Like Grizzly (1976), Claws uses Spielberg's Jaws as its template, substituting the shark for a wild bear and the ocean for the wilds of Alaska. But where Grizzly was competently made, with a reasonable cast and some gory deaths, Claws feels more like a made-for-TV movie - a relatively tame effort with poor direction, choppy editing (including numerous cheesy flashbacks), and a forgettable cast, with a lot of the runtime spent on travelogue scenery and stock wildlife footage. It's a shame, because the plot is decent enough...
Five years after surviving an attack by a rogue grizzly bear, logger Jason Monroe (Jason Evers) learns that his son Bucky has become the latest victim of the savage animal and decides to settle the score once and for all, teaming up with three other locals to track down the beast. The scene is set for a tense 'man vs nature' showdown, but what we get isn't very thrilling, actual encounters with the bear being few and far between (and what there is is severely lacking in excitement).
The most interesting aspect of the film is that superstitious locals believe the bear to be an evil spirit able to take different forms (which might explain the animal's supernatural ability to snap a tree in half!), but at the end of the day, some gasoline and a flare gun put paid to that idea.
4/10.
Five years after surviving an attack by a rogue grizzly bear, logger Jason Monroe (Jason Evers) learns that his son Bucky has become the latest victim of the savage animal and decides to settle the score once and for all, teaming up with three other locals to track down the beast. The scene is set for a tense 'man vs nature' showdown, but what we get isn't very thrilling, actual encounters with the bear being few and far between (and what there is is severely lacking in excitement).
The most interesting aspect of the film is that superstitious locals believe the bear to be an evil spirit able to take different forms (which might explain the animal's supernatural ability to snap a tree in half!), but at the end of the day, some gasoline and a flare gun put paid to that idea.
4/10.