Claws (1977)

Sometimes here at the horror dude blog I take one for the team. This is one of those times. Claws is a killer grizzly movie that wasn’t made by William Girdler, who I will eventually cover for the blog. I had some hope that this could be a decent movie, but it didn’t turn out that way.

The action, or at least what passes for it in Claws, starts off with a couple of hunters watching stock footage of two Grizzly bears fighting. They decide to shoot them, illegally, killing one and wounding the other. The wounded bear runs off into the woods until it meets up with Jason the lumberjack. His truck broke down so he left his wife there to get some help. We know they are happily married because they like to sing songs, we get to hear one… the whole song. The bear attacks and mauls him. Then the action moves to five years later.

There is a devil bear in the woods. It leaves no spoor (bear poop) or tracks. Jason thinks that it is the same bear who mauled him. Oh, and we find out the marriage went sour and his wife left him with their son Bucky. Jason can’t get over not being able to work with just one arm, though it seems fine later on when he is tracking and fighting the bear. Maybe it just isn’t good for lumberjack stuff. Jason’s ex-wife has a new boyfriend who takes Bucky camping. The bear mauls the kid and now everyone wants to go into the woods to kill it. I think Bucky is like the tenth person it has attacked, but he was the last straw! So off they go to kill it. But mostly they walk and see stock footage of beavers and squirrels. So many squirrels…

This movie is mind numbingly boring. We get a couple minutes of action at the beginning and a flaming bear skin pushed off a cliff at the end. That is it for the action. In between we have scene after scene of walking and stock footage and walking and more stock footage. I haven’t been this miserable watching a movie in a long time. I suppose I should be happy this doesn’t happen more often. No damn it I refuse to allow any happiness to come from watching Claws!

Hey look a squirrel!

While the narrative is straightforward they still manage to make it confusing. The new boyfriend, Howard, takes some boys including Bucky camping. We see them camping and then Howard is talking about taking them camping. Then they are camping and then Howard is talking to Bucky’s mom about taking them camping. I’m guessing these were flashbacks or something like that. I did notice the second time around a visual effect that might have been indicating that. Or I was maybe nodding off. Could have gone either way.

Claws is a terrible movie. Again, let me take one for the team here and warn all of you off. This is on YouTube so you can see it for free. That is still too much!

© Copyright 2017 John Shatzer