I’ve lived in Los Angeles for nearly half a century, which means I know a lot about this town. I know where to get the best coffee. I know where to find the best used bookstores. And I know that you never, ever leave your pets out at night, because when the sun goes down this place belongs to the coyotes.
In their defense, the coyotes were here first. Like a lot of bustling metropolises, humans made a home in Southern California by kicking all the other predators out of their rent-controlled dens. Coyotes fled to the hills because they had nowhere else to go, and they come out at night because they gotta eat something, just like the rest of us. When the wildfires ravage our hills they’ve got to go roaming. It’s their only option. And they’re not alone. After the fires last January the neighborhood I grew up in was besieged by bobcats, for crying out loud.
Colin Minihan’s new horror thriller “Coyotes” takes place after a windstorm and a wildfire, so the coyotes are out in full force. They’re also killing people, which almost never happens. There’s only one confirmed fatal coyote attack in the United States. Ever. These are dangerous animals but movies like “Coyotes” overemphasize their threat — to humans at least — because otherwise the movie can’t happen.
I’m making a point of this because while watching “Coyotes” — a scary, thrilling and fun horror flick, no doubt about it — I couldn’t help but feel bad for the critters. Nobody in this film is acting as their advocate. When “Jaws” came out there was a huge surge in shark hunting, even though statistically speaking, sharks also pose very little threat to humanity. Lots of sharks died because one movie made them out to be monsters. Even Peter Benchley and Steven Spielberg felt bad about that.
This is unlikely to be the case with “Coyotes.” It’s a vicious and exciting horror film but it probably won’t join the ranks of the highest grossing productions in history. It’s just about a family — Scott (Justin Long), Liv (Kate Bosworth), and their teenage daughter Chloe (Mila) — who get trapped in their fancy house and have to fight off killer coyotes. And frankly, for a low-budget genre effort, it’s an impressive achievement. The coyotes in “Coyotes” are convincing as hell.
But it’s also a film with very little to say about, well, anything. By setting a film like “Coyotes” in a wealthy neighborhood in Los Angeles, Colin Minihan had an opportunity to say something — and again, I do mean anything — about this city. It’s a weird place in a lot of ways, and it’s full of people who deserve to be poked in the ribs. But except for a pre-credits kill with a shallow influencer, and one other brutal death of a mean lady celebrity, “Coyotes” avoids anything topical or even specific about our eccentric community. Which only makes the death of those two women come across as extra mean-spirited. Men die in the movie as well, and two of them are jerks, but their deaths are nowhere near as judgmental.
So instead of a film about Los Angeles, we’re treated to a bog standard film about a family unit, in which an emasculated dad spends all his time working, then has to prove himself when monsters threaten his family.
“Coyotes” spends a lot of time making fun of Justin Long’s character and giving Kate Bosworth the biggest hero moments, and that helps balance the cruelty of some of the other deaths. A little. But their storyline could have been told in any other context, and might have made more sense in any other context. There’s just no conceivable way this family could afford that enormous house on a comic book illustrator’s salary. It’s a nice thought but we all know how tough the entertainment industry is right now. (Dear god, do we ever.)
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Still, Colin Minihan knows how to make a gnarly horror film. I’ve seen more gory movies than the average bear — probably more than most film critics too, but WAY more than a bear — and there are moments in “Coyotes” which made even my gag reflex act up a smidge. The goofy humor in “Coyotes” doesn’t subtract from the impact of that violence, a complex achievement in tonal alchemy, for which everyone involved deserves praise. But pet owners, please beware: The cuddlier animals in this movie are not safe. Poor little guys.
“Coyotes” is, in some ways, a missed opportunity. There’s an explanation for the sudden, otherwise inconceivable coyote attacks, and it makes some sense, but the film would have been much stronger if there was also a thematic connection that didn’t feel tacked on and arbitrary. Oh well. It’s hard to make a convincing “when animals attack” movie, even under the ideal circumstances, and whatever other problems “Coyotes” may have, its animals sure do attack, and they attack hard.