JP Nunez
I often say that the werewolf subgenre is cursed. Other than a handful of classics, these films are extremely hit or miss, and that’s putting it lightly. For some reason, filmmakers just seem to have a hard time with these creatures. Finding a good werewolf movie is almost a cause for celebration. Hell, just finding one that seems promising is a win, so when I saw the trailer for The Beast Within, I got really excited. This looked like it just might be one of the best werewolf films in years, and I couldn’t wait to see what lycanthropic terrors it had in store.
The Beast Within was directed and co-written by Alexander J. Farrell, and it stars Kit Harington, Ashleigh Cummings, James Cosmo, and Caoilinn Springall. In the movie, Willow is a 10-year-old girl who lives on a remote farm with her parents, Noah and Imogen, and her grandfather, Waylon. On the surface, it seems like a fairly typical country life, but something isn’t quite right with her dad. The guy sometimes goes on secret excursions at night, and when he returns home, he looks like he got into a barroom brawl with a wild boar.
What’s more, Willow also overhears a very telling conversation between her grandfather and her mother one day, so it’s clear that the adults in her family are harboring a pretty big secret. It turns out that her father is a werewolf, and every month when the moon is full, his wife chains him up to keep their family safe. However, one night, the monster manages to break free from his shackles, and he goes after the people he loves most.
For about the first half hour or so, The Beast Within is pretty frustrating. It almost completely eschews character development in favor of building up a mystery around Willow’s father, and that makes for a pretty boring time. To be fair, this mystery would probably be more effective if the film’s marketing didn’t give away the guy’s secret, but even then, ignoring the characters would still keep it from reaching its full potential.
It’s just tough to get into this story if you don’t care about the people in it, and to make matters worse, Willow and her family seem like they’d be really interesting if we got the chance to know them a little. The performances are all quite good, but there’s only so much these actors can do with such a thin script. This part of The Beast Within would’ve benefited immensely from a greater focus on the characters, and if done well, that also would’ve made the mystery infinitely more intriguing.
Thankfully though, the film switches gears when it hits the 30-minute mark. It starts when Noah finally comes clean to his daughter, and actor Kit Harrington absolutely kills it. He delivers this monologue with a gravitas and a magnetism that’s just about impossible to resist, so you’ll find yourself hanging on his every word as you anxiously wait to learn more about this family curse.
After that scene, The Beast Within is able to shrug off its lame mystery and concentrate on the characters, and to nobody’s surprise, the movie gets a lot better. You start to genuinely care about these people, and that in turn makes you care about their story as well.
Then, when we reach the final half hour, the horror takes center stage. Up until then, we get a few creepy shots every now and again, but we don’t see anything genuinely horrific. It’s all implication and atmosphere, but in these last 30 minutes, the werewolf finally goes on the attack.
That being said, you shouldn’t expect all-out Dog Soldiers-esque chaos. Willow and her family are pretty helpless against this predator, so The Beast Within wisely favors tension over action. Rather than confront the monster head-on, these characters try to get out of the house and away from the creature before it can pounce on them, and that makes for some genuinely A Quiet Place-esque suspense. It’s quite well done, so for most of this final act, I had a great time watching these characters try their best to evade the werewolf on their tail.
But in the last few minutes, The Beast Within takes a completely unexpected turn and shoots itself in the foot. I’m not going to spoil anything, but I will say that this ending starts out weird but still decent, and then it just falls off a cliff. It’s the absolute worst way to close out a monster movie (you’ll know what I mean when you see it) and to make matters worse, it turns everything that came before it into utter nonsense.
To be fair, these final scenes do try something interesting. Werewolves are often metaphors for the dark side of human nature, and this film focuses on a specific issue we don’t often see the subgenre address. Now, in theory, that’s a compelling new way to use these monsters, but in practice, the message is completely undercooked.
The first two acts give us a few hints here and there about the movie’s deeper meaning, but they’re not nearly enough. Granted, it’s not quite the cardinal sin of telling rather than showing, but it’s pretty close. The film just doesn’t make you believe that Noah harbors this inner darkness, so the whole thing feels shoehorned into an otherwise standard werewolf story.
And with that weak ending, The Beast Within simply falls apart. It throws away all the goodwill it worked so hard to build up after its weak opening act, so I’m sad to report that I wouldn’t recommend this movie. It’s another dud in a long line of lycanthropic letdowns, so if you’re looking for a good werewolf film to watch, I suggest you look elsewhere.
The Beast Within is set to hit theaters on July 26.
