[Grizzly Park]
Plot:A group of young people sent to do community service in the California forest's are stalked by a fugitive serial killer, and a 1500 pound grizzly bear.

Cast:Glenn Morshower, Randy Wayne, Rance Howard, Emily Foxler, Shedrack Anderson, Jelyn Rodriguez, Zulay Henao, Kavan Reece, Trevor Peterson, Julie Skon.

My Thoughts:Don't feed the animals!!!!

Review:I was not thinking much of "Grizzly Park" going into it. The film has a grizzly bear as it's centerpiece of murder and mayhem. And it just had me thinking "Grizzly Rage: Part 2". For those of you who haven't heard of "Grizzly Rage"...it was SCI-FI original picture about a CGI Grizzly on the loose. And lord knows I could not take another 90 minutes of that. Luckily, "Grizzly Park" was a major-league pleasant surprise. The film starts off with a serial killer named Butch on the loose.

Butch has escaped from prison, and of course he needs transportation, so he whacks a corrections officer who is taking a group of troubled teens up into the woods for community service. With Butch now posing as the cop in charge, and a hungry grizzly bear roaming the woods...the kids find themselves stuck between two deadly threats. "Grizzly Park" is a film that you can see playing out a certain way even before it does. It's a film that you can easily telegraph, but writer/director Tom Skull actually managed to fool me with this one.

Things, events happened....that I really did not expect to happen. People died, who I did not expect to die. While it's not a great horror movie for a few reasons (such as the horrible typecasting)...it's still a damn good B-movie. And that's saying alot in a day and age where utter shit-on-a-disc is flooding video stores every Tuesday. Skull's film possesses a surprise element which most horror films rarely possess. The movie takes extra precaution, and goes that extra mile to not be predictable with it's twists, turns, and overall advancing of the story.

The kids themselves are walking cliches, which can become a bit of an annoyance as the movie goes on, and that's one of the films weaknesses. Although it doesn't weigh down the movie too much. We get the quiet asian girl, the swindleresque black guy, the racist white kid from the wrong side of the tracks, the chola gang-banger, and two "MTV's:The Hills" types who even have names which could land them right into a "MTV's:The Hills" movie if they made one. Even though most of the characters are walking stereotypes, Skull makes sure to make their interaction with each other less than predictable.

I have to admit, a film like this, with characters such as these should've had the kids killing each other off instead of the bear of Butch the serial killer. But Skull again, went out of his way to avoid any cliched moments between the characters. In fact, alot of what unfolds amongst the teens is prety surprising actually. Ranger Bob acts as the kids main guide during the hike, with Butch the serial killer in disguise, scheduled to join them..but Butch however ends up having his own problems (won't spoil that here). The bear is a pretty awesome looking beast for an indie/direct-to-dvd film such as "Grizzly Park".

He also gets alot of action and screentime in the film, and pretty much ends up taking out most of the kids in typical flesh-ripping, violent, and blood-gushing grizzly bear fashion...up until the films climax which has the survivors trying to fend off the huge grizzly who despite having snackced on countless victims, is still hungry and wanting more. The surprises however are yet to come as "Grizzly Park" tosses in two extremely clever twists at the end, which are the icing on the cake of this cool little indie gore flick. "Grizzly Park" is a film which all indie horror fans should see. It gives hope to not only connoisseurs of indie horror, but fans of killer grizzly bear films as well...if there is such a fanbase *shrugs*.

Positives:Great twists, a few likeable characters, awesomely terrifying grizzly bear, nice deaths, unique anti-typical storyline.

Negatives:Too many cliched-characters.

Overall:Worth a rental.





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