Satire Snarls Beneath the Creature Chaos

MOVIE REVIEW
Coyotes
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Genre: Horror, Comedy, Thriller
Year Released: 2025
Runtime: 1h 31m
Director(s): Colin Minihan
Writer(s): Tad Daggerhart, Nick Simon, Daniel Meersand
Cast: Justin Long, Kate Bosworth, Mila Harris, Katherine McNamara, Brittany Allen, Norbert Leo Butz, Kevin Glynn, Norma Nivia, Keir O’Donnell
Where to Watch: in theaters via AURA Entertainment on October 3, 2025

RAVING REVIEW: COYOTES opens with a family barricaded in their Hollywood Hills home while a pack of coordinated coyotes circles for the kill. That’s the hook, and the movie never tries to disguise it with faux depth or extended mythologies. It leans instead into a feral, fast, and funny survival story, the kind that clicks when the filmmaking trusts the audience to ride the turbulence rather than explain it. Colin Minihan’s direction understands the basic appeal of the siege: a defined space, a visible threat, and a dwindling margin for error. From there, the film balances dread with deadpan humor and a social commentary that keeps the experience intriguing as the body count rises.

Scott, Liv, and their daughter Chloe get stranded after a windstorm smashes their SUV, knocks out power, and turns the hillside streets into a maze with a wildfire on the horizon. It’s precisely the sort of setup that squeezes characters into their worst and best selves. The cleverness here lies in how the threat is familiar and mundane—coyotes—but is heightened into a nightmare by its organization and purpose. These aren’t scavengers; they move like tacticians, watching windows, testing doors, and punishing hesitation. The film finds its core in that cat-and-mouse energy, escalating from scratches at the perimeter to incursions.

The tone is the swing. COYOTES is equal parts nasty and playful, and the humor works best when it springs from character rather than irony. Minihan edits with momentum, cutting just before moments overstay their welcome, which keeps the film barreling forward. That pace helps smooth over the occasional rough edges; while the coyotes are often convincing, a few shots show seams. Even then, the movie tends to weaponize exaggeration, allowing the spectacle of the attack scenes to tilt toward satirical excess without losing sight of the stakes.

Performances anchor the chaos. Justin Long plays Scott with a frayed patience that only worsens as the situation deteriorates. It’s a character type he’s honed in recent genre performances: decent, slightly hapless, and then weirdly durable when the screws tighten. Kate Bosworth’s Liv is the film’s live wire—protective, prickly, and willing to get mean when the pack presses in. Their dynamic sells the family’s shifting survival strategy and keeps the middle stretch charged. Mila Harris dodges the most obvious child-in-peril struggles; Chloe is written and played as observant and resourceful, which earns a couple of solid reversals during key moments.

The best sequences utilize the house's layout like a board game. Doors, hallways, skylights, and sightlines become variables in a constantly shifting risk calculation. Minihan stages a couple of decisive moments in stairwells and along balcony edges where verticality matters, and those moments give the film a tactile menace. You can feel how a half-second’s hesitation or a foot placed wrong could end a character, and that physical risk amplifies the otherwise outrageous concept.

What carries COYOTES across the finish line is how unabashedly it enjoys being a creature feature. It stages attacks with glee, then pivots to character micro-moments that keep the survival throughline honest. The humor won’t be to everyone’s taste, but it rarely feels like a parachute; the movie isn’t scared of its premise, and it doesn’t apologize for being heightened. If anything, it argues for the continued value of straightforward genre construction: build a premise, cast actors who can move between fear and farce, cut it tight, and don’t sand off the weirdness.

As a whole, COYOTES is a confident entry in the modern creature-siege pocket: brisk, bloody, funny, and mean enough to leave a mark. It doesn’t chase prestige or pretend to be something it’s not. Instead, it commits to being a well-paced survival brawler with a satirical twist and a handful of genuinely tense set pieces. When it wobbles, the energy and performances prop it back up. When it clicks, it’s the kind of late-night festival crowd-pleaser that reminds you why this lane—humans versus the encroaching wild—still works. It’s an easy recommendation for the right audience: creature-feature fans, horror-comedy devotees, and anyone who enjoys siege stories with a savage sense of humor. Uneven in places, sure, but memorable and proudly feral.

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[photo courtesy of AURA ENTERTAINMENT, CAPSTONE STUDIOS, GRAMERCY PARK MEDIA, JAGUAR BITE, SUGAR STUDIOS LA, TEA SHOP PRODUCTIONS]

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