azathothpwiggins Having first heard whispers about GRIZZLY 2: THE CONCERT, and only that it "starred" Laura Dern, Charlie Sheen, and George Clooney, I was interested to see these actors together in their earliest roles. Tracking down a version of this lost "film", made from the fragments available, I watched eagerly. Wellll, let's just say that it was quite a shock to witness this thing! The aforementioned actors had very small parts, in which they play typical horror movie fodder. There are also other victims roaming through the woods, awaiting their collective doom, including a group of unbelievably vicious poachers! Wow! These guys would fit right in w/ those insanely eeevil backwoodsmen from DELIVERANCE! The rest consists mostly of a big concert being performed in the same park terrorized by the monster bear of the title. Said concert, overseen by a particularly cranky woman (Louise Fletcher), is certainly a spectacle, but not in any positive way! Combining the worst, most synthetic elements of MTV w/ DANCE FEVER, this concert is more like watching an overlong exercise video of the same era. Lacking in energy, artistic quality, or even entertainment value, the singers / dancers appear lost on stage, wondering where Deney Terrio might have gone. This is made even more tragic, knowing that an actual rock band was supposed to perform, but was inexplicably replaced by these Studio 54 rejects! Meanwhile, wild-eyed hunter / gatherer, John Rhys-Davies lumbers about, looking for the titular creature. It all -blessedly- ends in an explosive non-finale of madness and spandex. Alas, this movie is sooo ethereally godawful, that it will probably never be finished. This is an enormous blow, since it could very well have been the ultimate mega-schlock masterpiece! My tears flow freely, now...

chow913 This is often right up there on the list with 'Troll 2' and 'The Room' as one of the so bad it's funny movies.We'll considering the budget and the fact that it was never finished, 'Grizzly 2' came out remarkably well.How Oscar winner Louise Fletcher got on board for this project I have no idea. Perhaps she was told in the climax she would get to wrestle the grizzly and kill it with her bare hands? She certainly would have won.First and foremost this is a bearsploitation film. So few good bearsploitation films exist that the premise actually interested me.The plot: A crew of roadies set up for a Woodstock sized concert in... the woods of a national park (actually filmed in Hungary). Greedy industrialist Louise Fletcher diverts all the park rangers to providing security for the concert. She's invited the governor to exploit her political aspirations.The film opens with a worm shot of Fletcher doing her cxxx from hell walking entrance set to Michael Jackson's 'Beat It!' Not kidding! This is one of the greatest opening sequences in film history!The characters are all stereotypical. The concert crew consists of a jive talking wise black man giving advice to a younger man whom falls for the sheriff's (park ranger's) beautiful nature loving daughter.The oddest part about the opening 20 minutes is how only Michael Jackson music blares. Seriously, it's all of Jackson's greatest hits. Just him. The roadies don't listen to anything else until the concert starts.For a national park there's an awful lot of poaching going on and a mama bear must avenge the death of her cub. We hear the poachers tell each other the bear is "20 feet standing." Come on! Even cave bears never got that big. But we'll have to take their word since the bear is never actually shown. Not kidding, we never even see the bear! All we get is the POV shot of something growling in the woods. Its shadow reveals it's the camera man! NOT KIDDING! Similar to 'Jaws' the bear was supposed to make its first climactic appearance at the concert but the animatronics bear never worked. One of the reasons this film was never finished.Our next three victims are young fornicators played by Charlie Sheen, George Clooney, and Laura Dern. Again, not kidding. Perhaps Sheen was still hiding out in the woods from the Soviet invasion? The three are eaten and the attack starts a forest blaze from their campfire. "Smokey says only he can start forest fires." Sheen's final words are, "I read somewhere that, 'bears are the impossibility of reason.'" OK, I am kidding about that part.As with all horror films, the sheriff (head park ranger) wants to patrol the woods for the killer bear. But evil Louise Fletcher refuses to let a single ranger leave concert security. Hence, a legendary French Canadian trapper is called in, literally at a minute's notice to hunt the grizzly. He's played by John Reese Davies of 'Indiana Jones' and 'Sliders.' Meanwhile, evil poachers plot to kill the grizzly.Far worse than seeing a camera man pretending to be a giant bear is the actual concert. It's live acts will horrify even the most die hard 80s new wave music fan like myself.Since the climax was never actually finished, we're left to piece together what would have happened based on raw footage. It's so raw we can even hear the director giving stage directions. No music or sound FX and multiple takes of the same action.Apparently the bear arrives at the concert and starts a fire on stage. It successfully fights off attacks from a forklift and John Reese Davies with a bowie knife. Don't any of the park rangers have a rifle? Remember, they're ALL there at the concert! Davies is actually killed two different ways and as I said before, the bear never actually appears on camera except for a shot showing a bear head sticking out of a pile of wrecked scaffolding. We can only presume it was killed by the stage collapsing.There is audio for the closing shot of the governor witnessing the carnage from a distance and asking Louise Fletcher, "Is this part of the show?" "Yes, yes it is." she answers. Ha ha ha. The deaths of dozens of innocent people are funny.This makes a great film to play a drinking game around or riff with friends. But the worst elements are the simple fact it was never finished and had a low budget to begin with.All the elements existed for a great bearsploitation film. If only we'd seen the actual bear, and more importantly seen the bear killing people!

Nick Maley I read comments that there were problems with the animatronic 14" bear". That may be what techs were told in the US but there was NO such item. The 14 foot version was a puppet that was only intended to be used on the full sized stage and all those shots were completed before leaving Hungary. The half size animatronic version was complete and working prior to leaving Hungary too and we shot tests of it at that time. I had an agreement with Joe Proctor to direct the half size effects unit and all elements ( other than the man in a suit version which was almost complete) were finished and ready to shoot in coordination with the storyboard that I also supervised with artist Tony Beasley. The money dried up and the crew's PERSONAL equipment was seized by the Government who told us they were held against non payment of production bills. We never got our stuff out of there.

rossistheboss Briefly, the film's co-producer was unable to clear the Grizzly title because of a bankruptcy court involving the original Grizzly picture. Superstar Charlie Sheen's first picture, it also starred Laura Dern, Louise Fletcher, John Rhys-Davies, Deborah Foreman and Deborah Raffin. When problems arose with the animatronic 18 foot bear, Academy Award director John Avildsen advised me to shoot the bear footage with a large man wearing a bear suit. We went back to Budapest, Hungary, where the forest stood in for Yellowstone National Park and re-shot bear footage. Menahem Golan whose Cannon Films bought the picture went into bankruptcy after making a deal on the picture. I have videotapes of the original footage in our garage on Long Island and the screenplay that I co-wrote. My producer wife, Florina Massbaum, and I currently reside on the West Coast where we have several pictures in the works, including Racer Rocket Rebel which Haley Joel Osment read and will star in once we complete the financing. The re-shot footage includes the bear's attack on the outdoor concert. Amazingly, the Hungarian director who lived in Paris fell apart over personal reasons and I had to take over directing and editing. To this day, I am convinced we should have had the actor (Charlie Sheen) come back alive in the picture and hunt down the bear. In fact, we are currently planning a picture for Mr. Sheen and his stunning wife, Denise Richards. The superstar, George Clooney, makes a great role in the picture, another reason to get this picture out!