The Beast Within
There’s something to be said for the way co-writer-director Alexander J. Farrell builds his story in a fairly unexpected way throughout “The Beast Within.” Unfortunately, one of the things that the film struggles with is holding our attention, and part of that is how it goes for the slow-burn, and some aspects of the film repeat without moving forward. That last part matters most in a slow-burn film, of any kind, and Farrell and co-writer Greer Ellison are not able to make it move consistently forward in a way that works.
By the title, one can probably surmise what some of this film is about. What it is above that is a family drama, with a child (Willow, played by Caoilinn Springall) coming to a realization that there’s something going on between her parents (Noah, played by Kit Harington, and Imogen, played by Ashleigh Cummings). Her father is gone for stretches of time, and often comes back bloody, and her mother is uncomfortable talking about it. When Willow realizes the truth, the family secret must be revealed.
The metaphor in this film is fairly obvious; this is a broken family, torn apart by a father’s rage. We get hints of generational trauma throughout, but it’s never clearly explained what caused this to be the truth. I do like how this film portrays the destabilization in a child realizing her parent’s marriage is not a healthy one; I know, when I realized that the first time I heard my parents fighting, it was rough to take in. They stayed together until my father died, but once that box is opened, it cannot be shut again, and it was jarring. Everything afterwards starts to reflect that feeling, and to its credit, “The Beast Within” does well with that.
Part of the problem with this film’s execution is how we see the manifestation of the titular beast. By virtue of how little we see the beast in any form, we can ascertain how low the budget for this was. That’s not typically a problem- after all, there are tremendous examples of “less is more” low-budget horror films going back to “Cat People” in 1942- but this one doesn’t quite nail the psychological dynamics of the family for that to be the case, and the creature effects we do see are fairly ineffective. Harington and Cummings are fine, but it is obvious from the get go something is up between them, as is James Cosmo as Imogen’s father, but the film’s MVP is by far Springall; any emotional connection we have with the film is because of her. The rest of it is an attempt at making a folktale in relatively modern age, but not quite getting everything in place to allow it to haunt our memories the way it should.
