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Cocaine Bear Vs. M3GAN Is Now 2023’s Best Movie Fight: Who Wins?

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Warning: spoilers ahead for M3GAN and Cocaine Bear.


Cocaine Bear and M3GAN have been surprising winners at the box office, but only one of them can win as 2023’s best horror-comedy. Directed by Elizabeth Banks, Cocaine Bear is based on the true story of a bear that ingested millions of dollars in cocaine that fell into a national park from a passing smuggler’s plane in 1985. The movie takes creative liberties with the bear’s reaction to the drug, which involves a deadly rampage.

M3GAN is directed by Gerard Johnstone and focuses on an orphan named Cady, portrayed by Violet McGraw, who receives the gift of a technologically-advanced AI companion called M3GAN from her aunt Gemma after her parents are killed. Both M3GAN and Cocaine Bear are wild roller coaster rides that use violence and comedy to tell outrageous stories. While each is a credit to the horror genre, only one comes out of 2023 as the superior film.

RELATED: Cocaine Bear’s Story Secretly Has A Much Deeper Meaning (Yes, Really!)


Cocaine Bear & M3GAN Are The Most Absurd 2023 Horror-Comedies

cocaine bear showered in powder

Cocaine Bear and M3GAN kicked off 2023 by being two of the most absurd horror-comedies of any year in recent memory. Taking their cues from the early 1990s and 2000s movies of the same genre, they both combine compelling stories with blood, guts, and humor. M3GAN lampoons modern youth’s addiction to technology and turns it into a cautionary tale of terror, and while Cocaine Bear might be ridiculous, being based on a true story helps ground its more outrageous moments.

Both Cocaine Bear and M3GAN know what sort of movies they are, and intersperse the graphic violence with comedy. After Cocaine Bear kills one victim, she snorts cocaine off their severed leg, whereas M3GAN does an interpretive dance while on her way to stab a developer with a paper cutter. Aside from these moments of physical comedy that push each movie over the top, each film’s dialogue is also full of extremely quotable phrases that have already begun to seep into the pop culture zeitgeist, although Cocaine Bear‘s characters are slightly less developed than M3GAN‘s.

How M3GAN Compares To Cocaine Bear As A Slasher Villain

m3gan horror ai doll dance fight

Both M3GAN and Cocaine Bear possess similar slasher villain tropes, such as dogmatically stalking their victims and attacking them in bloodthirsty ways, but only one of them has the added benefit of stealth. From Ghostface to Freddy Krueger, the most common trait these slasher villains share besides a high kill count is moving from the shadows to attack out of nowhere. Cocaine Bear is given a few moments of stealth – which seem highly improbable for a rampaging animal its size – but for the most part, attacks head-on in broad daylight.

Aside from not being very stealthy, the bear goes back to being a bear after the drugs wear off, whereas M3GAN will always be an iconic horror villain. All the ways that Cocaine Bear embodies a slasher villain are completely dependent on how much white powder it has access to. By contrast, attempts to reprogram M3GAN fail in her movie, implying that she will always be a killer robot, no matter what humans try to do. Not only that, but she remembers who wronged her, and will stop at nothing to seek her revenge, even years later.

RELATED: 2023’s Movies Are Already Destroying A Decades-Old Cinema Rule

Which Character Had The Most Kills (& Was The Scariest)

Keri Russell as Sari, hiding from the bear in Cocaine Bear

Of the 11 deaths in Cocaine Bear, the bear is responsible for almost all of them, whether by directing mauling the two hikers from the beginning of the film, or killing one EMT while another goes sailing through the windshield. While on cocaine, the bear seems to be able to achieve greater speed and agility than normal, making it a much greater threat to even those experienced with national park wildlife, like Ranger Liz. When it was protecting its cubs, the animal attacked Syd White and disemboweled him before he had a chance to shoot.

Just because she has a smaller kill count, that does not make M3GAN less terrifying. As a realistic-looking doll who could easily pass for a child, the fact that she can be so sinister is unsettling on an “uncanny valley” level. The M3GAN reference to Terminator at the end of the movie implies that nothing can stop her – not her body being ripped apart, not a screwdriver through her processor, not even being powered down. Something of flesh and blood like Cocaine Bear could be killed eventually, but M3GAN could technically live forever by making backups of her programming and consciousness.

M3GAN Has A Better Story Than Cocaine Bear (But Holds Back On The Gore)

m3gan singing

Since M3GAN is an AI companion for a little girl who has been recently orphaned, her primary objective is to protect Cady, even if that is taken to extremes. M3GAN deals with issues of loss, abandonment, and what it means to be alive. By making her a robot and differentiating her from other killer dolls like Chucky, M3GAN is not just a copy of a common horror archetype, allowing M3GAN to dodge its biggest movie parallel. Amidst innovative kills and iconic dance sequences, the story of an AI gone haywire ends up touching upon themes of disrespecting technological advancements, the perils of screen time, and emotional attachment to technology.

M3GAN might have a better story than Cocaine Bear, but it certainly holds back on the gore. Most of M3GAN’s bloodiest kills indicate a high level of violence, but the actual deeds – such as M3GAN ripping apart and burying a dog – are done offscreen, while Cocaine Bear leaves her victims horribly, visibly mutilated. M3GAN’s lack of gore leaves several of her kills open to the imagination, which can be unnerving by itself. Although the Cocaine Bear ambulance scene is now infamous, the characters in the movie are too numerous, largely disposable, have narratives that are only tangentially connected, and are easily forgotten.

RELATED: 1 Tragic Movie Trend Makes M3GAN Even More Impressive

Why M3GAN Wins The 2023 Movie Fight

M3GAN doll with her skin slashed and metal skull exposed, glaring with intense menace

M3GAN wins the 2023 movie fight for the same reason M3GAN would beat Cocaine Bear in a real fight; proficiency. The reasons humans are considered apex predators are evolutionary traits that M3GAN possesses in spades – intelligence, stamina, and opposable thumbs. Even on cocaine, it takes huge energy for the bear to move her body, but M3GAN is tireless. M3GAN’s alloys allow her to outmaneuver Cocaine Bear with ease, and even if the creature gets one good swipe, M3GAN has already uploaded her consciousness somewhere else. For all the bear’s vigor, like the real Cocaine Bear, she still is not capable of complex intelligence, can get tired, and lacks dexterity.

M3GAN accomplishes what it sets out to do, and does it very skillfully. Cocaine Bear has its own strengths and merits, but because everything between the bear killing people feels underdeveloped with a cast of its size, it does not have as compelling a narrative as M3GAN, relying more heavily upon explicit gore. M3GAN not only has a stronger storyline, it has also set up a franchise with an iconic killer that has already established herself within the annals of horror cinema.

MORE: 7 Reasons Why M3GAN Would Beat Chucky In A Fight

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