Originally titled Endangered and known as Red Machine in other countries, Grizzly is the second film from director David Hackl (Saw V) and will likely go down as a guilty pleasure movie for me. I say it's a "guilty pleasure" because it's not exactly a good film, in fact, it's mediocre (at best) and loaded with a lot of problems that I'm sure many viewers will dislike. However, I personally couldn't help but enjoy it for the most part and even found myself rooting for the damn bear at times too.

So the story is set in the Alaskan wilderness where a seriously pissed off grizzly has gone mad and started killing humans just for the hell of it. This leads to a group of people going out into its territory to look for the sheriff's missing deaf wife (who for some reason likes to go into the woods alone) and possibly take out the rogue bear along the way. Unfortunately for them, this is a badass ninja-like assassin bear that can creep up on mutha F'ers without them knowing, so yeah, they're pretty much in over their heads.

Aside from the problematic script, the biggest issue I had with Grizzly would have to be its use of CG. There are times where it's so distractingly bad that it can take you right out of the movie. This is especially the case in the climax, which is supposed to be treated as very tense, but it's hard to actually feel anything seeing how fake the bear looked. And don't even get me started on the logical issues I had with the finale. On another note, it's amazing how a movie like this even got such a good cast--Billy Bob Thornton, Thomas Jane, Scott Glenn and I guess to some extent James Marsden. It's more of a nice surprise than a complaint.

Logcal issues and everything aside, the movie is actually kind of fun because it plays out as a backwoods slasher, but with a bear. As silly as that sounds, I'm personally fond of backwoods survival horror flicks, so naturally I was entertained and the pic was actually pretty bloody/gory at times too, which is always a plus.

The story doesn't make a whole lot of sense at times and the bear manages to do things I'm pretty sure bears normally can't do, but if you don't take the film too seriously and just accept the fact that it's essentially just a backwoods slasher with a killer bear, then you may find yourself liking this to some extent, despite its many issues.