(Mostly Spoiler Free Section)

I recently sat down to watch The Beast Within, and at first was pleasently surprised by the gravitas that director Alexander J. Farrell applied to this story. 

The film opens with a proverb stating something ot the effect of “There are two wolves within all of constantly fighting for domination of our soul,” essentially describing the dichotomy of good and evil within us.

The story starts out with our idyllic family, Noah (Harrington), the patriarch of the family, Imogen (Cummings), the mother trying to hold her family together, Weylon (Cosmo), the grandfather trying to ensure the safety of his family, and Willow (Springall), who acts as the conduit through which the audience views the events of this movie. Willow has some type of medical condition that makes her momentarily dependent upon supplemental oxygen, but I’m not sure if it’s ever clearly explained. Her illness appears similar to asthma, but without albuterol dependency.

Willow quickly discovers the truth behind her father's malady, and from this point forward, much of the movie explores the family's dynamic, and Noah's attempt to be a good father and husband, despite the monster that he knows lurks within him. 

The creature design worked quite well for most of the movie, and director Farrell used shadows to hide any misgivings well. 

This movie hits its stride between the second and third act. We’re given a series of events that are meant to leave you guessing what will dominate Noah, the beast or the man. The movie thrives on this and felt reminiscent of a great and truly tragic extrapolation of Lawrence Talbot’s tale, had he lived and continued on with his curse. Lawrence Talbot, to those who don’t know, is the original Wolf-man from Universal studios.

Imagine the conflict of a human personality if that personality was split between that of a family man and that of a feral predator. Harrington does a great job of balancing a loving father one minute, and a potentially menacing monster the next. Farrell did an excellent job of keeping the audience on its toes.

I can't go too much further into what was done well or poorly without venturing into spoilers. So, SPOILERS AHEAD.

The movie builds tension as Willow, Noah’s daughter discovers Noah’s monstrous nature. Noah comes clean to Willow, and their bond begins to strengthen. Willow and her maternal grandfather have an amazing bond, but it seems as though this bond skipped Willow’s mother. The dynamic between Noah and his family continues in an ambiguous trajectory for much of the film, but it’s clearly evident that he is a werewolf, and that the beast within him is influencing him in a more malevolent way.

It almost feels like a mix between Amityville Horror and the Wolfman. You slowly watch the father become a little more off putting as the movie progresses, and you see little moments where he’s slipping further and further into the abyss. Again, this is where the movie thrives. You, the audience, are quite privy to the abusive behaviors he exhibits, but Willow is only a small child, and one who loves her father. During one of these conversations with Willow, Noah reveals his family curse, and how his grandfather killed his grandmother. He breaks down here and says he could never leave her like that, because he simply could never be without his daughter and wife.

While you watch the Harrington snap and flip a coin, from a loving goofy father to a scary. When the story finally transitions into a full-fledged werewolf story, we’re given an awesome cat and mouse chase. It is made abundantly clear, there is no stopping this beast. You can only hope to evade it.

MAJOR SPOILERS TO FOLLOW

The Grandfather sacrifices himself so that his daughter and granddaughter can get away, and he presumably dies off screen, even though there is a firearm nearby (which will become important later when I address my qualms with this movie). Willow and Imogen escape into the forest, only to hear Noah’s vulpine noises nearby. When Imogen goes to investigate, Noah, in his wolf form, grabs Willow and takes her back to the castle they’ve been using to lock Noah up during his transformations.

Here, we’re given one of the better “can love prevail” moments of any werewolf movie I’ve seen. Imogen is able to coax Noah into letting go of Willow before he kills his daughter, and embraces him. We’re treated to all of the beautiful family moments they shared that kept him grounded. We see all of the moments of love, and I found my inner monologue urging over and over “please don’t kill her! Don’t give in.” Eventually, the beast wins out, and he attacks Imogen. Willow, using the fire from a broken lantern and her supplemental oxygen to kill her father with a makeshift flamethrower.

Imogen survived her wounds and they’re seen packing up their truck to leave the family farm. Had the movie ended here, this would have been a great movie. It could have served as an amazing allegory for trauma and abuse and mental illness. Had Farrell simply alluded to the potential that this could have been in Willow’s head, it might have worked. Instead, we’re reshown most of the major events in a montage that makes it clear that Noah was never actually a werewolf, but only an abusive father and husband.

There are two major issues with this. Firstly, this negates a bunch of the major plot points established in the movie. If he was never a werewolf, then why was he willingly locking himself away once a month? What was happening to the livestock kept in his cage to ensure he didn’t leave? So much of the movie is predicated on the fact that werewolves are real in this, that this ending doesn’t provide a satisfying twist, but rather cheapens the entire experience thus far. This trope has been played to death.

For me, this twist that ruins the movie. It turned what could have been a great allegorical story about abuse into a bluntly explained plot twist. The story would have worked better, had they subtly hinted that, maybe, it was all in her head. Had they ended it more ambiguously, ala Inception, we could have come to the conclusion on our own. Instead, this plot twist creates more plot holes. When you re-watch the Sixth Sense, the plot twist serves the story more aptly. They hinted all along in the interactions among the characters. In The Beast Within, it only supports that Noah was indeed a werewolf. Again, it would have been much better had they subtly alluded to the possibility that it was in her head, or maybe she had altered the events within her head to make the story more palatable. Instead, we were left with a spoon-fed plot twist that was attempting to be deeper than it actually ended up being.

Overall, I give it 3 out of 5 full moons.