The Beast Within

The Beast Within (1982)

Runtime: 98 minutes

Directed by: Philippe Mora

Starring: Ronny Cox, Bibi Besch, Paul Clemens, R.G. Armstrong, L.Q. Jones

From: United Artists

Here's a random movie I watched last night. It's average, but at least it's not bad, and it has a hilarious movie description on Amazon. Hear all about that in my Letterboxd review below:

This is another movie I have heard about and known for many years now but never had seen in full until last night. An impetus for finally checking it out on Amazon Instant Video was the description they had listed for the movie. It reads: “A teenager is experiencing growing pains of a most shocking sort in this exciting, tense and all-too-real story of human-into-monster transformation.” ALL TOO REAL? So it is realistic that a woman would be raped and impregnated by a bipedal beast in the rural South? Someone mutating from human being to something else is something that is stone cold fact?

That rape is how the movie starts off, and as Bibi Besch was knocked out when it happened she did not know it was a hairy bipedal beast so when the son was born it was treated as normal, and the kid was normal until he turned 17 and the fit hit the shan, as some like to say. Cronenbergian-like body horror happens and he transform; that scene where it happens is probably too lengthy and the effects have the early 80's limitations (usually the creatures we see are filmed in the dark, and I know that wasn't done by accident) but it certainly was memorable and creepy. What it turns into certainly is unique; the age of 17 is a big clue.

I can only rate it as average. It's mainly the story and how it seems like it's spinning its wheels at times until we get to the final act and things really get into a higher gear. That's not the only issue I had but it was the biggest one. It's a shame as it certainly had a capable cast (including Besch, Ronny Cox, L.Q. Jones, and R.G. Armstrong), the setting of a rural town in the South is pretty good when it comes to atmosphere and the musical score from Les Baxter is suitably creepy, not to mention quality stuff.

It is not a bad horror movie by any means and there are countless examples of that from the 1980's; but, to me it's not a classic by any means. At least I can say that this had a different and wacky plot and they went all-in on treating it seriously. I imagine the novel this was (real) loosely based on wasn't so odd.