A rookie park ranger. A holidaying family. Two groups of teenagers. A chalet manager. A hiking couple. Several grizzly bears. These and more characters come together on a fateful night on which extraordinary odds led to dreadful happenings and major ramifications for humans and animals alike. This is the setting of Grizzly Night, a dramatization of remarkable and tragic events that occurred in August 1967 in Glacier National Park, Montana. Directed by Burk Doeren and written by Bo Bean, Katrina Mathewson and Tanner Bean, the film tells the story of two bear attacks that happened within a single night. One character describes the odds of these two attacks, that have remarkable parallels, taking place as ‘A trillion to one’, and the film’s supertext confirms that the mystery of the incidents was never solved.
The premise and subject matter place the film within the animal attack sub-genre, made famous by Jaws and its imitators such as Piranha, Orca and, fittingly, Grizzly. Such films often focus on visceral attacks, including sequences of fast cuts, shaking camera and horrific sounds. Grizzly Night does include moments of this, but they are very brief and a far cry from perhaps the most memorable cinematic bear attack, The Revenant. The lack of explicit violence may be partly due to the decision to use an actual bear (Tag) rather than digital effects for the most part, but also because of Doeren’s focus on the aftermath rather than the attacks themselves. We open on two teenagers trying to stay quiet as a bear approaches, and later we see an injured victim stagger into a camp, while the other attack takes place largely in darkness.
From a zoological perspective, this is realistic. A predator, like a bear, does not put on a show when it attacks; it does so efficiently to avoid wasting energy. Therefore, the sudden appearance of the bears, immediate attacks and dragging away, accompanied by terrified screams, is how such incidents would actually play out. Cinematically, it allows the film to emphasise the fear of being overwhelmed by something immensely powerful, placing the viewer in the position of the victim rather than being enthralled by a gruesome spectacle.
Yet the film is also gruesome at times too, as the aftermath of these attacks includes truly ghastly injury detail. A 200kg bear can do immense damage to a human of less than half that weight, and the moments where Dr John Lindberg (Oded Fehr) deals with the injured are genuinely distressing. Furthermore, and perhaps most interestingly, is Doeren’s focus on the emotional impact of these attacks on those who try to help the victims.
Grizzly Night therefore serves as a sober, sometimes horrific and other times melancholy, portrait of an extraordinary night that led to extensive re-evaluation of our relationship with wild places and creatures.
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After a first act that introduces the characters as well as the spectacle of the film, stunning mountain landscapes (Utah standing in for Colorado), the main action of the film takes place over one night, during which attempts are made to save two victims. These sequences include moments of panic, such as when Roy Ducat (Matt Lintz) appears, covered in blood, and fellow campers Robert (Josh Zuckerman) and Janet Klein (Laura Schein) immediately scramble for their lives. With another victim missing, two other hikers resolve to go in search, improvising a garbage can to carry burning material as the only available weapon. And when a helicopter needs to land at night, various people pull together to clear and illuminate a space for the pilot to see.
This ensemble of characters is pleasingly not a collection of clichés. The most prominent is Ranger Joan Devereaux (Lauren Call), a relative newbie and, noticeably, the only female ranger. Her boss, Gary Bunney (Charles Esten) is not, shockingly, a misogynist who demeans her, but a tough who forgets names, assigns newer staff to less dangerous tasks but steps up and supports his workers when needed. Another young ranger, Leonard Landa (Michael Vlamis) could again have been portrayed as a gung-ho kid who ignores orders and common sense, but, remarkably, everyone here seems rational for a horror film.
Dr Lindberg along with his wife Ann (Sohm Kapila) and daughter Terese (Sofia Macy) are cool-headed and realistic despite the shocking events that take place. Tom Walton (Brandon Ray Olive) is initially unsympathetic towards the victims but gradually develops more compassion, especially in a key moment when he erases a jocular reference to ‘grizzly’. Even the teenagers are far from a bratty set of annoying caricatures, even though their banter is jarringly modern.
This banter highlights the main flaw in the film – a lack of period tone. This is most apparent in the opening act, which does not feel like the 1960s. The technology is of the time due to the large, clunky radios, landlines and, of course, nothing digital, although the design of a helicopter feels out of place. The fashions seem modern, and the teenagers especially sound like they could be from last week. Aside from a brief mention of protests against the Vietnam War, there is little sense of period, despite the opening credits being played over stock footage of campers interacting with bears. The period is significant, however, because it was these very attacks that led to significant changes in public advice towards bears, as well as population management and eventual conservation. To return to characters behaving sensibly, it might seem utterly deranged now to sleep out in the open in bear country, but prior to these attacks, it is explained in the film (and backed up by actual evidence) that there had been no fatal attacks in the 57-year history of the park. Thus, for some characters to be unrolling their sleeping bags on the ground, and others eagerly snapping photos of bears eating from garbage bags, is well-contextualised.
This context leads to Grizzly Night’s most surprising aspect, its reflectiveness. In the film’s final moments, Joan and Leonard wonder whether the rangers and park service are responsible for the attacks, and we see the immediate response of bear culling. The character reactions, as well as the final text on screen, give the film its reflective quality. The film demonstrates clear awareness and understanding that when animals attack humans, the consequences for the animals are devastating. Grizzly Night therefore serves as a sober, sometimes horrific and other times melancholy, portrait of an extraordinary night that led to extensive re-evaluation of our relationship with wild places and creatures.
Grizzly Night will be available on Digital and DVD from Monday 2nd February
