A few months ago I didn’t know how badly I needed a movie called Cocaine Bear. Then the trailer hit and suddenly it’s all I could think about. It’s a BEAR. ON COCAINE. A COCAINE BEAR. The film, based (I swear) on a true-life incident, is directed by Elizabeth ‘Pitch Perfect’ Banks, and has a trailer that looks ridiculous, gory and quite satisfyingly, er, grizzly.
Now we’re here though, I’m not sure I actually want to see it. Can Elizabeth Banks’ Cocaine Bear compete with the one in my head? It’s one of those titles and concepts that is just too perfect. Maybe we shouldn’t let an actual movie spoil it?
To mark the occasion, here’s a run-down of some other films whose titles and elevator pitch concepts alone justify their existence, each marked in our own patented ‘Cocaine Bears out of five’ rating system.
Snakes on a Plane (2006)
Snakes on a Plane is the daddy of the modern schlocky high-concept movie, and it generated excitement as soon as word got out that it was coming. It’s about SNAKES ON A PLANE. At one point there was an attempt to rename it something more sensible, but Samuel L Jackson point-bank refused. And no-one is going to argue with Samuel L Jackson on this. The success of the movie, or at least the success of the early viral buzz it created, revived the 50s B-movie concept of title-led, cheaply made, thoroughly silly genre movies. If anything, the promise of the title over-hyped the flick. It’s fine, but it was never going to be as good as the Snakes on a Plane people had imagined.
FOUR COCAINE BEARS OUT OF FIVE
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Zombie Strippers (2008)
Zombie Strippers knows exactly what its audience wants – flesh. Lots of it. Some of it dead. Some of it very, very much alive. Directed by Jay Lee and starring Jenna Jameson (a genuinely big star in her day) and Robert ‘Freddie Kruger’ Englund, the plot is simple: a virus turns a group of strippers into zombies, and they start feasting on their customers. The movie takes that idea and runs with it, delivering a non-stop barrage of blood, guts, and gratuitous nudity. At one point Jameson’s character, Kat, rips off her own nipple and throws it at a customer, which is probably a pointed metaphor for… something or other.
THREE COCAINE BEARS