GRIZZLY 2: THE PREDATOR (1983) - Here it is folks. The holy grail of unfinished and unreleased 80's horror. The cast contains such well-known names as George Clooney, Charlie Sheen, Louise Fletcher, Laura Dern, Deborah Raffin, John Rhys-Davies, Dick Anthony Williams, Charles Cyphers, Marc Alaimo and Jack Starrett.

The story is simple: The crooked superintendant of Summit National Park (Fletcher) agrees to have a huge rock concert in the park, much to the displeasure of the park rangers, who feel they are spread too thin as it is. As luck would have it, a 20 foot tall grizzly bear is wrecking vengeange in the park, thanks to a poacher killing it's offspring for it's gall bladder. When the grizzly kills the poacher, the other poachers (led by Starrett) go hunting for it. The grizzly then kills three campers (which includes a horny Clooney and Dern and a very young Sheen) and makes it's way towards the concert. When the rangers start finding the bodies of the grizzly's victims, they enlist the help of French bear hunter Bouchard (Rhys-Davies) to track it down. This doesn't sit too well with local grizzly bear conservationist Sam (Raffin), who would rather capture it alive. Bouchard, Sam and head ranger Hollister (Steve Inwood) go searching for the grizzly while the poachers shoot and injure another ranger (he eventually ends up as a grizzly meal). The poachers dig a huge pit with wooden stakes to kill the bear, but greed and the grizzly get to them first. The grizzly makes it to the crowded concert (it arrives backstage, so it must have had a pass) where it sets off the pyrotechnics, impales Bouchard on a metal spike and flips the Jeep Hollister and Sam are in. Hollister electrocutes the grizzly on stage where the audience thinks it's part of the show (you gotta see that shot to believe it) and applaud wildly. The End. Since this is just a workprint, the film is in very rough shape. The temp music soundtrack contains unauthorized tracks by Michael Jackson ("Beat It" and "Wanna Be Starting Something" ) and the bear is never seen until the finale. The attack scenes consist of reaction shots of the actors waving their hands around their body and screaming and when the bear is to be shown, all you see is a blank screen. Since there is only the shots of the mechanical bear at the end, it stands to reason that the other bear attack footage was to be shot later on. All the sound on this workprint is live and no post-production looping is present. This is especially noticable when the actors talk on police radios or telephones and the reply voices are coming just off-camera.

The question remains this: Would this have made a good film if it were finished and released? It's hard to say. From the footage I have seen, the film is not that bloody (the effects shots were probably also to be added later) and the story is pretty weak. The music acts in the concert, which consists of a bad early 80's New Wave all-girl singing group and an effiminate male headliner who dresses in a silver metallic jump suit, dates the film severely. The finale is unfinished and is represented as a series of outtakes, but you can get the gist of how it's supposed to end by watching the outtakes. It's the ecclectic cast that's the biggest draw. Seeing George Clooney, Charlie Sheen and Laura Dern at such early stages in their careers is a hoot, but their screen time amounts to less than five minutes. There's a subplot about Hollister's daughter Christy (Deborah Foreman) working as a gofer for the concert manager (Dick Anthony Williams) and falling in love with the girly-man headliner (before the concert, he prances around in a tight pair of short shorts!), but it eventually leads nowhere. Cannon Films was supposed to distribute this film, but went into bankruptcy, dooming this film before it was finished. Filmed mostly in Budapest, the Hungarian government seized most of the production's equipment for non-payment of bills.

This film was directed/produced/scripted by David Sheldon, who co-wrote and produced the original GRIZZLY (1976). There are claims that this film ended up on TV in the late 80's. Don't you believe it. It is just one of those urban legends that refuses to die. Another film, CLAWS (1977), which also deals with a rogue grizzly, was retitled GRIZZLY 2 for overseas distribution and TV showings when the original film turned out to be an unexpected financial success. This workprint is about as complete as you are ever going to see it and is in no way in any condition to be shown on TV or in theaters.