Colin Minihan’s Coyotes

Usually, coyotes are reluctant to attack people, but it can happen. In this case, maybe they heard some Acme Corp. executives live in the tony Hollywood Hills neighborhood. Whatever their reasons might be, they are clearly quite ticked off. A geeky dad has no idea why the feral pack is prowling around his home, but he quickly starts to regret their doggy-door in Colin Minihan’s Coyotes, which opens this Friday in theaters.

Scott is a bit of a man-child, but the recent success in comics allowed him to move his family into the exclusive neighborhood. His wife Liv, is a cool mom, but obviously the grounded one in the family. Their daughter has reached the stage where she is conspicuously embarrassed by her parents and generally surly to be around. According to their disconcertingly intense exterminator, they are also living with rats in their walls. Unfortunately, that won’t be the worst of it.

Since this is LA, they could lose power at any moment, for no apparent cause, so it is hardly surprising when a freakish storm cuts the electric lines. Unfortunately, that tree Scott was supposed to prune crushes Liv’s car, nixing their mobility and making him look bad. Consequently, when the coyotes attack, their only ally will be their sleazy, unstable neighbor Trip and hi “visitor,” Julie. Frankly, Liv and Scott never really think of a good euphemism to obscure the reason Trip pays her to spend the night with him, which leads to many an awkward moment.

What Keeps You Alive: Happy Anniversary

Good golly, why didn’t they just get a nice hotel suite? Instead, Jules and Jackie thought it would be romantic to spend their one-year anniversary at the latter’s family hunting cabin. Alas, their two-year anniversary looks increasingly unlikely as events spin out of control in Colin Minihan’s What Keeps You Alive (spoilery trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

There is a big game-changing twist pretty early on in the first act that would really be shame to reveal. You might still guess it from some of the awkward phrases that will follow, but if you haven’t ben tipped off to it, Minihan does a nice job camouflaging it for ten or fifteen minutes. We’re not kidding here—it’s a big one.

Regardless, Jules the city slicker will be pushed to her limits, both physically and emotionally. She might not be the outdoorsy type like her wife, but she has a strong survival drive. She endures all kinds of pain and nasty injuries, but the drama always feels completely believable in the moment.

Looking considerably more mature than she has in prior scream queen roles (such as Extraterrestrial and It Stains the Sand Red), Brittany Allen does arguably her career best work as Jules. Even when she is totally and utterly freaked out, Allen shows flashes of her intelligence and resilience. Hannah Emily Anderson also makes for a heck of a gung-ho outdoors sports enthusiast.

One of the possible advantages of What Keep’s hush-hush secret is that it makes it harder for the easily offended to complain, because that would commit the mortal sin of spoiling. In any event, it is bound to be divisive, so genre fans should see it sooner rather than later, before the party-poopers let the cat out of the bag. Still, Minihan has a few more surprises up his sleeve in what is a lethally effective, lean and mean thriller, perched on the boundary of psycho-horror.

There is no question What Keeps is alsso Minihan’s best work since the original Grave Encounters, which he co-helmed with Stuart Ortiz, under their Vicious Brothers moniker. It is a relentless film that will leave even jaded genre fans shocked, but satisfied. Very highly recommended, What Keeps You Alive opens this Friday (8/24) in New York, at the IFC Center.