Have you ever taken your grandmother to see a movie where a giant black bear gets outrageously high on cocaine and goes on a violent killing spree?
Probably not, if I had to guess. Most people take their grandmothers to dainty lunches with chicken salad sandwiches, to shop for antique clocks or to meet up with their knitting-circle friends. Most people don’t take their grandmothers to see Cocaine Bear.
I am not most people.
This past Saturday, my wife and I met my 85-year-old grandmother at our local AMC theater to see Cocaine Bear, the movie inspired by the 1985 true story of a 175-pound black bear that overdosed on cocaine and died.
My grandma has probably gone to see more movies with me than any one person. During that time, she was stuck taking me to see movies within the “G” and “PG” realm. She weathered some humdingers with my brother and me, which absolutely included films like Shrek, Pokémon: The First Movie, Spy Kids 3-D: Game Over and Osmosis Jones. She was a trooper.
Nearly 30 years of moviegoing between my grandmother and me has culminated in her actually wanting to see a flick about a murderous, cocaine-fueled bear biting a man’s leg off and sending him falling to his doom. How could she not? Southern people love bears; it feels like something you’re born with. Going to a slasher movie about a cocaine bear feels as Tennessee-proud as playing Dolly Parton while you’re watching the Vols on Saturday.
The trailers were not what you’d expect an 85-year-old grandmother to want to see. The one that really flummoxed her was the red-band trailer for the upcoming R-rated comedy Strays, which features dogs saying curse words, getting high on mushrooms and humping garden gnomes.
While she barely was able to contain her displeasure at whatever the hell was going on in the hyper-creepy red-band Evil Dead Rise trailer, she just looked over at me as these talking animals saying potty words and basically said, “I don’t think I want to see that one.” I don’t really think AMC planned the trailers well on Cocaine Bear for grandmothers.
However, throughout Cocaine Bear, there was plenty of laughter coming from the seat to my left. As much as you’d might believe this movie “wouldn’t be for her,” my grandmother had a great time watching this R-rated movie that, at one point, features Margo Martindale accidentally blowing a man’s head off with a shotgun and coked-up baby bear cubs eating a man’s intestines.
One of the things I can’t help but do in movies like this is catch glances at the people next to me when I take them to see movies like this. When I took my grandmother to see Nope, she had this look of befuddlement on her face the entire time. As I kept my head on a swivel to watch both my wife and my grandma, I couldn’t help but notice the smile on my grandma’s face during this grizzly, ridiculous movie about a rabid bear on drugs.
When things got especially violent, you could kind of hear a chuckle of disbelief. My grandma mainly spends her television time watching Western reruns of old serials like Wagon Train, Gunsmoke and Clint Walker’s Cheyenne. However, she loves a good creature feature, so the more obtuse moments of gore didn’t really seem to phase her. Somebody goes flying out of ambulance on a stretcher and skids their face across pavement to her doom? No worries; Granny saw the disembodied head scene from Jaws in the ’70s.
Her biggest laugh came in one of the movie’s best moments. About midway through the film, the titular cocaine bear finally reaches the nadir of its latest high and plops down on for a nap on Alden Ehrenreich, who was laying on the ground to unsuccessfully avoid bear contact. You heard some downright cathartic laughter in that theater for that one, and I think whatever violent insanity that bookended that scene was worth it for her for that one sight gag.
By the film’s end, she said that the movie was “certainly interesting,” but I know she had a good time deep down. I’d guess she’d put Cocaine Bear somewhere a little lower than her other 2023 film ventures, 80 for Brady (very high marks) and A Man Called Otto (a very solid review). Forgive the bear pun, but I’m going to guess she’d give this movie a “B.”
While I’m not exactly sure that she’s going to think Cocaine Bear deserves a bevy of Academy Award nominations, she had a grin on her face as she walked back to the theater lobby. Did she actually have fun watching the violent rampage of the Cocaine Bear, or was it just all worth it to spend time with family and do something she’s loved to do for decades? Maybe a mix of both.
While, yes, I really enjoyed a movie that’s basically a mix of James Wan’s Malignant and the bear scene from The Revenant. I think I enjoyed even more the sound of my grandma laughing along with the rest of the crowd at something so delightfully ridiculous that you can’t help but chuckle.
Goodness willing, my grandma and I will have plenty more movies to go see in the years to come. None of them will have a Cocaine Bear in them, unless there’s some sort of sequel in the works. (Cocaine Bear vs. Bigfoot)
If this weekend taught me anything, it’s that you don’t run from a bear on cocaine because it will chase you and rip you to pieces.
It also taught me that you never know what little moments as a kid will help make you what you are, and how those moments will flow, decades later, into a delightful afternoon out with your wife, your grandma and the Cocaine Bear. Grandmas are very cool, and they can absolutely hang with movies like that. Mine had a great time, and I bet yours will, too.
