It’s not the man afflicted with lycanthropy who struggles to come to terms with his inner wolf in The Beast Within. Instead, it’s his family that’s forced to interrogate what it means to live with an occasional monster in the narrative debut of filmmaker Alexander J. Farrell. Farrell, who co-wrote the screenplay with Greg Ellison, wields the werewolf as an on-the-nose monster metaphor, framing a family drama turned horror story from the perspective of a young girl discovering the harrowing truth about her father. It yields a dreamy Gothic fairy tale, even if defined solely by allegory.
Willow (Caoilinn Springall, Stopmotion) lives an isolated life nestled within a fortified compound deep within the English wilderness. That she’s also a sickly child, prone to terrifying respiratory issues that require oxygen tanks on standby, means that Willow doesn’t realize her remote existence isn’t normal. Of course, it helps that she’s doted upon by her loving mother Imogen (Ashleigh Cummings, Hounds of Love) and grandpa Waylon (James Cosmo) and spends her days creating art and tapping into her boundless imagination.
But Willow has reached an age where her curiosity can no longer be contained, leading to a startling discovery in the woods involving her father Noah’s (Kit Harrington, “Game of Thrones”) dark secret. It threatens to destroy the family’s fragile existence in ways they couldn’t have predicted.
Photo courtesy of Well GO USA.
Springall makes easy work of earning rooting interest as the precocious audience proxy. Willow is a meek, sweet young girl whose tight bond with her mom and grandpa goes far in ensuring emotional investment, even as the telltale warning signs slowly pervade. Farrell wisely keeps Harrington’s Noah mostly in the peripheral, sowing deep seeds of tension and unpredictability as the father careens between a violent psycho and a loving parent in a blink. It makes his scant encounters with the rest of the family all the more unsettling; the audience is just as unsure as Noah’s family which version of dad they’ll get at any moment, full moon or not. The closer to the full moon, though, the worse Dad’s barely contained fury gets.
There’s no subtext to the werewolf’s dual nature here; The Beast Within uses the werewolf as a phantasmagorical metaphor for domestic abuse and the emotional and psychological havoc it wreaks on the family. It’s at its most fascinating when focused on the quiet, knowing glances and exchanges between Imogen and her father. Cummings threatens to steal the entire film as the complex woman torn between protecting her child and saving her husband, made all the more compelling for the way that Waylon helplessly tries to pry his daughter and granddaughter out of the increasingly dangerous setting. The subject matter is dark but handled with great care and reflected in the performances.
Photo courtesy of Well GO USA.
Farrell infuses the emotionally fraught story with a Gothic atmosphere and a dreamlike quality to match its youthful narrator, one who views things from the prism of the fairy tales that bring her comfort. The filmmaker also ensures a few well-crafted bursts of werewolf horror, complete with practical effects and a thrilling climactic confrontation.
It’s an effective tightrope walk between fantasy and reality, right up until Farrell overexplains with a final coda that doesn’t trust the audience to grasp the obvious. It makes for a poignant horror fairy tale that’s at its strongest when exploring the psychological fallout, but it’s one that struggles to seamlessly blend the Gothic fantasy with authentic coming-of-age drama.
The Beast Within releases in theaters on July 26, 2024.
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