There’s Freddy, Jason, Mike Myers and now we have one of the most ferocious assailants out there — Cokey, the cocaine killer bear.
Inspired by the 1985 true story of a drug runner’s plane crash, Cocaine Bear directed by Elizabeth Banks is a twisted dark comedy involving a peculiar set of cops, criminals, locals, and teens all gathered in a Georgia forest. This forest just so happens to be home of a 500-pound apex predator that has stumbled upon several duffle bags loaded with cocaine and has gone on a coke fueled rampage for blow, quite literally dismembering anyone who gets in his way. The film stars Keri Russell, O’Shea Jackson Jr., Alden Ehrenreich, Ray Liotta, Margo Martindale, Jesse Tyler Ferguson, Christian Convery, Brooklynn Prince, Isiah Whitlock Jr., Kristofer Hivju, Hannah Hoekstra, and Aaron Holliday.
Audiences are in for a wild ride with the 80s inspired horror comedy. Banks wanted to pay homage to the 70s/80s film era but also added her own gory, hilarious, and entertaining twist for viewers. “The story was so crazy, just like the premise. When you’re telling someone what it is you really have to explain that this is really what it is, it’s nuts. It was so fun, I thought it was really kind of sweet, I thought it was just wild,” Ehrenreich shares. In reality, the 500-pound predator was only about 175 pounds and died minutes after ingesting the cocaine but “there was probably a five-minute window before the bear died where it was the most dangerous apex predator on any continent,” screenwriter Jimmy Warden said and there was his inspiration for the film. Warden shared that the most fun he’s ever had while writing a script was dreaming up the many ways for a bear on cocaine to kill people in the woods. “We got the new horror villain. There’s Freddy, there’s Jason and now there’s Cokey the cracked-out bear,” Jackson jokes.
Cocaine Bear is in theaters February 23.