COYOTES

(director: Colin Minihan; screenwriters: story & screenplay by Tad Daggerhart & Nick Simon; cinematographer: Bradley Stuckel; editor: Colin Minihan; cast: Katherine McNamara (Kat), Justin Long (Scott), Kate Bosworth (Liv), Mila Harris (Chloe); Runtime: 91; MPAA Rating: R; producers: Ford Corbett, Jib Polhemus, Joshua Harris, James Harris, Nathan Klingher; Gramercy Park Media/Aura Entertainment/Grave Encounters; 2025)

“I couldn’t connect with it, even if I did laugh at times.”

Reviewed by Dennis Schwartz

Canadian filmmaker Colin Minihan (“What Keeps You Alive”/ “It Stains The Sand Red”) directs this gory action/horror survival comedy as a camp piece. The B-film is co-written by Tad Daggerhart & Nick Simon. It’s story is pulled from the recent news headlines.

The workaholic comic book artist Scott (Justin Long), wife Liv (Kate Bosworth), and teenage daughter Chloe (Mila Harris) are trapped in a Hollywood Hills fire that has spread to their city home (filmed in Colombia). The fire allows a pack of coyotes to leave the woods and be around their home.

Also in peril from the coyotes is their playboy neighbor Trip (Norbert Leo Butz) and Julie (Brittany Allen), the sex worker he’s hired for the evening. There are also a lot of bloody kills among their neighbors.

Both parties are clueless on what to do, but to survive they must get the beasts to retreat. Their ineptitude and fear gives way to funny situations. The ferocious looking coyote attacks are done so any logic gives way to nonsense.

In the climax, Scott faces the coyotes clad in armor.

The mindless pic might be funny to some because the humor is so outlandish, but it annoyingly turns moronic. Viewers might be put off by how dumb and gruesome it is. I couldn’t connect with it, even if I did laugh at times.

It played at the Fantastic Film Festival.

REVIEWED ON 10/15/2025  GRADE: C+
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