© 2026 The Couch Critic
Grizzly is a 1976 American thriller film directed by William Girdler, about a 15-foot-tall, man-eating grizzly bear that terrorizes a National Forest. It stars Christopher George, Andrew Prine and Richard Jaeckel. Widely considered a Jaws rip-off, Grizzly used many of the same plot devices as its shark predecessor, which had been a huge box-office success during the previous year. The giant grizzly bear in the film was portrayed by a bear named Teddy, who was 11 feet tall. A sequel, Grizzly II: The Concert, was filmed in 1983 in Hungary by director André Szöts, but was never released to theaters. Sheldon, the co-producer and writer of Grizzly, wrote the screenplay with his screenwriter wife, McCall, who also reprised her role from the original film. The stars were Louise Fletcher, Steve Inwood, John Rhys-Davies, Deborah Raffin and Deborah Foreman; the cast also included Charlie Sheen, George Clooney and Laura Dern, who were unknown at the time.
An eighteen-foot grizzly bear figures out that humans make for a tasty treat. As a park ranger tries rallying his men to bring about the bear's capture or destruction, his efforts are thwarted by the introduction of dozens of drunken hunters into the area.
All hell breaks loose when a giant grizzly, reacting to the slaughter of her cubs by poachers, attacks a massive rock concert in the National Park. [This sequel to "Grizzly" (1976) was left unfinished after production wrapped prematurely in 1983, and was not officially released until 2020, though a bootleg workprint version had been in circulation for some years prior to this.]