Coyotes is a comedy horror film coming from director Colin Minihan (It Stains the Sands Red) and starring a very familiar face (Justin Long - Weapons, Drag Me to Hell, Jeepers Creepers). The mix between the two distinct genres is equally balanced, while the titular antagonist threat both benefit and suffer from effects designed to make them more fearsome than their real world counterparts.
Scott (Long), his wife Liv (Kate Bosworth - Before I Wake, Superman Returns), and their teenage daughter Chloe (Mila Harris) live in a posh home on the side of the Hollywood Hills. The family begin to notice the local wild coyotes behaving more aggressive than usual, and this behaviour comes to a head one wild night. With a storm having taken out both their car and the nearby powerline, and with a nearby wildfire spreading ever closer, the family find themselves being hunted by a large pack of vicious coyotes with no way to get outside help. These beasts attack anyone they come across, and appear to be particularly fixated on the family's home.
I would be lying if I said I didn't have at least a bit of fun with Coyotes. It played things safely, despite coyotes themselves not really been a movie monster I had seen before, the film still went along at a predictable pace. Occasionally it appears that audience expectations may be played with, but there were not really too many surprises to find. The cast of primary protagonists was fleshed out with prostitute Julie (the director's wife; Brittany Allen - The Prodigy, Jigsaw, It Stains the Blood Red), alongside more minor characters such as the next door neighbour, and a pest controller. With Long and Bosworth a couple in real life, that would explain the fun dynamic they between them. Having very fond memories for Jeepers Creepers, I really enjoyed seeing Long in the lead role, his role as the meek and mild father meant that often for the more 'bad-ass' moments it was Bosworth who got to shine.
I found the movie had a bit of a pacing issue around the middle of the 90 minute runtime, the second act dragged a bit, similar scenes of horror kept playing out in different ways without too much different really going on. The third act improved somewhat, but I was still ready for the conclusion before the film was ready for it.
The use of mainly CG for the coyotes was a bit of a double edged sword. They looked fearsome and deadly, but they are mainly presented by a same method of a three to four second shot of the creatures walking towards the camera or snarling. Nowhere remotely as awful as the CG effects used in early 2000s films, it was still obvious they were not entirely real creations. Some parts used puppets instead, I actually preferred these moments as at least it felt like the beasts were in the same location as the real actors. There is a decent enough body count, and some of the victim death scenes looked quite cool. The woman who is killed in a the film's prologue was memorable, and a later shot of someone's chest having been chewed down to the ribs was fun. The comedic side of things usually comes from the dialogue between the eccentric characters, which is also where the heart comes from. A big subplot is Liv and Chloe's problem with Scott's working means he is never really present for them. This combined for one both funny and heartfelt scene where Scott really accepts his problems and promises to be better, only for him to then realise the radio he had been using to communicate had cut out and they hadn't heard a word he had said.
Coyotes was an enjoyable film, even if it played things a little too safe, and predictable. The horror never quite landed for me, aware of how rarely friend and foes appear in the same shot together, but at least the cast were fun enough to hang around with for the somewhat lengthy feeling story. Coyotes had its premiere at Fantastic Fest on September 20th, its theatrical debut comes on October 3rd via AURA Entertainment.
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