Overview
Sabretooth is a 2002 made for television science-fiction-horror film directed by James D.R. Hickox. When a genetically-engineered saber-toothed cat escapes from containment into a forest and starts killing a group of campers, a billionaire and the scientist that created the creature hire a big-game hunter to find it. It premiered as a Sci Fi Pictures TV-movie on the Sci Fi Channel on November 16, 2002.
Plot
Using fossilized DNA, a scientist clones a prehistoric sabretooth cat. However, one night as a janitor prepares to clean the sabretooth's residential quarters, he is subsequently killed after recklessly locking himself in the cage with it. As the fearsome creature is being transported, it breaks free and kills the driver before stalling human prey. Taking its spree into the forested mountains in the Pacific Northwest, the beast kills a vacationing couple, before later continuing to stalk a group of trainee guides learning the area of seniors.
Catherine Viciy (Vanessa Angel), the scientist who created it, and her colleague Anthony Bricklin (John Rhys-Davies), call in Robert Thatcher (David Keith), a big game hunter and tracker, to find the animal, tricking him into believing that it is an African lion, and will offer to pay him $50,000. They go into the mountains to find the cat and come across the cabin where the vacationers were killed. At this point, Thatcher states that "your kitty has an attitude problem." Catherine throws away Thatcher's satellite phone, knowing that he had planned to notify the police and Animal Control. As they continue through the woods, the sabretooth kills Kara, a zoologist working for Catherine, and Thatcher declares that he will kill the sabretooth no matter what.
The next day, Thatcher starts seeing signs of the trainees and sabretooth's tracks corresponding. One night, he hears a camper scream and leaves camp to investigate. He finds the camper's remains and later relates his fate to Casey, the leader of the group, who was searching for him. After they return to the group's camp, Trent, another senior guide, comes in screaming about the death of another trainee and about seeing a sabretooth, to much shock and disbelief. Instructing Casey and the others to a nearby mine to wait for him, Thatcher goes after it, but before he can kill it, Catherine shoots at it with a tranquilizer gun and misses, scaring it off.
From Wikipedia (CC BY-SA 4.0).