?

  Turns out the gang runs into a cult of Bigfoot worshipers, who have the crazy lady lying down ready for some hillbilly lovin' before the professor chases them away. OK, THERE'S the real killers. I better cut this off now.

  Only they aren't the killers. In fact, they are never seen again. What the fuck movie!?  The gang finally track down Crazy Mary (not her real name) and they find her special dead baby room. Not creepy at all. The professor hypnotizes her and they find out that her crazy hillbilly cult leadin' dad was the one who killed her baby. Why you may ask? Well...she tries to run away from daddy dearest when she's raped by Bigfoot. 

  Yes, Bigfoot raped this woman right in her own front yard. With her daddy watching no less. As thanks for killing the half human/half furball baby, "Crazy Mary" here burns ol' pappy poopdeck alive.

SPOILER ALERT FOR A FILM MADE IN 1980!!

  The final minutes of this film is Bigfoot wanting to see his girl again, so does he stand outside her home with a boombox in his hand? No, he murders the college students horribly, and slams the professor's face into a hot stove.

  We come back to the professor and the doctor wisely puts him to sleep. Another doctor declares the professor criminally insane although there are no murder victims to be found. We end depressed.

  I really thought Bigfoot was a loving gentle creature of nature, but check out this scorecard:

- Tears a guy's arm off

- Rips some biker's dick off!!

- Drags a naked guy out of a van, and presumably fucks him to death on top of the van (that's alright with him)

- Makes two girl scouts stab each other repeatedly with knives!

- Swings a guy in a sleeping bag over his head and onto a pointy branch (Top THAT Vorhees)

- Pitchfork to the back

- Stove to the face

- Slams a guy's head into a tree causing the guy to shoot himself in the head!

- Rapes a mountain woman!!

  Bigfoot, you ARE a giant hairy asshole!!

  Here's a very NSFW trailer for Night of the Demon. There is biker penis seen, and no, Bigfoot ain't working at no rest stop.