COCAINE BEAR (2023) Cocaine Bear is superbly silly hokum that works surprisingly well. In 1985, after a massive grizzly bear sticks its snout into a bag of raw cocaine (which fell out of an airplane during a failed drug swap), it goes on a drug-fueled, killing rampage within the woods. This is bad news for single mom, Sari (Keri Russell), who’s searching for her missing daughter, along with a couple of knuckle-headed drug dealers (Alden Ehrenreich and O’Shea Jackson Jr.) who’re looking for the lost coke. It’s flawed and almost aggressively stupid, yet Cocaine Bear delivers the goods thanks to a brisk pace, a sardonic sense of humor, and a couple of terrifically gory kills, but mostly because it never takes itself seriously—something the recent M3GAN failed at. Margo Martindale steals her scenes as a dimwitted forest ranger who has some of the worst luck in horror movie history. B
DEAD SILENCE (2007) Before James Wan created Annabelle he made this modest ghost tale – that feels like a warm-up to Insidious – about strange happenings surrounding a ventriloquist’s doll. When his wife is savagely murdered, a man (Ryan Kwanten) returns to his hometown to bury her, only to get tangled in a bizarre mystery involving his family and a murderous ventriloquist (Judith Roberts) who has come back from the dead to act revenge against those who killed her. Wan should get credit for doing something different at a time when most horror was influenced by torture porn – a subgenre Wan created with Saw – and for delivering an atmosphere-heavy supernatural story that supplies a few good creep-out moments. Kwanten is likable as the protagonist, but Donnie Wahlberg is miscast as a disbelieving detective convinced Kwanten killed his wife. B–
A NIGHTMARE ON ELM STREET (2010) A sort of “reimagining” of the classic Wes Craven movie with a new group of Elm Street teens being stalked in their dreams by old razor-fingers, Freddy (Jackie Earl Haley). The story is essentially a repeat of the ’84 film with a few new characters and situations. Not as bad as its reputation suggests, this lacks the creative juices (and scares) of the original and many of its sequels, and the mythology surrounding Freddy that flowed so organically in the Craven world here feels forced—but the cast is good, especially Haley in a creepy updating of the famous Robert Englund make-up. This lacks brains and is plagued with a rushed, unsatisfying ending. But, it could have been so much worse. C+