California’s urban-wildlife crisis begs for cinematic exploration. Every year, the 31st state’s wildfires grow fiercer, animal habitats shrink, and million-dollar homes perch precariously on ecological disaster zones. Coyotes arrives with this potent premise—a Hollywood Hills family trapped between advancing flames and a pack of unusually intelligent (and angry) predators. Yet director Colin Minihan transforms ready-made thriller material into a toothless mess that can’t decide whether to condemn its human characters or save them.

The setup is pure built-in tension. A Santa Ana windstorm strands the Stewart family—Scott (Justin Long, Barbarian), Liv (Kate Bosworth, Still Alice), and teenage daughter Chloe (Mila Harris, No Exit)—in their hillside home without power or escape routes. Fire rages in the distance. Supplies dwindle. And then come the coyotes—not your average nocturnal scavengers, but something almost militarized. They hunt in formation, flank their prey, and viciously take out any neighbors who get in their way. It’s ridiculous in a satirical way—nature’s revenge on those who stole its territory-until the film fumbles the tone.

As Coyotes tries to thread a needle between sardonic social commentary and pulpy survival horror, the screenplay from Tad Daggerhart & Nick Simon lands in a bland middle ground. Unsure whether to condemn its characters or root for them, it falls to the actors to make that distinction for the audience and the trio that makes up the Stewart family helps to turn that dial.

Long brings a frayed nervousness to Scott, a comic book artist with his head buried in a tablet even as the world around him begins to fall apart..  Bosworth’s (Long’s wife and co-star in 2022’s House of Darkness) Liv is all clenched jaw and quiet desperation, and Harris gives Chloe a real arc, evolving from a disaffected teen to the unlikely MVP. Their chemistry suggests a better movie lurking beneath the one we wound up with.

Unfortunately, the film doesn’t stay with them. Instead, it introduces cartoonish supporting characters who exist solely to be a part of the coyote buffet. Norbert Leo Butz’s (A Complete Unknown) Trip stumbles around in a bathrobe, perpetually shirtless, coked-out and obsessed with cats. Brittany Allen’s (The Prodigy) Julie, a self-centered sex worker trapped in chaos, shrieks through scenes without nuance. Keir O’Donnell’s (American Sniper) exterminator feels airlifted from a David Lynch fever dream. These characters are loud, underwritten, and often unbearable. They’re also introduced via comic book-style splash panels—a stylistic flourish that makes sense only if you squint, tilt your head, and remember that Scott’s a graphic artist. Even then, it lands with a thud.

Shot in Bogotá doubling for Hollywood Hills, the film struggles with convincing geography. Bradley Stuckel’s (Spiral) cinematography offers occasional visual invention within one-location constraints, but iffy digital effects destroy any genuine threat. The coyotes’ CGI fluctuates wildly—sometimes their bodies move convincingly while animated faces look video-game cheap; other times they’re 98% realistic except for cartoonishly enhanced mouths. This inconsistency prevents the establishment of any real danger. The pack hovers around six animals, with convenient replacements appearing whenever one dies, like respawning video game enemies.

Minihan flirts with eco-horror themes: displaced animals lashing out after losing their homes to human development. And for a moment, it almost works. But then he forces audiences to root for humans killing desperate creatures with fire pokers and guns. The coyotes aren’t mutated monsters—they’re cornered animals trying to survive. As the violence escalates, the film forgets who the real villains should be. There’s a sharp “eat-the-rich” parable hiding somewhere in the smoke, but Minihan never commits to finding it.

Allen’s overbearing score competes for attention rather than supporting the narrative. The film makes bizarre stylistic choices throughout—those comic splash pages arrive seconds after we’ve already met characters and learned their names, making the aesthetic feel random rather than purposeful. Tonal whiplash ruins any emotional investment: one moment we’re watching a father reconnect with his daughter, the next a CGI coyote flings itself through a window in slow motion.

The moral murkiness might work if Coyotes fully embraced its tagline about wealth and consumption. But everyone registers as insufferably narcissistic and the humor falls flat. Audiences sensitive to animal violence will struggle, not just due to brutality toward the coyotes but because the film asks us to cheer against creatures whose only crime involves trying to survive.

Coyotes had legitimate potential. Wildfire and wildlife create natural double jeopardy, and there’s genuine social commentary available about humanity’s encroachment on nature. But the film needed to embrace either full creature-feature chaos or lean into genuine ecological horror. Instead, it lands in bland middle ground where nothing bites hard enough to leave marks. For a movie about savage predators, it’s surprisingly defanged and dull—all snarl, no substance. A horror film where the only real terror is watching a great idea go to waste.