10 curiosities of ‘Vicious Bear’ that will blow your mind, the craziest movie of the year

Yes, ‘Vicious Bear’ is exactly what you expect and, in case it was not clear, we reviewed 10 curiosities of ‘Vicious Bear’ that will blow your mind, the craziest movie of the year.

“Savage that opens up with gore claws and laughter,” says our review of ‘Vicious Bear’. “The film dispenses with various experts and zoologists, preferring to feast on the animal with a handful of cretins and some brainless drug traffickers led by a Ray Liotta who seems to be reunited with his Henry Hill from ‘Goodfellas’ without having rehabilitated”.

And it is that, What happens if a mammal, no matter how big it is, takes 16 kilos of cocaine? The answer (based on real events) is given by Elizabeth Banks, a dedicated director who explains the high doses of humor and panic that the event can cause.

THE PLAIN TRUTH

As crazy as it may seem, there is a true story that inspired ‘Vicious Bear’. The story about a bear that in the 80s consumed a huge amount of cocaine lost in a forest, after the plane that was transporting it crashed, had circulated as an urban legend for decades.. When screenwriter Jimmy Warden stumbled across it in a Twitter thread, he was hooked.

Even more so when he read this sentence: “Maybe in the five minutes before the bear dies, it might become the most dangerous predator on the fucking continent.“. Then he knew he had to tell that story. “I had never had so much fun writing until I started imagining the ways in which a super stoned bear kills people in the woods.” Hence this black comedy, whose resemblance to the reality is until the moment the stash falls from the plane, the rest stems from Warden’s crazy mind joined with that of the filmmaker behind the camera.

A FETISH DIRECTOR

The writer and producer, Brian Duffield, saw that the story, as delirious as it seemed, contained a critique of 1980s America and the anti-drug policy of the Reagan era. In addition, it was a frenetic plot that mixed adventure, thumping humor, and the gore that was triumphant in that decade. That was the cinema with which Elizabeth Banks, an actress turned director with ‘Giving the Note – Even Higher’ (2015) and ‘Charlie’s Angels’ (2019), had grown up.

And they knew it had to be her. “I have always liked movies where horror and comedy mix.. Both things are the two sides of the same coin. I think the best thing I do as a filmmaker is walk a tightrope with the idea of ​​taking the audience on a roller coaster, making them die of laughter and fear, making them jump. And that has been the goal of the film.” Will ‘Vicious Bear’ end the career of Elizabeth Banks?

COMEDY AND HORROR

Elizabeth Banks was clear from the beginning on the tone that the film should have. “The combination of comedy and horror is not common on the big screen, perhaps because it is not easy to do well. If the movie is scary, comedy doesn’t work, but if it’s too funny, no one is scared.” Will it be one of the best horror movies of 2023?

Even so, it was clear to him that humor should be his strong point. “Essentially I shoot comedies, but I wrap it up with other kinds of cinema. My first film, ‘Pitching It – Even Higher’, was a comedy within a musical. ‘Charlie’s Angels’ was a comedy within a film action. This is a comedy within a horror movie. I wanted to do something unique, like the Coen brothers mixed with ‘Possession from Hell.'”

A CAST WITH RAY LIOTTA

Ray Liotta’s last film before he died was ‘Vicious Bear’. The actor, who died in 2022, plays one of the drug dealers. He had already worked with Elizabeth Banks in ‘The Details’ (2011), and she did not expect him to accept such a small role. “It was lucky that he trusted me from the first moment and that he was willing to do anything.. He had a tremendous presence and the ability to make viewers believe they were right there, with him, anywhere, living his adventure. Ray needed to anchor the character, bring realism to it, and he did. Also, I discovered that he had a great sense of humor.”

Although the great heroine of the plot is embodied by Keri Russell, in the role of a mother who must save her daughter from the clutches of the vicious bear. “They sent me the script and it seemed crazy to me,” says the actress. “She had just finished confinement and her friends told her: Either you do this, or we will stop being your friends“.

DIGITAL EFFECTS

The settings were shot in Ireland, with forests similar to those in the original Georgia. The bear and its violent high were largely recreated on a computer. “Few women have the opportunity to make films with a lot of green screen, effects and action, because it is assumed that we are not interested in these things. I wanted to show that it’s a myth and it’s one of the challenges that appealed to me.”

Banks also studied every detail in depth: “The thickness of the blood, the appearance of the guts, the brains, how the cocaine moves…”

AN OSCAR BEAR

Award ceremonies are usually full of funny moments, controversy and all kinds of surprises, but what nobody expected at the 2023 Oscars was a plantigrade delivering a statuette.

“I recently directed the movie ‘Vicious Bear’ and without visual effects, this is what the bear would look like. it’s terrifying“, Banks sentenced on stage when, after tripping over her dress, she came out accompanied by a luxury secondary dressed as the bear from her film. Quite a victory for the filmmaker.

MUSICIAN

“Bears and cocaine are two of my favorite subjects, and when they told me about a cocaine addicted bear I was very intrigued.“jokes Mark Mothersbaugh, co-founder and lead singer of Devo, the legendary New Wave group, and well-known composer who has collaborated on numerous films such as ‘Ruhsmore Academy’, ‘Thirteeen’, ‘Thor: Ragnarok’ and, beware, ‘Rugrats: Rugrats’.

“The script was a crazy story”, highlights the composer, who had already worked with the production company Lord and Miller on ‘Cloudly with a Chance of Meatballs’, ‘The LEGO Movie’ and ‘The Leaked Class’, in addition to dealing with the soundtrack from ‘Pitching the note – Even higher’.

THE AMBULANCE SCENE

The sequence in which the bear chases and attacks the ambulance was inspired by the ‘Fast & Furious’ and ‘Deadpool’ sagas. Elizabeth Banks herself designed it as a car chase, with the difference that one of the cars is a bear. The chase culminates in a fight between bear and human inside the ambulance inspired by a fight between two people in a moving truck in ‘Deadpool’.

“The best: that chase from the bear to the ambulance; not even Michael Bay,” Fausto Fernández reminds us in his review.

BACK TO THE 80’S

Since the beginning, Elizabeth Banks wanted the film to immerse itself in the culture of the eighties, from the music to the props, through the costumes and hairstyles. Bob (Isiah Whitlock Jr) listens to The Commodores; Sari (Keri Russell) is wearing a neon pink jumpsuit; permanent ones abound. But the filmmaker told Aaron Haye and costume designer Tiziana Corvisieri that she didn’t want to fetishise the ’80s either, but rather everything was realistic, the characters and their surroundings.

Besides, Banks was inspired by numerous movies from the late 1970s and 1980s, including ‘Lady Guns,’ ‘Grease,’ ‘Back to the Future,’ ‘The Hunter,’ and ‘Indiana Jones and the Last Crusade.’. Sari’s pink jumpsuit is straight out of the Pink Ladies in ‘Grease’, and her slippers are straight out of Tess McGill’s (Melanie Griffith) in ‘Guns of Women’. “It was my favorite shoe, the thing I was wearing in 1985, everyone was wearing it,” she says.

The Four Pines Mall, where Syd has set up her office at O’Shaughnessy’s Burger Time restaurant, is a copy of the mall from ‘Back to the Future’. An old racecourse on the outskirts of Dublin was used to build the interior of the mall. The name of the restaurant is a nod to Ireland, the country where most of the film was shot.

SCHOLARSHIPS YES, BUT CHARGING

The Universal Interns program offers on-site internships in various technical departments of NBCUniversal film projects around the world. This innovative and immersive experience prepares a new generation of costume designers, props, operators, technicians and countless other crucial positions in any production team by offering local collaboration to find potential talent.

Universal and GTDI teamed up with Screen Ireland, the national film development agency, to kick off a fellowship cycle on ‘Vicious Bear’, the first program of its kind to be implemented in Ireland. Four interns had the opportunity to participate in the entire production receiving a salary from Screen Ireland. The interns worked in accounting, the production office, the artistic department and as a digital image technician. Additionally, Elizabeth Banks invited Cathy Brady, an Irish novice director, to accompany her throughout.