Ah, the 1970s. It was a time when leisure suits were appropriate camping wear, Leslie Nielsen was a dirty racist and any future environmental problems could be a rousing source of bloody entertainment, most notably in William Girdler’s Day of the Animals.
As a nameless town’s rural cops sit around playing cards, gaining weight and bitching about the ozone layer, Christopher George and his steel jaw lead a handful of city folk into the California mountains for a camping excursion. As the collection of white stereotypes — and one Native American played by Middle Eastern actor Michael Ansara, natch — walk the mountain range, a large bird follows them, watching their every move.
Apparently that’s all it takes, because after the opening night’s wolf attack, the animals go crazy, especially the birds, the cougars, the dogs and a rather docile bear. They attack in rather subdued ways that seem more like everyday maulings as opposed to CFC-inspired murders which, we are supposed to believe is the cause of their temporary insanity.
To be honest, the real wild animal here is a shirtless Nielsen, leading a pack of campers in the wrong direction while swinging a large stick around, slapping small children, calling old women “bitches” and plunging a spear into the chest a young Andrew Stevens, unaware that, many years later, his hands will be gently cupping the bare breasts of a willing Shannon Tweed in straight-to-cable flicks.
Nielsen, thankfully, meets his end when, in the rain, a bear attacks him in the middle of trying to rape a woman. (Now that I think about it, maybe these animals aren’t all that bad after all …)
While many people consider Grizzly to be Girdler’s magnum opus of animal-on-man killings, I highly suggest checking out Day of the Animals, much like my own dog did, watching the screen with one eye on the screen and one eye on me, licking his slobbering chops and mesmerized by every minute of it. —Louis Fowler