StunnaKrypto
Self-important, over-dramatic, uninspired.
RyothChatty
ridiculous rating
SunnyHello
Nice effects though.
Mehdi Hoffman
There's a more than satisfactory amount of boom-boom in the movie's trim running time.
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.
Stephanie Anderson
This is possibly the only good killer bear movie of its time. Most people who review appear never to have watched it all the way through, assuming it's just a watered down Grizzly. I mean, this isn't the best movie it could have been but it is still better. They used a real bear for most scenes instead of a lousy costume and the effects are just better. It's realistic to what bear attacks are like, and why one might start killing people. Heck, even the bear is a realistic height! Everything about this movie works (well, maybe not the trippy scenes with the old man...). It came out after Grizzly but improved on everything. There is no awesome man-on-bear fights in Grizzly, the end is stupid....I really hate that movie! It gets too much hype for what is just a bad Jaws rip-off. Try out Claws before Grizzly any day.
Michael_Elliott
Claws (1977) 1/2 (out of 4) Even Alaska decided to jump in on the JAWS craze with this rip-off, which features a killer grizzly. Just the previous year director William Girdler made GRIZZLY and wouldn't you know it, this low-budget film would be released as GRIZZLY II in some parts just to try and cash in. The story is pretty simple as a couple hunters come across two large grizzly bears fighting. They decide they'll look good on their wall so they start firing but one of the bears is just hit and runs off. At the same time a logger is walking through the woods and gets attacked. Through a text on the screen we learn that in the next five years this bear attacks and kills countless people and becomes known as the devil bear. Then our film kicks back and we see a group of men going after the bear. I'm a major sucker for these "nature attack" movies but this one here is just downright horrible. This is an incredibly cheap production and it really doesn't help when the bear is never in the same frame of the actors. Yes, many low-budget movies used editing to fool the viewer but this film isn't fooling anyone and what's even worse is how dragged out everything is. Not much makes sense in this movie including the fact that the "events" take place five years after the opening. As I previous said, we're give some text to explain what the bear has been doing but why not just show this stuff and forget this incredibly stretched out sequences that we wind up getting? The majority of the 100-minute running time has a bunch of idiots in the wood trying to track down the bear with the help of a Native American magic man. All of the scenes in the woods are just way too long and you can't help but feel as if this thing was just meant to be some sort of travelogue for Alaska and at the last second they decided to add a killer bear. The attack scenes are extremely weak with the viewer really not getting to see much. Everything usually so dark that you can't see or they just have the actors fighting with a fake bear arm coming down on them. I guess the one highlight in the film is a rather silly sequence where the bear attacks some boy scouts out camping. The performances are all rather bland and forgettable but then again so is pretty much everything else in this film. Stick with GRIZZLY instead.
eddy-28
Okay CLAWS in which in GRIZZLY (1976) says that was a subtitle for the film for GRIZZLY. CLAWS is not as intense as GRIZZLY but to most people through the 70's they still think CLAWS is a true sequel to GRIZZLY. CLAWS is way different and no it is not the same story line as GRIZZLY, CLAWS is about a few hunters who are attacked by a grizzly bear and years later the bear goes on a killing spere. CLAWS is no follow up to GRIZZLY however Jason Evers does metion one of the characters in GRIZZLY Which is to believed to be Christopher George. CLAWS also has Leon Armes that late actor who died a few years later. CLAWS is a good film but I do not know who the director is, I have never heard of him before. Edward L. Montoro (Producer of GRIZZLY) later filmed a film in 1984 called GRIZZLY II THE PREDATOR that is the real unknown sequel to GRIZZLY which had Charlie Sheen and George Clooney in their big roles however the film was not released untill 1986.