A cigar is just a cigar. That truth can be applied to so many great things, especially certain films, Cocaine Bear being one of them I believe. With its premise the film really didn’t need to make an effort. It is so random and silly that it was bound to attract an audience due to curiosity alone. However, its references to 80s’ culture and cinema indicate that Cocaine Bear has higher aspirations than being just another Piranha 3D or Planet Terror.

Inspired by true events, this horror comedy kicks off when a notorious drug dealer drops a shipment of cocaine from his private plane. The packages land in a forest where a grizzly bear consumes the product and goes on a cocaine-fuelled rampage. Knife-wielding delinquents, dog-loving detectives, rifle-shooting kingpins and jumpsuit-wearing mothers get involved.

The Characters

Cocaine Bear’s cast is an ensemble, there’s no single protagonist but some characters clearly have more urgency than others. Our cast includes a couple of drug dealers who’re sent to collect the abandoned product, a detective tracking down the leftover cocaine and two children who just happen to be in the forest at the time.

In terms of characterisation they’re pretty generic but that’s not a bad thing. We don’t get a good long look into their interior lives, we just see them bouncing off the other characters, which is where the comedy comes from.

Of all subplots, the one focusing on the drug dealers has the most consequence as well as the most laughs. These two guys go through hell and back just to collect as much cocaine as they can. They get shot, stabbed, scratched and bitten all in the service of their kingpin and his customers.

The subplot involving the two kids has its share of laughs. The two children are clearly reminiscent of kid characters from 80s’ family films like Flight Of The Navigator and The NeverEnding Story. Only instead of a magical world full of adventurous perils and wonderful creatures, they’re thrown into an adult hellscape of illegal stimulants and carnivorous mammals.

Typically when adolescents encounter the realities of the world, it’s in straight-faced dramas and horrors so it’s refreshing to see it done rather sarcastically in a horror comedy.

Cocaine Bear achieves a happy medium with its characters; they’re as fun as caricatures but they still feel like real people.

The Horror/Comedy

The film is a horror comedy in name only. The only horror is in gore, a few moments of suspense and some jumpscares. I don’t mind the film not being very scary but I would’ve appreciated the gore being more extreme, similar to recent tongue-in-check exploitation films like the last Terrifier.

The comedy is pretty strong. No god-awful SNL-style ad lib or parody movie toilet humour, just well-written banter, gory slapstick and some classic one-liners.

It’s a tickly watch but like I wrote at the beginning, Cocaine Bear appears to have higher aspirations. In many scenes there is a fascinating contrast, a contrast between the colourful 1980s’ aesthetic and the bloody, cocaine-covered reality.

What does it all mean? I don’t know. It could be a satire of the 80s’ attitude to cocaine. Or it could be a stylistic choice and nothing more.

End of the day, love it or hate it you can’t deny that Cocaine Bear is a pretty original flick. It borrows from a lot of genre films but it’s a pastiche that catches your eye. It could be a genius satire or a simple 80s’ throwback, either way it’s a lot of fun. I’d recommend it.

I give Cocaine Bear a worthy 7 out of 10.