Bears are cuddly animals, but anyone who saw the excellent Werner Herzog documentary Grizzly Man also knows that bears, especially grizzly bears, are violently dangerous bastards. In 1976, before anything ever happened to Timothy Treadwell and the doc was put together, Harvey Flaxman and David Sheldon had the idea to make a movie about a killer grizzly, and they did. Sounds like a silly concept, right? Jaws with a bear? Well, yes, it sounds silly, but this slice of animals-gone-wild celluloid is gleefully gory fun.

Directed by William Girdler (responsible for Three on a Meathook and The Manitou), the film sets itself up in a realistic world. The similarities to Jaws are ubiquitous, however I will point them out just for fun. It's summer at Yellowstone National Park, and head ranger Michael Kelly (exchange for Roy Scheider) is prepping his team for a busy tourist season. But things get complicated when two female hikers are slashed and mauled to pieces by a rogue grizzly bear. All the Rangers are on alert and head out to track down the bear, who apparently came out of nowhere since there are not supposed to be any grizzlies in the area. During the search, one female ranger decides to strip down to her bra and panties and take a dip in the river. This is, obviously, a stupid idea and it ends with her being attacked Michael Myers style by our monstrous 15 foot bear.

Soon Kelly is asking Kittridge, the park supervisor, to close the park off from tourists until they can catch the bloodthirsty creature (like in Jaws, almost word for word, too), but Kittridge remains firm on his plans to stay open. Kelly teams up with his friends Arthur Scott, a nature-loving scientist guy (exchange for Richard Dreyfus), and helicopter pilot Don Stober, played by everyone's favorite Andrew Prine (who can be exchanged for Robert Shaw's Quint) and the three of them make it their mission to capture the creature and ends its bloody reign. Scott wants to catch the bear (like Hooper does), but Stober warns him against such a stupid thing by telling him of a horrible grizzly bear feeding frenzy story (like Quint does). Meanwhile, the grizzly targets a ranger by toppling a watchtower on him, and severely mutilates a little boy by ripping his leg off with fantastically gory results. In the end, they finally confront the bear and the ridiculously explosive conclusion is hard to believe, but satisfying no less.

There aren't many, if anymore, killer bear movies out there, but this is definitely the Jaws of killer bears movies, not only in story, but in spirit as well. This movie is a lot more fun than you might think it has the right to be, and it is surprisingly blood-soaked, which gives the grizzly killings an extra kick. Seeing a girl get battered around by a grizzly's giant, blood-caked paws, and watching a kid innocently playing with a bunny get his leg ripped off by a crazy bear is good times in my book. This may not be high-quality popcorn, but I promise that you'll be smiling, you son of a bitch.

- Jose Prendes