One of my all time favorites.

Excellent but underrated film

It’s an especially fun movie from a director and cast who are clearly having a good time allowing themselves to let loose.

It’s sentimental, ridiculously long and only occasionally funny

In fact Maneater is one of SyFy's most tolerable movies to me. I usually cannot stand their resume, but keep watching anyway as there is something so compulsively watchable about their awfulness. It does have its problems, the dialogue is clunky, the rather clichéd subplot with the kid takes too much time in the film and still feels underdeveloped after, some of the action once the tiger takes on a more ninja sort of role doesn't feel very focused and comes as confused instead and some members of the supporting cast are bland. I also felt the ending was on the rushed side, but didn't consider that as big a problem as the above. On the other hand, Maneater for SyFy actually looks decent. The scenery is both lovely and atmospheric and this is a rare SyFy movie that doesn't rely on too many CGI effects to create suspense or tension. The tiger is not that scary but actually looks convincing still. The editing is more focused than the slip-shod quality I was expecting. The music is not as generic or as sluggish as I anticipated, it does have its haunting parts and maintains interest. The story is never dull and while not much new not overly-predictable. The killings are bloody, but also surprisingly tense and suspenseful. The characters are reasonably engaging, clichéd of course but the amount of annoying things SyFy characters tend to do is not as prominent here. The lead acting is fine, Gary Busey is his usual charismatic self despite an appearance that makes you wonder whether he had just gotten out of bed. Ty Wood is appealing, but stealing the show was Ian D. Clark, who is wonderfully creepy. All in all, tolerable if flawed movie, not bad at all at the end of the day. 6/10 Bethany Cox

Don't let that monstrous demon on the cover fool you. This tiger is as soft as they come. It looks about as ferocious as a Furby as it bounds towards the camera looking for hugs. It reaches highs of wonderful hilarity when we hear the tiger roar, but see him just being playful and content. Luckily, to counterbalance this, we have the true wild beast, Gary Busey. Busey plays it straight, which is to his credit. It has all the wonderful characters, and more. The greedy mayor, concerned about tourism, the hunter with a score to settle etc. These characters are actually played quite well, and the mayor even has a well played emotional scene. It's still got clunky dialogue, confused looking supporting actors, and impossible action sequences (this tiger is half ninja). It's a lot of fun and should be treated for the gem it is.

Sheriff Gary Busey, in a restrained performance, gets right down to business, trying to protect his small Appalachian town from a menacing escaped Bengal tiger. As locals, National Guardsmen, and deputies, become cat food, the situation rapidly deteriorates, until a self appointed British tiger hunter arrives on the scene. Ian D. Clark is quite good in this role, and along with Busey, gives the movie some above the norm acting. The little boy and his religious nut-bag Mother are nothing but damn annoyances, as are all of the news media. "Maneater may not be a work of art, but for it's intended audience, it is totally acceptable. ............... MERK

**SPOILERS** Much along the lines of the 1975 blockbuster "Jaws" the made for TV movie "Maneater" has to do with an escaped 600 pound Bengal Tiger who turns the sleepy and almost crime free, it doesn't even have a county jail, Taruga County into its personal hunting and feeding grounds.After the tiger's first three kills both the county Sheriff Grady Barnes, Gary Busey, and it's very reluctant Mayor Earl Hunt, Blake Taylor, finally throw in the towel and let the "cat" out of the bag in asking the State Governor to sent in the National Guard to either capture or gun down the wild beast. As we all soon find out even the National Guard with its state of the art equipment and dead-eye sharpshooters are no match against the ferocious feline. For all its ferocity the killer cat seemed to have developed some kind of friendship with little 12 year-old Roy Satterly, Ty Wood, which the film never goes into or explains! This together with the films very confusing and almost mythical-like ending makes you wounder if the killer tiger has supernatural powers or we, the audience, are being set up for a sequel to "Maneater" the soon to be released, on TV or DVD,"Maneater II"!Using no special effect the movie has an actual tiger who's anything but full grown, he looks like he weighs between 80 to 100 not 600 pounds, do the dirty or bloody work in it. Taking down most of his his victims by ambushing them from behind, the big cat's favorite hunting tactic, we very rarely get to see him the movie. Still even without the big cat being in the frame it's brutal attacks, by just playing with the audience's imagination, are just as effective as if the cat was actually in them!With the National Guard and local police just about giving up in tracking down and killing the rampaging killer tiger in comes British Big Game hunter Colonel Graham, Ian D.Clark, offering his services! looked by everyone as an eccentric The Colonel proves to be the real McCoy in him having documented evidence that he hunted down and killed 12 man eating tigers back in India. What the Colonel failed to bring out, in his resume, is that the last man eating tiger he tried to hunt down, who killed and ate some 200 people, made a monkey out of him by always giving the Colonel, when he was about to gun him down, the slip!***SPOILERS*** It's at the very end of the movie that the killer cat comes out of hiding and that's when things get a bit confusing. Changing his very successful attack mode from the ambush to a frontal attack makes the tiger a sitting duck for the Colonel's, whom the tiger already badly mauled, double barreled elephant gun! Still it took a lot more then the Colonel, and his howitzer, to put an end to the man-eating tigers reign of terror! Or did it!