Justin Long has always been a horror movie mainstay since his appearance in the 2001 Jeepers Creepers. From then he’s gone on to do Tusk, Barbarian, and most recently even an appearance in the hit movie Weapons. But Long’s movie Coyotes starring alongside his real life wife Kate Bosworth, was a flop that didn’t succeed at being a horror movie or a comedy.
As someone who doesn’t live in LA, I feel like Coyotes did a good job in the introduction in explaining why they’ve become such a problem for residents. There are environmental elements like fires pushing them into communities with humans. They’re also just animals looking for food. But there is a clear emphasis in the coyotes introduction about how they’re not dogs. They will attack. They will hurt.
That’s where Long and Bosworth’s characters come into this. They live in the Hollywood Hills with their daughter. And I couldn’t care for any of them. Not one of these family members was likable enough to make you cheer for their survival. In fact I was hoping that they all died because of how flat their characters were but also because of the multitude of dumb decisions that they kept making every turn.
Dumb decisions are a mainstay of horror movies. I get that as someone who loves horror. But if you know that coyotes are a problem in your neighborhood, then why do you have a doggie door where a coyote can just push past the flap and get into your home? Also if you know a coyote is upstairs, why do you separate and allow your daughter to hide underneath the open stairs with a dog that consistently barks?
It’s a little different in Coyotes because this is a horror comedy. Funny things are going to happen. Scary things are also going to happen. But you need to find a balance within that horror and comedy where the characters are making decisions geared at surviving. Everyone in Coyotes wasn’t making decisions to survive. And as I was watching Coyotes I realized that these animals aren’t their biggest enemy. Delusion is their biggest enemy.
Each of these characters are deluded to the point where they feed into each other’s delusions about how they can survive. That leads them to hide under the open stairs. Or they come up with this absolutely bonkers idea to create a kind of a shark cage against the coyotes. And they’re so delusional and frustrating as characters that you can’t even enjoy how out of the box and crazy this movie is.
While watching Coyotes, there was also something very distracting about the very animals in question. They looked like AI. I understand that this is a smaller movie that might not have the same budget as a big Hollywood movie. And I understand that CGI is a thing. But there was something about the lighting and the design of the coyotes that looks like AI. And it was so distracting every time they were on screen.
All together, Coyotes was frustrating. And not even the kind of frustrating where you can enjoy yourself by screaming at the TV. I was looking down at my phone and folding laundry as they were screaming away and hyping themselves up that they’re foolish idea was the only way to survive. And the only thing that saved it was Brittany Allen’s Julie. She was a mess but the right kind of mess. And Coyotes should have tapped into more because she was the perfect balance of being horrified but also having comedic timing that drew the eye to her.
Coyotes screened at Fantastic Fest.
