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THE BEAST WITHIN

What a bizarre film. I could probably just leave it at that and walk away satisfied, but since I have your rapt attention, Dear Reader, I suppose I'll say more. THE BEAST WITHIN sounds like a terrific title for a lycanthropy yarn and, in many ways the film plays out like one. In fact, I don't think the story would suffer at all if that were the ultimate outcome of the narrative. But that isn't what this film wants to be. It wants to be something vaguely supernatural but also vaguely Lovecraftian (several characters are even named after Lovecraft characters). In the end, it just comes across as weird and half thought out. It's a total mess, but an entertaining one. Don't get me wrong, this thing oozes camp appeal.

A woman named Caroline is raped in the woods by... something. Her husband, Eli, having gone off to find a tow truck for their disabled car, finds her beaten and naked in the woods. 17 years later, their son Michael is terribly ill. The doctors think it might be something genetic, something that could be treated if only they could figure out what's ailing him. What the doctors don't know is that Michael is not Eli's son. Caroline was not only raped that night in the woods but impregnated. Caroline and Eli head off to the town close to where Caroline was attacked to try and find some clues. They discover that on the same night that Caroline was attacked, something killed a local man, ate some of his body and burned down his home. No one in the town seems willing to offer any kind of help and it becomes very clear very quickly that there is some kind of conspiracy going on, all focusing on a particular family, the Curwins, and their involvement with a troubled man by the name of Billy Connor.

But that ain't all, Dear Reader. Michael has managed to escape from his hospital room and has traveled to the same little town as his parents. Wracked with pain (and not to mention having strange dreams of something locked in the cellar of a dilapidated old building), Michael finds, kills and partially devours the old man who runs the local newspaper, a man who just happens to be a Curwin. Michael, bloodstained and delirious, finds his way to the doorstep of Katherine, a pretty girl living alone with her abusive father. He passes out and wakes up at the doctor's office the next morning, feeling much better. His parents want to leave the town but Michael doesn't want to go. He wants to stay. Or rather, SOMETHING wants him to stay. In the days that follow, Michael begins to quickly lose the battle with the urge to kill. Whatever has infested his DNA is telling him to wipe out the remaining Curwins. And even more troubling, there seems to be something growing on his back...

I'm going to go ahead and issue a SPOILER WARNING here as I think it's only fair to talk a little about the ending of the film. It's the only way to really get across just how strange this film really is.

Essentially, what is happening to Michael is this: he is transforming into a cicada. Yep, he's turning into a large man-bug-thing. The film doesn't give a very good explanation of the reasons behind Michael's transformation or the monstrous nature of his biological father, Billy Connor. We are basically told the following facts: Billy was caught sleeping with another man's wife. The man killed his wife and threw Billy in his basement. Once Billy was ravenous with hunger, the man began to feed him bits and pieces of his dead wife. Once that supply of goodies was all gone, he fed him bits and pieces of bodies obtained from the mortuary. All of this slowly transformed Billy into something monstrous (kind of like a Wendigo, which would have been a much better story idea). So what did it turn him into, you ask? A cicada, naturally. Now because cicadas have a 17 year life cycle, Michael's dormant man-bug-thing DNA has only just awoken. By the time the film reaches its conclusion, Michael has gone full blown bug. His last act before being shotgunned to death by his mother is to rape Katherine (herself of the Curwin lineage), thus ensuring another monster related rampage in 17 years time.

In a way, the batshot crazy ending works and in another way it just ruins the film. This film was made in 1982, a year after AMERICAN WEREWOLF IN LONDON. Rick Baker's astounding effects work on that film cast a long shadow over every film that came after it. The slow, painful transformation David Naughton underwent in AMERICAN WEREWOLF only makes Michael's climactic transformation into a man-bug-thing all the more laughable. In what seems like a ten minute sequence, Michael begins bugging out in the most unconvincing way imaginable. It's done primarily using bladder effects (remember them?) and rubber heads. I can imagine a few people in 1982 thinking "rad!" but today it seems so comical and poorly done that I found myself laughing uncontrollably the whole time. Now depending on your feelings about everything that came prior to that scene, you're likely to either turn the film off or fall in love. It's hilariously campy and crude. For me, it kind of crippled the film. Up until that point, I was digging the darker, almost Southern Gothic flavor. Then it becomes literally a flick about a guy dressed in a cheap rubber suit crashing through walls and running through the woods.

I don't particularly care that we never get an explanation as to why Billy Connor turned into a giant bug or why Michael can telepathically communicate him even though he's been dead for years. There are so many plot holes in this film that to care about even one of them would render the whole enterprise a failure. I just held out hope that the film would at some point wow me or at the very least become something a bit more interesting than a guy in a bug outfit. It didn't but I still find myself having fond memories of it. It's just one of those films that are entertaining without being really good (despite having a great cast of character actors like Ronny Cox, R.G. Armstrong, Bibi Besch and Don Gordon). I can just imagine a hundred different explanations that would have worked better than "Michael is infected with man-bug-thing DNA". But I digress...

The real question is whether or not THE BEAST WITHIN constitutes a waste of time or good entertainment. While I could cop out and say "both" (which is really the truth), I'd have to say it's good entertainment, especially for those who enjoy schlocky 1980s horror. It's got a few good moments of grue, a couple brief glimpses of monster-on-girl action (if that's your kind of thing), a strangely awesome score by Les Baxter and enough guffaws and groans to last a week. It is easy to see why it's become a cult classic over the years. It's just that bizarre.

Recommended.