(Streamed via Creature Features)
The Brain That Wouldn’t Die’s Jason Evers stars as a logger who is mauled by a bear. Five years go by, and he still is unable to let it go. His wife finally has enough of his bitter and hateful ways and takes his son to start a new life. However, when his son is attacked by the same “Satan Bear”, Evers finally mans up and goes out for revenge.
Claws is one of those When Animals Attack flicks that were so popular in the late ‘70s after the success of Jaws. Oh, and the title rhymes with Jaws just in case you didn’t already pick up on that. This one also came in the wake of Grizzly, a far superior killer bear movie. Even though parts (OK, most) of Claws are laughable, dumb, and confusing, I’ll be damned if there aren’t a few moments when it almost works.
The biggest drawback is its structure, which relies heavily on the use flashbacks. The second act is particularly spotty as characters have flashbacks left and right. All these scenes are mostly there to flesh out their motivations, but honestly, they are really unnecessary as the exposition-heavy dialogue makes many of the flashbacks redundant.
The way the nature footage of grizzly bears is edited into the action is pretty funny though. The film stock rarely matches in these scenes as some of the wildlife shots are tinted and/or faded, which further makes them stick out like a sore thumb. Plus, the print I saw was already in shambles to begin with, which didn’t help. Just when you think you’ve reached your limit with all scenes of the hunting party traipsing through the woods, there is a great payoff involving the Native American guide having a trippy freakout that is good for some unintentional laughs.
If you can stomach all the corny flashbacks (including a slow-motion romantic interlude in a field), boring custody drama, Native American mumbo jumbo, and sloppy editing, the kill scenes are sporadically effective. The best one involves a bunch of Cub Scouts camping in the woods who cry wolf about seeing the “Satan Bear”. Naturally, the real bear shows up later on and tears their camp to shreds. The editing in this sequence is surprisingly strong (especially compared to the other attack scenes in the movie) and the carnage is rather jaw-dropping. Although much of Claws is sloppy, shoddy, and idiotic, this sequence, as the kids say nowadays, “goes hard”.
The whole movie is a case of “Good News, Bad News”. For every quality moment, there’s a bunch of schlock that gets in the way. Although Evers’ intense performance keeps things from completely unraveling, the rest of the cast act rather embarrassing. The while demise of the bear is pretty epic, the whole build-up to that choice moment is unbelievably lame as the last five minutes or so of the film are mostly all in slow-motion.
Bottom Line: Whenever Claws bears its claws, it’s rather grizzly, but it’s more than likely to make you hibernate.
A stoned hippie gets the best line of the movie when he comes face to face with a bear and inexplicably says, “I’m a rock singer, not Walt Disney!”
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