Cocaine Bear review: A promising high and inevitable crash

Psst, hey kid. Looking for a good time? I got just the stuff. One whiff of this and you’ll feel on top of the world. What’s in this little baggie you ask? Why it’s Cocaine Bear, hitting theaters this weekend. Before you plunge in nose first, let me tell you a bit about the type of high you can expect.

Cocaine Bear is a good example of a kind of movie that only came about in recent years, something I call “shitpost movies.” This isn’t necessarily to comment on the film’s quality (though they do tend to be bad), but rather to describe its approach to commercial viability.

Take Sharknado, a movie with such an absurd premise and title that audiences are convinced to watch it out of curiosity or ironic enjoyment. The idea is so outlandish that the filmmakers are able to get away with lazy writing, acting, and poor quality in general. The wackiness of these movies reminds me a lot of the ironic meme humor that has rising in popularity on the internet, hence my loving name for this type of flick.

Usually I don’t bother with shitpost movies, because often end up being a waste of time. However, Cocaine Bear marks a rather big leap for this burgeoning genre. Where other shitpost movies are often direct-to-TV or streaming affairs, Cocaine Bear is having a full theatrical release distributed by Universal Pictures. So today I figured, why the hell not, I’ll take a hit.

Cocaine Bear: Serviceable jokes and gore, boring plot

Cocaine Bear has some solid humor and scares. The comedy is at its best when it’s situational. With a title like Cocaine Bear, you’d expect and hope for some absurdism, and the movie definitely delivers. There’s a hilarious car chase sequence with Cocaine Bear going after an ambulance, a funny stand-off between characters at a gazebo along the hiking trail, and a ballsy scene where two children swallow mouthfuls of coke. I also really liked how Cocaine Bear isn’t just an animal that’s been accidentally drugged. The movie pushes the premise in delightfully silly directions, with the bear having become a full-on coke addict who actively hunts for the substance.

The humor begins to suffer when the characters begin to talk. The dialog just doesn’t work for me here. Most of it is either hammy screaming or lol random conversation that mean nothing. Perhaps more of it could have worked if the acting wasn’t so off. With the exception of character actress Margo Martindale (queen) and, to my surprise, the child actors, a lot of the actors feel like they know the kind of movie they’re in, so they overdo it or just fall flat.

The horror was okay, although it might be a stretch to call this horror. Similar to the horror/comedy Tucker and Dale vs Evil, the comedy is so front and center that you can’t really be scared during Cocaine Bear. It just doesn’t facilitate suspense. However, the gore and kills are pretty creative, so in that respect the horror is great. It’s not all geeked up bear attacks; you get a nice variety of bloodletting here.

My one asterisk is, like so many horror films nowadays, almost all the gore is done with CGI, which sticks out. I guess this is something I have to get used to, since horror is usually a low-budget genre and CGI has become cheaper and easier than practical effects.

It’s not too bad. The CGI is of a pretty good quality, particularly with Cocaine Bear herself. She looks great. The blood on her snout looks a bit rough, but she’s modeled and animated very well.

Beyond the laughs and the scares, the story of Cocaine Bear is pretty boring. We have two main throughlines; a mother looks for her daughter lost in the woods, and two drug dealers try to recover their merchandise. For a shitpost movie, it’s a serviceable plot that gives the characters stakes and reasons to be in Cocaine Bear’s domain, but because of the aforementioned flat acting and poor dialog, there are droughts of interest between the gore and the jokes. I get that no one’s going into Cocaine Bear for a strong plot, but it still fails there.

So would I recommend Cocaine Bear? Unless you have a taste for ironic watches, it’s not quite worth the price of a theater ticket. However, if it ever becomes available to any streaming platform, then I’d be more inclined to recommend it. Until that day, remember kids, just say no.

Grade: D+

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