Director Colin Minihan, Grave Encounters (2011) and It Stains the Sands Red (2016), brings his horror credentials to the Hollywood Hills with Coyotes, a gleefully blood-soaked  2025 survival thriller that refuses to take itself too seriously. 

When a wildfire traps the Morgan family, Scott (Justin Long), Liv (Kate Bosworth), and their teenage daughter Chloe (Mila Harris), in their Hollywood home without power or communication, things go from bad to apocalyptic as a pack of disoriented, savage coyotes, pushed inland by the fires, begin systematically hunting the neighbourhood. It's a premise that shouldn't work, but leans into the absurdity with commitment, delivering a darkly comedic gore-fest that knows exactly what it is.

There's something deeply satisfying about watching an insufferable character get what's coming to them, and Coyotes delivers that schadenfreude in its opening moments. A narcissistic woman, obsessed with herself and Instagram-ready lifestyle, takes her adorable dog for a walk. The dog dies first (yes, my heart broke), but when she's dragged away screaming, blood gurgling from her throat in genuinely graphic fashion, I couldn't help but feel a spark of justice. It's a hell of a way to start a film.

The animated character introductions that follow immediately establish the tone: this is a playful, self-aware horror that refuses to take itself too seriously. The film populates a Hollywood suburb with a variety of deliberately unlikeable characters before zeroing in on one relatively normal family. Chloe, their teenage daughter, has outgrown family movie nights and bonding activities, while her father works too much, creating the typical familial disconnect. Enter the coyotes, relentless, bloodthirsty, and ready to turn this quiet neighbourhood into a feeding ground.

What follows is a gleefully gory rampage with surprisingly well-crafted kill sequences. Trip (Norbert Leo Butz), the sleazy, wannabe playboy living next door, gets caught up in a scene so hilariously chaotic it could've been lifted straight from Snatch or Lock, Stock and Two Smoking Barrels. These animals breach locked homes, and that ambiguity is genuinely unsettling. There's something primal about the unknown. What if it happened to me? What if they found a way in?

When the family's dog Charlie goes missing (and yes, Charlie deserves acting credit), Dad ventures to Trip's house and discovers carnage. The lighting here is exceptional; darkness dominates the frame thanks to a convenient power outage, which ramps up the tension, while Trip's cocaine-addled “lady of the night” spirals in panic and Trip himself meets a spectacularly graphic end. This film knows exactly what it's doing, and it's doing it brilliantly.

You don't watch Coyotes looking for logical consistency. You accept it for what it is: an absurd, over-the-top thriller about murderous animals terrorising Hollywood. But beneath the blood and chaos, there's a genuine heart. This is a family fractured by a workaholic father and a distant daughter, and somehow, being hunted by killer coyotes forces them back together. The humour and mayhem never let up, keeping you locked in even when you start wondering where the hell this can possibly go next.

There’s a scene where Chloe is hiding in a cupboard while a coyote's face fills the crack. It’s terrifying, and the CGI looks expensive. The film doubles down on absurdity with a father who faints at blood, fumbles about searching for the right mixtape in the basement, all while frantically trying to save his family from the killer animals. It’s pure pandemonium that somehow works because everyone commits completely.

The ending? Totally satisfying. Coyotes is a grim, gory, darkly funny horror that knows its identity and never apologises. Curl up on the sofa, kill the distractions, grab the popcorn, and watch those Coyotes get ugly!