Leofwine_draca
CLAWS is another grizzly bear attack horror film, packed with footage of a grizzly going on the rampage and butchering a number of innocent folk. It was recently shown on TV here in the UK to tie in to the cinema release of THE REVENANT, along with NIGHT OF THE GRIZZLY. This low budget effort is the worse film of the two, thanks to a very undistinguished execution. There's virtually no characterisation, no attempts at suspense, just a lot of repetitive scenes instead.The whole film feels sluggish and rather dull despite the proliferation of outdoor nature footage (the movie was shot in Alaska). I appreciate that a real bear was used for many of the shots, but the whole thing is directed in such a matter-of-fact way that it gets rather boring very quickly. The one point at which things do get exciting is at the over-the-top climax, but by then it's too little, too late.
Chase_Witherspoon
If "Grizzly" was the B-grade answer to "Jaws", then "Claws" in my opinion, is the next generation answer to "Grizzly". Despite a top- notch cast (Evers, Aames, Caruso, Young & Healey), "Claws" lacks the technical expertise William Girdler displayed in conjuring his spin-off, the bear attacks and aftermath here, a lot less bloody and realistic.The acting of the veterans isn't bad at all, though Evers does at times seem more than a little self-righteous as he mentally deteriorates years after being attacked by what has now become the local folklore of "Devil Bear". Estranged from his wife & son due to his obsession with locating and killing "Devil Bear", Evers teeters on the brink of insanity, until, "Devil Bear" appears again to wreak havoc and give Evers the chance to avenge the livelihood he lost when his hand was crippled years before (he was a lumberjack by trade, until "Devil Bear" tossed him around like a rag doll).Clichéd and overly intense, "Claws" reminds me of "Snowbeast" both in terms of tone and production quality, it's a very distant standard to Girdler's "Grizzly" despite the obvious homage. Both Aames and Caruso have reasonably good dialogue and deliver earnest, watchable performances - I couldn't really say the same for Layton nor Sipes who both look decidedly amateurish by comparison. As aforesaid, I'm not sure who's more dangerous, "Devil Bear" or Jason Evers' maniacal stare. The slow-motion climax was a bit absurd and Evers' supposedly crippled hand seems to make a miraculous resurrection, but otherwise, it's what you'd expect in a film of this genre, but firmly on the C-scale.
seandr
When I was 9 years old our den leader took our cub scout troop to see this movie in the theater. I was pretty terrified by it, and I couldn't sleep alone for a couple of years afterward. I can vividly recall some of the scary scenes. The bear dragging away a cub scout in a sleeping bag, his bloody hand sticking out of the back. Someone opens the door to a cabin and a bloody body falls down on them. The bear coming through a wall. The bear taking off a horses head. A man climbs a tree to escape the bear, but the bear knocks the tree down and gets him. I'd really like to see this movie again as an adult given how it traumatized me as a kid.
lazarillo
A lot of people confuse this movie with "Grizzly". "Grizzly" has Christopher George AND Andrew Prine AND Richard Jaekl AND a female park ranger who decides to take time out from hunting an 18-foot killer grizzly bear to strip off all her clothes and take an impromptu shower in a waterfall (guess what happens?). "Claws" has none of these things, just a lot of travelogue footage of the Alaskan wilderness and some Native American nonsense about a "spirit bear". Neither movie is particularly scary. They both contain a lot shots of a disembodied bear paw flying through air, lopping off heads and limbs edited together with close-ups of the face of a real bear who looks only mildly annoyed. There is one pretty good scene where the bear menaces a boy scout camp, but it's only good because it's dark and you can't really see the bear. Actually, you can't see a lot of things in the very murky existing prints of this hard-to-find movie. It probably doesn't merit a DVD resurrection, however, because I have a feeling that what you can't see would still suck. "Grizzly" is so bad it's good; "Claws" is just bad.