Savage (2009)

A forest fire is raging in Bear Valley national park, driving animals out of the depths of the forest. Including a beast most think to be a legend.

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SyFy produced movies have a very specific pace; they always open with action, and have a "money shot" every 15 minutes (whether it suits the plot or not) to keep viewers hooked during commercial breaks. The lack of this formulaic pacing offers our only clue that Savage is, in fact, not a SyFy original, but a "real" movie; otherwise is carries all the hallmarks.

Yes, it's a low budget creature feature, but more specifically it has the same cast of caricatures one expects from those productions.

There's the de facto hero who has recently moved into the area (in this case the sheriff), the person who believed in the monster all along (a scientist who uses the fire as an opportunity to search for Bigfoot), the shady guy working with someone he wouldn't normally work with (a hunter hired to help the scientist track the creature) the person up to no good who gets caught in the crossfire (a girlfriend abusing poacher who has come to the area to shoot bears out of season, and is wanted for murder), and the nogoodnick with a heart of gold who will gave a chance to redeem themselves (the poacher's girlfriend). Throw in a possibly-corrupt mayor, and a business man who wants to ruin the small towns economy by building a big resort and strip mall, and the gang's all here!

The creature itself, which isn't seen until the 45min mark, is actually pretty good; the mask could be better, and close up shots of its face should have been avoided, but the itself is excellent, and the actor inside manages to be spry, rather than lumbering 'guy in a suit' style. There's also some wire work used to make the monster extra athletic, which is mostly done pretty well.

The effects are largely decent (come to think of it, there's probably a little too much gore for a SyFy original too, so there's another clue) save for a moment where a body makes a street run red, which is terrible in both concept (one body does not contain that much blood) and execution (the CGI makes it look more like the water is turning into some kind of glowing red chemical waste).

All in all though, it's a fairly run of the mill low budget creature feature that'll kill a Saturday afternoon. That, to be honest, is why I've spent so much time drawing comparisons with SyFy movies; if you enjoy them, you'll enjoy this.

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Disclaimer:
If you look through the archives, you'll see that I've been using "Bought from Poundland" as a tag since at least 2011.

At the end of October 2013 I decided that all of my 2014 movies would be purchased from Poundland, and began buying up horror movies, to ensure I would have enough come October 2014.

In March 2014 I took a part time job at Poundland.

In accordance with the companies social media policy, in September 2014 I contacted Poundland's social media team to check that I would be okay to carry on with my plan to use the "bought from Poundland" tag.

I have been given the go-ahead on condition that I make the following clear:

All the reviews on this blog are entirely the opinion of Will Tingle, the reviews are not endorsed by Poundland in any way and (as should be obvious from some of the more scathing ones) are certainly not reviews I have been paid to write.

In short: The views expressed in this blog are mine alone, and do not necessarily reflect the views of Poundland or it's owners, shareholders, or  management.