User Reviews

If you managed to survive the really scary scene when the bear is terrorizing the gang by clawing through holes in the sewer pipe, pause the DVD at 38:31 and look in the upper left. You can see a dude wearing glasses, leaning on the pipe, wearing a bear paw glove! . . . I also found it interesting that the older brother was dragged back to the car from the steakhouse, yet was not in a state of shock. If that were me I don't think I'd be able to join in on the current discussion. The conversation between the younger bro and his sister-in-law was rather casual also, considering that the first girl was brutally mauled in their faces, and everyone seemed to completely forget about her. Definitely a 3 rating for humor on this one. It was very campy, I was reminded of Wendigo and had some really good laughs!

So I saw "Bear" last night. It was a horrifying experience on every level. For starters, just to get you in the picture, I wasn't looking for a good movie, I wasn't even looking for a decent movie, I was looking for cheap and fast entertainment. After spending several minutes at my local video-renting store, browsing trough the "almost new arrivals" section I found "Bear".

CONTAINS Spoilers--------------------------

Now, the movie starts off and we are introduced to the main protagonists. They are all riding in a car and pleasuring each other orally. Then suddenly, their car gets a spin and woho, they all end up in the ditch. Normally this wouldn't be a problem but their tiers brake down and they can't get up. For now...

While their planning how to get out of this super-forestlike-ditch a bear suddenly appears. Our heroes gets scared and one of them pulls a gun and starts to shoot the poor animal. Well, they are safe. For now...

After a while a new bear appears. This bears motivation for killing everyone of our heroes is revenge for his fallen friend, the "first bear". (INTENSE DRAMA)

So the plot goes on and at the end everything resolves for the best. Well, not really for the best. One of the girls survives. This is possible since she politely asks the bear for it's forgiveness. The bear roars and the walks away. And she has learned the lesson. "Never shoot a bear in a forest if your lost and the bear has a friend."

This movie gets 1/10. The acting is a cruel gesture at all what acting stands for. I recommend it though if you feel that you've lost your sense of good-taste.

I laughed out loud many times while watching this movie. Unfortunately, it's not a comedy. No, Bear is a low-budget horror flick gone terribly, hilariously wrong. And it's the best kind of wrong, too. The sort that gets wronger and wronger as it goes along. This film starts out cheap looking but with a faint hint there might be something interesting in the offing. Then it slides into bad and keeps going into awful until about an hour in, it plunges to near Ed Woodian depths of suck. It's the sort of cinema suck where the filmmakers have absolutely no clue how horrible they are and the goofiest bits of addle-brained nonsense are allowed to play out on the screen. If these folks were trying to go for "so bad, it's good", I salute their accomplishment. If they weren't…I pity them.

Giving credit where it's due, this is a great concept for a motion picture. Combine Open Water with Jaws, except it's set in the woods with a grizzly bear. Tell me that's not a brilliant bit of inspiration! Of course, whatever screenwriters Roel Reiné and Ethan Wiley did to come up with it must have blown out every synapse in their brains because everything after the concept is staggeringly poor. Well, not everything. Some of the camera work in Bear is, well, not good but it shows a few glimmers of talent. And I suppose the bear does an okay acting job. The rest? Hoo boy.

Belittling older brother Sam (Patrick Scott Lewis), his nondescript wife Liz (Mary Alexandra Stiefvater), his family disappointment younger brother Nick (Brendan Michael Coughlin) and Nick's hippie skank girlfriend Christine (Katie Lowes) take a shortcut through the woods on the way to a party for Sam and Nick's parents. A flat tire sends them off the road and a bear wanders by, so Sam goes all Scarface on the bear and shoots it dead, blasting away even as it tries to lumber off. When the bear's angry mate arrives, Sam is out of bullets and the group has to take refuge in their broken down minivan and try to find a way to survive a 400 pound beast who's out for vengeance! So, I guess instead of Jaws this is more like Orca. Yeah, that's right. Orca.

I'm not going to go into a lot of the details of where, how and why Bear stinks on ice. This thing really is so mirthfully ghastly that you've got to experience it for yourself. I will say that, while these filmmakers did use a trained grizzly for many scenes, they also extensively employ a guy in a bear suit. It's not a good bear suit, either. Have you ever seen those Bear City vignettes from Saturday Night Live? It's more like that kind of bear suit. There's also a point where the film turns into a episode of the Maury Povich show with the bear playing the part of Maury.

I'm not kidding about that.

This is one of the most difficult movies I've ever tried to evaluate. Bear is truly atrocious, but in an at times spectacularly entertaining fashion. I didn't enjoy it, but I enjoyed laughing at it. To be fair to other films, the quality here deserves two stars. I must bump it up to three, though, because I had a much better time watching this than any other two star flick I've suffered through.

I can't say I agree with the rating and the other reviews of this movie. Yes, the plot may not be great, it may not be a high-budget movie and there may be shots with crew in it BUT the script is AMAZING. The bear is so much fun, I really was rooting for him, shouting "REVENGE BEAR, GET THEM REVENGE BEAR" at the TV.

• SPOILER START - When the bear had a flashback, I peed myself laughing. When they try to run, the bear appears and one of the girls says "He set up an ambush!" I shat myself laughing. So much fun if you really get into it and root for the bear. The ending is weird but kinda sweet. Revenge Bear turns to Mercy Bear and turns down the double kill on the lady.

• SPOILER END-

I thoroughly enjoyed this movie from start to finish and can really recommend it if you enjoy this kind of movie. Great to watch with friends.

Although not an original idea I like the premise of the movie. Bears can and do attack folks. Things can happen seemingly at random- although not really as random as they appear at first glance. The younger brother, driver of the minivan, has a checkered past, with some implied substance abuse issues and is driving too fast, contributing to the flat tire, which causes the unplanned stop. His girlfriend, has not really dealt with her substance issues- and this comes out when the stress level rises. The older brother, mercilessly needles the younger brother for his failures. He is so self absorbed in his worldly "Success" that he has totally alienated his wife. His self absorption peaks when he empties his weapon into the female bear, even though the younger urges him to let her escape. A cold justice is played out, with many of these characters paying the ultimate price. "Frontier justice." Yes, the movie has flaws, many of which are in the production. But the characters ring true, and the acting is fairly well done. Not truly a bad movie, but as another reviewer has noted, this could have become a cult movie with a little more care in production. Missed it by "That much." 6/10

Let me begin by saying that this movie was obviously shot on a limited budget but this still could have been a cult classic. Let's start with the plot shall we: Two young couples get stranded in the middle of nowhere after having decided to take a shortcut (yes yes, very original). They quickly learn that they have just entered bear territory and soon they find themselves surrounded by hungry grizzly bears.

Simple story indeed but just like I thought "Five Across The Eyes" succeeded in many ways, I really thought this would succeed in the exact same ways since it's shot in a similar style. Now the movie kicks off quite fast and keeps going at a rapid pace. The actors are surprisingly great and the panic feels real. You know what else is real? The bears! Not CGI-crap, these are actual bears... well for most of the time anyway. Every now and then we see a VERY fake-looking snout and the occasional friendly-looking cotton-paw with - what looks like - soft claws. Indeed they seem to have been using an over-sized teddy bear in quite a few scenes but the shots are so quick that it doesn't really do any harm to the movie.

However, the thing that does harm the movie are all the obvious goofs in it. The movie takes place at night-time, yet some scenes are so OBVIOUSLY shot in the middle of the day that it doesn't even look as if they tried to cover this up. What's even worse is that we see the "fence" surrounding the area in several frames. There's even one point where we can see the boom operator clear as day (trust me, you can't miss it). What started off as a potentially awesome movie was soon dragged down by an amateurish crew and increasingly ridiculous dialogues. Still, if you're a fan of killer bears, I think it's worth checking out, it should've been a cult classic but will most likely end up in the bargain bin unless they do some serious changes and re-shoots for the American release (the DVD reviewed is the UK DVD - which by the way was bare-bones - no extras except for some trailers).

You've probably heard the joke about the starlet who was such a terrible actress that when she somehow landed the lead in a stage production of THE DIARY OF ANNE FRANK audience members shouted "They're upstairs!" when the Nazi soldiers arrived.

That's how I felt watching these twits (one of my favorite terms I've picked up from watching Monty Python) replaying CUJO only without the suspense and scares.

Now, my standards aren't picky when I'm watching movies on Chiller or SyFy. Generally, I'm a cheap date. And I had gingerbread cookies from the Mexican bakery and a big glass of iced tea.

But the characters were annoying, the situation increasingly ludicrous, and I soon realized that the sooner a character was ripped asunder and eaten by the bear, the sooner that character would stop talking.

One character, the younger brother's girlfriend, is eliminated before we can get really irritated with her. But the two brothers and the older brother's wife really were irritating. And their conversation was essentially a ploy to stretch an anecdote out to feature length.

Finally the older brother makes a run for it. He gets to the fringes of civilization. While he crosses the parking lot of a bar he sees that the bear has followed him.

And he winds up back at the car with his wife and brother because the bear made him come back. This happens offstage, so we have to take his word for it.

Let me confess at this point, I used the fast-forward button. A lot. I'm not a paid reviewer, so I can't get fired for this.

One of the highlights was when the door of the car swings open and we see the reflection of a huge studio light used during the outdoor shooting in the window.

I checked out the crew on IMDb. The first-billed screenwriter is not a native speaker of English. Really? Well, actually, I figured as much. But far more shocking is that the co-author is none other than Ethan Wiley who wrote the horror comedy HOUSE back in 1986. His career went downhill- he did one of the entries in the Children of the Corn franchise and this continues his decline.

I am grateful to Chiller, though, for showing this to the very end of the closing credits. It turns out that the wildlife preserve in California where the film was made suffered great damage in a wildfire and there's an effort being made to help restore it to functionality. The bear's performance is certainly more effective than any of the humans' because the bear is not saddled by any dialog. No wonder it looks so happy in the closing credits playing with what's left of the protagonists' car.

The closing credits also let us see someone in a uniform wander across the camera's field of vision, and at some point someone takes a flash picture of the bear. Yep. If Martin Scorsese was watching this, he probably was taking notes for his next production. You betcha.

Can't really complain about a low budget movie that I watched for free. But, I am surprised that the budget for this was $10,000,000. Saying that this movie was shot in one location, is completely fake, and has a horrible script, the actors didn't do that bad. And not only saying that because the actress who played Liz, was born 20 minutes from where I grew up. I read through all the reviews, and am surprised that nobody said anything about the super human stength of the characters. And it gets even worse when the last 3 get the van back on it's wheels with a full grown grizzly bear inside. As for the the other filming errors, and the totally fake bear costume not going to bash on it too much. Filming errors is quite common in these low budget films. Last movie I watched, you could see the character breathing after being killed by a gunshot to the head. Back to this film, never understand why the writer including the line about the guy being drug back from the restaurant by the bear. But for an already fake film, may as well had to the fire. Anyways, watch it yourself and see what you think. Just be prepared to see part of the crew, and many filming errors like in "The Decent", but with a worse script

When seeing this on the shelf in HMV! I just had to have it!

The film was pretty good! A Unique concept in bear attacks & survival!

The Death's were OK, not much can be expected from a film which is about bears attacking, when it's got the whole "It does exactly what it says on the box" sort of thing!

Not a gory as I'd hoped! Was expecting a little more blood & guts!

Was kind of hoping it would end where they all survived instead of the boring overused female sole survivor concept which itself has been done to death! Not to mention sexist!

Also when Sam got to the Steakhouse but didn't bother to rush in then got dragged back, by the bear to the car! That disappointed me!

Overall it was a pretty good! Worth a watch I'd say 8/10

There are movies that are so bad that they are hilarious to watch. And then there's movies like Bear. They are simply bad, without any hilarity. To quote Roger Ebert here, I think the crew tried to make a wonderful movie, but they failed in doing so. Why did they fail? Because there's not much that fits together. 4 people in a car, two brothers and their girlfriends. From the very first scene we see those 4 they try everything to come across as the most unlikeable characters in the world. They are constantly picking at each other and are acting in the most stupid way possible. It's not even that the actors are particularly bad (they are not good either, they are just average actors), but it's the script that makes this movie almost unwatchable.

But let's start at the very beginning. As already stated, there are 2 brothers and their respective girlfriends/wives in a car. They are traveling to the brother's father's birthday dinner, which for some reason is held in the most remote countryside ever ("Cell phone doesn't work" trope, YAY). Of course they decide "to take a shortcut" and of course they have an accident. One of the tires goes flat, so they have to stop. The changing does take some time (starts at bright daylight and ends during the night... however, during the night there seems to be a pretty awesome light source, since we can see everything just fine) and during their forced stop, they are attacked by a bear. Luckily one of the brothers carries a gun, and he fires every bullet he has to kill off the bear. OK, up until this point it could've been an okay movie, but it already starts to go downhill from here. A second bear appears and he mourns the loss of his partner(?) and even has a flashback(!) of how bear #1 was shot. He then goes on to attack the group. They hide inside the car and even get it going (trope of "my car hates me" avoided!), but somehow end up running it into the next tree. The car is flipped over by the bear. After some minutes the bear leaves again. So, what does the script now holds in place for the unfortunate 4? Of course, they are whining over the birthday cake that got all messed up during the attack. I mean, who wouldn't think of the cake (which apparently isn't a lie) in a situation like this? Anyway, they manage to flip the car into a normal position again, but it won't start this time. After some more boring dialogue the bear appears again and somehow (at this point I wasn't paying too much attention anymore) one of the 4 is caught outside and gets killed. Nick (boyfriend of the girl that got killed) is sad at first, but his sadness somehow vanishes after some time. The other two don't care too much about the death either. And now the movie just starts to repeat itself. Nick tells some stories about some native American legends and how the bear takes revenge, the others keep arguing, bear attacks, leaves, Nick tells some stories, they are arguing... it goes on for some time. This is where I think the script writers just weren't sure in what direction the movie should go. Either follow the plot line of Nick's stories about that legend and create some "supernatural bear" movie or leave it out. Cut down on the arguing and let the characters actually DO something productive. After some time Sam (brother of Nick) decides to just run to the steakhouse where the party should've taken place. Why he didn't do so after the first attack isn't really clear. I mean, the car is broken down, the cell phones have no signal and the road is deserted (apart for one car that passes by but obviously doesn't see the flipped over car right in his headlights... oh well). So... what was their plan? Just sitting there and hope the bear would starve to death? But Sams plan doesn't work out. He is dragged back by the bear, but somehow manages to appear on screen without a single scratch on his face. After that the story repeats itself a few times again until both brothers are dead and only the pregnant Liz survives. Hooray!

As I've said at the beginning of this review: The script doesn't make much sense. It's as if the script writers didn't knew what to do with the idea of a "killer bear", so they tried to fill it up with unnecessary dialogue that no one cares about anyway. I mean what's the point of all the arguing if at the end, all characters are dead anyway. They sure as hell haven't learned anything from this experience... because they die. Liz hasn't learned anything from this experience, because her husband and the father of her unborn child (yes, Nick had an affair with Liz and got her pregnant). How is she supposed to get on with her life now?

So, apart from the average actors, does this movie has something else that isn't completely bad? Yes! The bear is REAL (for most of the time). There's an extra on the BluRay that shows how the bear was trained, which is quite interesting. Oh, and they let the bear tear apart a real car it seems.

I rate this 1 out of 10. The script doesn't make sense and the characters are awful (not so much the actors, mind you). You just don't care for them. You just wish the bear would get them sooner, so the movie would end more quickly.