{"id":39008,"date":"2023-02-25T04:14:16","date_gmt":"2023-02-25T09:14:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/?p=39008"},"modified":"2023-02-25T04:14:16","modified_gmt":"2023-02-25T09:14:16","slug":"cocaine-bear-2023","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.cinema-crazed.com\/blog\/2023\/02\/25\/cocaine-bear-2023\/","title":{"rendered":"Cocaine Bear (2023)"},"content":{"rendered":"

\"\"<\/a>With \u201cCocaine Bear\u201d you\u2019re either in for the ride, or you aren\u2019t. Going in to Elizabeth Banks\u2019 horror comedy, I knew exactly what I was getting, so I had a blast with it, suffice it to say. Everyone in the film seems to know what kind of movie they\u2019re in as it wears everything about itself on its sleeve. It\u2019s a movie about a rampaging black bear on a coke trip. What more are you expecting?<\/p>\n

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Based on real events, \u201cCocaine Bear\u201d is set in the 1980\u2019s where a massive shipment of cocaine is accidentally dropped in a forest in Chattahoochee. After a massive 500 pound black bear consumes the giant shipment of cocaine, it becomes a rabid, murderous coke fiend, slaughtering random hikers and passersby. Now it\u2019s up to a single mom, a lone cop, and a group of gangsters on the hunt for the shipment, to find the black bear and put a stop to its murder spree.<\/p>\n

\u201cCocaine Bear\u201d is a ridiculous movie, but it\u2019s so much fun because it\u2019s ridiculous. It takes the actual real life events and builds on it to form a viciously gory and mean horror comedy surrounding a group of hapless individuals. The movie even begins quoting Wikipedia of all things; it\u2019s a hilarious tongue in cheek jab at common Nature Run Amok films that like to preface their films with dramatic quotes or facts. The fact lends credibility to the black bear suddenly becoming violent, and has a great time building on the silly, extraordinary events. The bear isn\u2019t anything more than a rampaging drug addict that literally does anything to have its fix.<\/p>\n

Director Banks fills the screen with a plethora of interesting actors including Keri Russell, O\u2019 Shea Jackson Jr., Jesse Tyler Ferguson, and Alden Ehrenreich, respectively. While the movie is evenly a horror comedy, it never shies away from the horror element, driving the narrative on the odd events involving the cocaine riddled bear. There are a slew of gruesome and memorable scenes including dismemberment, a vicious mauling in a tree; there is tons of blood, guts, and even severed heads. \u00a0One of the best sequences involves a chase with the bear and a pair of EMT\u2019s fleeing in their truck. Banks\u2019 film feels so out of left field with the kinds of films she usually directs, but she handles the movie like a pro.<\/p>\n

It almost feels as if she\u2019s channeling Alexandre Aja a la \u201cPiranha 3D,\u201d a lot of the time. If anything, the movie does drag on in the finale, and there are long stretches with too much build up and not enough of the Cocaine Bear slaughtering victims. Nevertheless, I\u2019m glad that there\u2019s a movie like \u201cCocaine Bear\u201d out there for sheer novelty for movie going audiences. It\u2019s a movie best watched with a crowd, as it\u2019s packed with great one-liners, some mean, gnarly rampaging scenes, and fun performances from the cast. I wouldn\u2019t be surprised if there are more of these terror sprees for the Cocaine Bear planned down the line. Maybe we can get \u201cMeth Moose\u201d?<\/p>\n