Critic Reviews

This dark comedy, co-produced and directed by Elizabeth Banks, is a non-stop ride. Complete with gore, sick humour and characters (including the bear) that quickly attach themselves to the audience, this film satisfies so many low-end viewing pleasures that it’s a film you want to see again just to confirm that yes, that WAS indeed what you just saw.

Cocaine Bear is a thrilling binge of adrenaline that you won’t regret in the morning.

Impressively, however, director Elizabeth Banks keeps the powder gags fresh throughout, as the mammal maims her way through a Southern forest preserve. The movie about blow never blows.

Cocaine Bear is a film worthy of its title, and perfectly constructed to feel like the kind of cult horror movie you’d find on a dusty VHS tape somewhere in a stoner’s basement. It’s bloody and grotesque, at times quite dark, but also surprisingly endearing.

So what we have here is a coked-out bear on a murder spree and, honestly, it’s literally everything I would want from a movie called Cocaine Bear.

It’s gory, fun as hell, packed with hilarious grotesque kills and over-the-top characters, and at 90-ish minutes, it’s paced near perfectly and never overstays its welcome or overdoses on the joke.

A tight 95 minutes of Paddington's cokehead cousin on the rampage, Cocaine Bear is the funny, gory romp we need in a landscape of samey superheroes.

This is an unapologetic audience-pleaser, though it’s not for the squeamish. Say no to drugs. Say yes to “Cocaine Bear.”

This is a genuinely well-crafted horror gem with a winning cast, some nifty twists and a very good bear who betrays its CGI origins maybe 10% of the time but for the most part looks like an actual, cocaine-fueled black bear with lightning-quick reflexes, a big bite and an insatiable appetite for coke on the rocks.

Simply put, Cocaine Bear is exactly what you want. It's a film that knows that it's ludicrous and relishes in the wildness of watching a cocaine-fueled bear go nuts on Blood Mountain.