‘Cocaine Bear’ – exactly what it says in the title

In 1985, a 150-pound black bear overdosed on several million dollars worth of cocaine in Tennessee. The bear had gotten into packages of cocaine that had been dropped by a parachuting smuggler who had fallen to his death carrying the load. That story is entirely true, and it would go on to become the very loose basis for the 2023 horror-comedy “Cocaine Bear,” the trailer for which took the internet by storm last year.

The film is directed by Elizabeth Banks, who played Effie Trinket of the Hunger Games series. She’s also the director of the 2019 remake of “Charlie’s Angels” and “Pitch Perfect 2.” 

Stars in “Cocaine Bear” include Keri Russell, “The Americans,” O’Shea Jackson Jr., “Straight Outta Compton,” Alden Ehrenreich, “A Brave New World,” Jesse Tyler Furguson, “Modern Family,” and more. 

Staying true to the original story, “Cocaine Bear” does begin by dropping tons of cocaine into the wilderness for a hapless black bear to discover. Unlike reality, this bear becomes violent, immediately killing one hiker and maiming another before going into a violent rampage through the forest. 

The film follows four storylines: middle schoolers Dee Dee and Henry, who skip school to go play in the forest, drug traffickers Daveed and Eddie who are sent to recover the cocaine, Dee Dee’s mother and two park rangers trying to find her, and small-town detective Bob, who is trying to find the drug trafficker in charge of smuggling all of the cocaine. All find themselves running around the Chattahoochee National Forest desperately trying to avoid the murderous cocaine bear, who will do anything for more cocaine. 

If the plot sounds absurd, that’s because it is. It’s a bear on cocaine.

Many times throughout the movie I had to ask myself, “What did I just watch?” The bear sound effects sound like they came from a sound library — and likely did — children are literally eating cocaine they found in the woods, people lose body parts in all sorts of ways, and a very liberal amount of blood and guts appears on screen. That’s the point, though. This movie wants to be a cheesy 80’s horror-comedy, and they go out of their way to underline the absurd. 

And the approach seems to have worked. Over a month in from its February 24th theatrical release date, “Cocaine Bear” has already made more money than the cost of production: the film cost around $35 million to produce, and has made over $58 million domestically and 75 million worldwide. 

“When you’re hit with two words like ‘Cocaine Bear’, you know you need to write about them,” said Screenwriter Jimmy Warden in an interview with Variety. 

According to the interview, Warden wanted to give the original story a twist, however, drawing more sympathy to the bear’s situation. 

“I wanted to give the bear a redemption story. What happened to the bear in real life is quite tragic. It’s not the bear’s fault that drugs fell out of the sky into its den and that it ate kilos and kilos of cocaine.”

In that same interview, producer Chris Miller addressed the internet’s reaction after the trailer dropped in November. “Only then did we become confident that the world was going to understand the tone we were going for,” Miller said. “The tone was the trickiest part of this thing because if it’s too silly and broad and feels like a Saturday Night Live sketch, it can’t sustain a whole movie. But if it’s too dark and gritty, it’s not gonna feel like the fun time at the movies that we were going for.”

It may not be the most intellectual movie out there, but the producers of “Cocaine Bear” definitely created something fun. It’s the kind of movie I enjoyed watching once, but the rewatch value may not be as high. If ‘Cocaine Bear’ is on your watchlist, I’d recommend excessive amounts of popcorn and a few friends. That way you all can ask “What did I just watch?” together.

“Cocaine Bear” is still in theaters and can now be found streaming online. Buyer beware, though, this movie is definitely bloody.