After living with her family for some time in the English wilderness in a fortified house, a young girl called Willow starts noticing that her parents start to take frequent trips into an ancient forest, just before sundown.
Since she notices that these trips are done when the nights will have a full moon, Willow starts to wonder what kind of secret her parents might be hiding. She is more curious even when she sees that only her mother comes back, and is only on the day after, when her father is brought back from the forest, and always looking bruised and in pain.
One of those nights, Willow disobeys the rules and follows her parents into the forest, witnessing something in a dungeon that shocks her. From that night on, the girl is victim of horrible nightmares, now fearing for her life and her mother’s.
This is the premise of “The Beast Within”, the tale of a family coping with a curse that has been passed from one generation to another, constantly threatening to turn a loving, dedicated father into a monster focused only into destroy them.
This film directed by Alexander J. Farrell was presented last night in Fantasia 2024, and will also be released on theaters on Friday July 26th.
Good werewolves movies are very rare, specially today, so when I saw the trailer, I didn’t think twice and decided to check it out.
While the premise of “The Beast Within” might sound a little too familiar, this film stands out by telling the story through the eyes of Willow, not the person itself dealing with the curse. Since she is apparently unaware of the lore and the legends, it was refreshing to see her picking up the pieces and putting the puzzle herself little by little. Or so it seems.
The film runs for about 95 minutes and uses the runtime very effectively, setting up the mood from the beginning and giving us pieces to the secret that Willow’s mother tries to hide. There are some jump scares and dream sequences that seems to be distracting, but on a second viewing you can appreciate that are very effective, because they are also providing some clues, and shows a fear deeper in Willow. The fear of inheriting the curse.
There are not a lot special effects, sometime that might surprise you for a film about werewolves, and some are functional, NOT GREAT, but good enough. To be fair, there were other special effects more effective, that goes into the side of body horror, but also, they are very brief.
The acting all around was very good, no complaints there. Without problems I believed that we are seeing a family that had way better happier days and now are dealing with a crisis that is eating them inside little by little. (Grampa was one of my favorite characters, by the way)
I am sure that more than one person will have a field day analyzing several scenes and ranting about toxic relationships, toxic co-dependencies and even Stockholm syndrome. And yes, they would have a valid point, which takes me to the next point:
There is something at the end of the film that might divide the audiences, and left me with mixed feelings about “The Beast Within”
It COULD be considered a spoiler, so read on with that warning:
The film could have ended about 3 minutes earlier of where it did, or more to the point NOT include a plot twist. The film then would have been a very good werewolf film, where a father is suffering with a curse, and is little by little destroying the physical and mental health of his family even when they tried very strongly to move forward and stay together. The film turns into a metaphor about a mental illness and domestic violence.
I cannot call foul on this plot twist because is being hinted at several points in the movie, We can guess we are dealing with a mental disorder and not a supernatural event, and is clear that this was meant from the beginning.
However, once established that this is what is really happening, several scenes make no sense anymore. I don’t want to go into further details, I think is better if you see the film and decide for yourselves if it works,
Let’s say that is like in the end of “Pan’s Labyrinth” (A film that I love). You can either decide that you saw a supernatural fairy tale that DID happen, or that everything was just a child’s fantasy to cope with the crudeness of her reality.
I rather keep my werewolf tragedy, thank you very much.
The beast within is directed by Alexander J. Farrell. Written by Greer Taylor Ellison and Alexander J. Farrell
The cast has the talents of Kit Harington (Jon Snow in «Games of thrones»), Ashleigh Cummings, James Cosmo, Caoilinn Springall (The Midnight Sky).
And I will be reviewing more films doing our remote coverage, so stay tuned!
