Review: ‘Cocaine Bear’: High Concept, High Bear… High Art?

Inspired by the real-life urban legend of “Pablo Escobear”– a black bear who died after ingesting 30+ kilograms of cocaine discarded by notorious drug trafficker Andrew C. Thornton in 1985– Cocaine Bear proposes a profound and thought-provoking hypothetical: what would happen if a bear ate 30 kilograms of cocaine… and lived? Opening with an educational Wikipedia citation, the film informs the viewer that black bears are usually nonviolent, nonconfrontational creatures (probably out of some moral obligation to prevent a modern day “Jaws Effect”— Cocaine Bear Effect?) but contrasts their natural disposition with the mind-altering effects of crack cocaine to make the harrowing conclusion that a “Cocaine Bear” (i.e., a bear high on crack cocaine) would be an unstoppable beast, driven by an unadulterated lust for human blood, flesh, and of course… cocaine.

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Review: In Need of a Good Eye Roll? ‘The Turning’ Has You Covered

Exposure therapy is a method of treatment targeted toward anxiety disorders. It works by exposing the patient to the source of their anxiety in a non-threatening environment in order to desensitize them to it. This is exactly what has happened to ghost movies over the past few decades. There are tropes that define nearly every entry in the genre and cause them to all be nearly identical save for a different mentally perturbed damsel in distress. Some of these tropes include, but are not limited to; prolonged silences filled with swelling string music as the protagonist wanders through a dark room, footprints appearing on the floor without any corporeal form attached to them, children talking to ghosts, children drawing disturbing pictures of themselves and said ghosts, and certain areas of creepy old houses being off limits to the protagonist. The Turning falls victim to all of these tropes and then some.

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