Monster Grizzly (2023) by Richard Douglas Jensen

Director: Richard Douglas Jensen

Year: 2023

Country: USA

Alternate Titles: N/A

Genre: Creature Feature

Plot:

In the middle of a big snowstorm, a small mountain town sheriff and his crew grow alarmed when a series of strange attacks reveals a rampaging grizzly bear despite being out-of-season for such antics, and when it’s revealed the creature is stalking the community must try to stop it.

Review:

This one wasn’t too bad but did have some issues. One of the main factors involved in this one is the rather intriguing concept at play here where the film acts more as a snapshot of the town in the midst of the bear’s rampage. That everyone around the town is aware of how out of character it is for the bear to be doing what it’s doing, the rest of the time here is spent on the build-up to its rampage where we get a pretty solid idea of the town members and their lives in the community. With the freezing snow-covered ground and remote, isolated conditions prominent throughout here, this all creates the kind of intriguing setup that provides a fine grounding for the idea of the bear coming to seek revenge on the town for the destruction of its habitat.

Still, there are some major problems throughout here. The main overriding drawback with this one is the film’s ambitious story means there’s nothing really here for genre fans who are expecting something ornate or spectacular to happen. This one never shows the main bear as all we get are aftermath shots of the violence which resembles indeterminate crime-scene splatter as every attack utilizes the formula of someone finding it’s there but it fades to black before anything can happen. Not showing anything here in the attacks and featuring all sorts of inept-looking filmmaking with ugly shaky-camera shots or awkward transitions that highlight how low a budget this has. With more shots of people talking than anything else in here, this one can be quite troublesome.

Overview: */5

An intriguing if overall really flawed genre effort, this one has a great concept at play but is so low-budget it can’t play with the concept at all and leaves this massively underwhelming in the slightest. Really only give this a shot if you’re a fan of this kind of low-budget genre effort as most others out there should heed caution if not outright avoid it.