An oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists, and teens converges in a Georgia forest where a 500-pound black bear goes on a murderous rampage after unintentionally ingesting cocaine.

Inspired by the 1985 true story of a drug runner's plane crash, missing cocaine, and the black bear that ate it, this wild dark comedy finds an oddball group of cops, criminals, tourists and teens converging in a Georgia forest where a 500- pound apex predator has ingested a staggering amount of cocaine and gone on a coke-fueled rampage for more blow … and blood.

When I first heard about this film and its story of a cocaine consuming bear, I thought someone was playing some kind of a prank, that this wasn’t a real film. It is real indeed and it just so happens to be an absolutely brilliant, crowd pleaser of a movie. A cult classic in the making, Cocaine Bear is one of the most original, laugh to you cry, cartoony gore filled films you’ll see this year. 

Directed by Elizabeth Banks (yes - the actress of Hunger Games, Pitch Perfect fame) Cocaine Bear feels like a return to the joy of crowd pleasing cinema. There is a lightness and accessibility to it, with touchstones to a wide range of films like The Goonies, Stranger Things, Jaws, and Anchorman thrown in for good measure. 

This is aided by a narrative that has many strands to it from a mother searching the woods for her school skipping child to drug dealers searching for their lost stash to the cop trying to track down the drug dealers. All of these subplots work perfectly, giving the sense of a larger world, where well known but not A list actors filter in and out as many of them are killed off by the drug fueled bear. 

The film is regularly punctuated by two elements throughout: humour and gore. There are one liners galore that just constantly hit the mark and situations that the characters find themselves in that will make your sides ache from laughing too much. The gore is just over the top enough so that you don’t need to hide your face away as the bear dishes out some bloodied, cocaine fueled violence. 

A cult classic in the making, Cocaine Bear is one of the most original, laugh to you cry, cartoony gore filled films you’ll see this year. A real crowd pleaser.

★★★★★