Coyote Lake is a 2019 thriller about a small bed-and-breakfast near the US/Mexico border where two unwanted guests arrive, threatening the safety of everyone.
The first ten or so minutes of writer and director Sara Seligman‘s dark independent chiller Coyote Lake are truly disturbing, though not like you might expect. This isn’t some gorey slasher flick that leans heavy on spilling blood to make its point but rather a more grounded bit of horror that, at least at its start, ain’t easy to watch. Don’t get me wrong. This is not a scary movie in the traditional sense, the story more about crimes and misguided romance than butchery. It’s a lowkey affair with a sinister vibe, not all that wound up with energy, but it’s a unique story that doesn’t pull its punches, even if it can’t give it real significance.
In an old remote abandoned farm near the border, Teresa (Adriana Barraza) and her teen daughter Ester (Camila Mendes) run a modest bed-and-breakfast along with a mute handyman named Dirk (Neil Sandilands). Among the guests frequenting the place are rich ‘coyotes’ who run drugs and humans across the border, people the women welcome with open arms and with good reason. Offering them fresh drink, spiked with sleeping agent, they rob them blind … then wrap them in plastic and sink them in the nearby lake. All’s well and good until one day, a young cartel enforcer named Paco (Andres Velez) shows up with a severely wounded friend (Manny Perez), demanding the women take care of them. Over the next few days, as Paco becomes more desperate, Ester finds herself attracted and while she hopes for a new future, there is a shadow coming soon to swallow them all.
A mix of English and Spanish, Coyote Lake is a decidedly small film shot mostly in one location, and while it’s lacking the polish of a big studio title, it’s still a well-written and directed effort that offers a proper spin to the genre. It’s held up by a string of good performances, especially the women, with Barraza and Mendes an unexpected duo with terrific chemistry. The relationship between the mother and daughter is played just right, the challenge that Paco presents causing the curious and inexperienced Ester to make choices that her mother is not blind to, offering parallel plots of forbidden romance and impending death. However, what appears as innocence to Paco is anything but.
So, while the opening invites us into a truly distressing premise, one that could have kept this a tight little circle of suspense, it quickly becomes a sort of offbeat take on Romeo & Juliet as Ester sneakily tries to make it work with Paco while a jealous mother plots otherwise. That’s all well and good but it slips on its own premise, losing some of its traction the more it pushes forward, the coming violence it promises delivered but not with the force it feels set up to do. While we know these people and find some sympathy in their actions, it’s not explored all that deeply, the emotions just not there when the final blows hit their marks, easy to see where it will all end up.
Still, Seligman deserves credit for her feature length debut, this a strong effort that has plenty to recommend. It’s a good looking film with a tempered patience that works hard to pry itself purposefully away from the fast-paced action of others in the crowded genre. This isn’t an action movie, despite its themes and our expectations, and while it gets loose in the middle, is bookended by a couple of good moments that give this weight enough to recommend.