Arthouse Horror Flick COYOTE Releases Clip; Wins Awards

Here's a clip from an arthouse horror film that has been banned at some film festivals and has won awards at others in its first public screenings: controversial director Trevor Juenger's Coyote. The film stars Bill Oberst Jr. as an insomniac writer whose sleep-deprived hallucinations distort reality as paranoia drives him to extreme violence. The surreal shocker, which mixes arthouse and horror, is shopping for distribution and it's first public screenings have elicited strong reaction. 

Director Trevor Juenger tweeted last week from a festival, "Someone in the audience keeps yelling What Is This? and What Does It Mean? We're going to give him an aneurysm by film's end." Juenger says a college screening of Coyote was shut down in mid-film by an administrator citing "extreme violence" while another public screening in the director's hometown of St. Louis had to be cancelled when the theater owner refused to run the film due to "extreme content."

Coyote's IMDb page shows 27 reviews, all positive. The film's wins include Best Feature at the 2013 Unreal Film Festival in Memphis and three Feature Film Awards at Pollygrind Underground Film Festival 2013 in Las Vegas, including a Best Actor Award for Oberst.

Fans of the surreal and the extreme can decide for themselves once Coyote gets distribution. In the meantime, here's a clip that director Juenger says "may be my favorite sequence in the film," the moments before Oberst's character snaps completely.

Coyote from Trevor Juenger on Vimeo.

Director Trevor Juenger Releases First Trailer for Horror Film Coyote

Coyote

“Sleep is the Enemy”

The first trailer for Coyote, an art-house horror film from director Trevor Juenger, has been released. In the film Bill Oberst Jr. plays an insomniac writer whose sleep-deprived hallucinations distort reality until his paranoia leads him to extreme violence. Coyote also stars Bill Finkbiner, Victoria Mullen and Tasha Zebrowski.

St. Louis-based director Trevor Juenger wrote the script for the micro-budget feature with Oberst in mind and he flew the actor to the midwest for a month of filming during the worst heatwave in decades. Oberst says: "That script was brutal, raw, explicit and offensive. The shoot was even more so. This film won't be for everyone. But Juenger reminds me so much of a young Lynch with a dash of Cronenberg that, I had to work him. I could not resist. We did this with no money, only passion for the experiment."


Of his lead actor Juenger says "I was listening to an interview with Bill Oberst Jr. today where he said his best asset is keeping quiet. Well, I have to disagree. I like a belligerent, aggressive, maniacal Bill Oberst Jr., screaming and threatening people. That is his strength. I don't think real mental illness is a quiet one. Bill embodies the abusive dad, boyfriend, or whatever misogynistic ugliness you experienced growing up. You can't stand up to him, when he's on the screen. Instead, he leaves you like a battered housewife, exhausted and helpless, yet attracted to the abuse.”
Coyote is an attempt to blend the arthouse genre, in which Juenger has primarily worked, with horror. The director admits it is a risky experiment: "If this is a horror movie (everyone assures me it is), it's unlike any horror film I've seen. I think we used the horror fundamentals that fit, and then threw away the book. Good, bad, revolting, or brilliant, I can't quite say. I can say its something fresh though. Someone called it David Lynch directs Falling Down. As much as I hate the Lynch comparisons, I thought that was fitting. It's what I wanted to see. I hope you feel the same."



The Coyote trailer is here on Vimeo: http://vimeo.com/51891660
The film’s fan page is here: https://www.facebook.com/pages/Coyote/207299646022159
The director’s Blog is hosted here: http://juengercoyote.wordpress.com/