Rating: D
Dir: David DeCoteau
Star: Tyler Hoechlin, Graham Kosakoski, Brody Harms, Kate Todd
I put this movie to one side before getting up the energy to review it, due to the number of red flags. Sci Fi Original Movie being one. Director DeCoteau being another. He’s best known here as director of the gayest vampire film ever. And I mean that, in both non-derogatory and thoroughly derogatory senses. I was not exactly eager to see his take on this genre. My concerns proved justified: the best thing I can say about Grizzly Rage, is that it’s not gay (in the literal meaning). I suspect a DeCoteau movie which was gay, would end up taking a very different approach to the topic of “killer bears”.
This, however, barely has an original thought in its head. Four teens decide to celebrate their high-school graduation with a trip into the wilderness. Their Jeep runs over a cub, crashes off the road and cracks its radiator. Momma Bear is less than happy, and begins hunting the quartet of largely obnoxious young people, to make them pay for their cubicide. Those who are concerned about the future of our species, will likely be firmly on #TeamBear. For she may be the most intelligent lifeform present on screen. At least there’s footage of a real bear here, though I’m doubtful the animal was ever on set at the same time as the human actors. What rare interaction you get, is carried out with an obviously fake bear paw on a stick.
Most of the time though, it’s cutting between shots of the victims thrashing, and the bear roaring, climaxing in a money shot of CGI blood splashing across the camera lens. None of it is in the slightest bit convincing: to be fair, this is likely down to the “made for television” environment, so I can’t blame DeCoteau for that. What I can blame him for, to varying degrees, are characters which are barely an excuse, dialogue that sounds like a fifty-year-old’s idea of how young people communicate, and actors like Kosakoski. He was twenty-five, and therefore convincing as a high-school student, only if his character had been forced to retake his senior year, seven times in a row. [He did star in The Brotherhood IV two years previously. Draw your own conclusions]
Lauren Findley (Todd) is the only gash on the trip, presumably present so things don’t appear too gay for basic cable. She is, however, the only one who would not lose a pop quiz to a slug, being the party member who questions the last-minute decision to change destination and go to, I kid you not, a toxic waste dump. This plot-thread is entirely irrelevant, since no suggestion is made that, for example, Momma Bear snacked down on a discarded barrel of expired steroids. I will pronounce myself somewhat satisfied with an ending that’s certainly darker than the typical Sci Fi Original Movie. In just about every other way though, this is bad, even by the low standards if that outlet.