This B-movie with coyotes howls too much with cliches and pent up energy.
The opening of “Coyotes” suggests that the California wildfires have basically sent coyotes to rural and suburban areas. That’s why we see a social media influencer (Katherine McNamara) walking her tiny dog, and both of them get attacked by those animals. It might also suggest that it’s going to be a campy movie, which it is. And it definitely continues Justin Long’s horror movie streak, in which he got a comeback with “Barbarian” and made an appearance in “Weapons.”
But given those elements, I would have expected better out of “Coyotes,” which wants to enter the creature-feature genre and comic book style character introductions, but loses our interest with the formulas and characters. For starters, we get Long and his wife Kate Bosworth playing a married couple-Scott and Liv-with a teenage daughter named Chloe (Mila Harris), who struggles to adapt to her new surroundings in their new Hollywood home. She has to be the rude, and easily bored young lady, while her dad has to be the busybody whose work might affects his relationship with his family.
They start off having a rat problem with the exterminator (Keir O’Donnell) looking like a Sharlto Copley fan and believes in the Black Plague and rat carnage (“Send a message to all the rats out there: This House is Off Limits.”), and even suggests they get rid of their beloved pet dog, since dog food could attract rats.
Their neighbors include a coke head Trip (Norbert Leo Butz) and his call girl Julie (Brittany Allen), one of them wanders around in his robe and earring, and the other is mistaken for the Pizza man (“I can be pizza if you want”). And there’s Scott’s Irish friend Tony (Kevin Glynn), who dresses in white and blue, and has a wife named Shiela (Norman Nivia), who screams like she’s trying to be Sofia Vergara.
Strong winds have also caused power outages and telephone lines are down. At least their iPhones work. Well, whatever percentage is left on their iPhones. It’s a shame that their car got destroyed during a storm, or they would have been able to charge their phones in there. Or they might take my portable charger approach. And there might be more trouble when coyotes invade their areas. CGI-looking coyotes, some of them look like the CGI lions in “The Lion King” (2019). They either kill people, bite them, or allow the “Final Destination” formula kill them. It all depends on how fast they go for the kill.
I suppose the coyotes attacks would bring the family closer together, and therefore, there would be less of the cliches I was commenting on before. Some of their ideas on how to try to escape are intriguing, while other times, it ends up being typical.
You might think the exterminator could come to the rescue in the style of John Goodman in “Arachnophobia.” But as his introduction would suggest, he has to the jerk, who doesn’t even let Scott try to explain that there are wolves instead of coyotes in his area. And when he does come to his house, he has to try to go all Gaston on them.
There are times when “Coyotes” wants to go all nostalgic and campy fun, and times when it wants to have a sweet side, but then come to some crass jokes. I get what this movie is trying to do, but I wasn’t really taken by the characters or coyotes. A better campy creature feature from earlier this year was “Death of a Unicorn,” which I liked for its energy and “Deep Blue Sea” meets “Jurassic Park” approach. But this isn’t something I was howling for.
