31 Days of Halloween: The Beast Within

2024, Alexander J Farrell (documentary Making a Killing) -- download

I have always enjoyed a horror movie that establishes itself strongly in the mundane, often introducing a family in a grounded manner, doing so better than other genres because the actual meat of the movie is usually so far removed from said family dynamics. What do I mean by this? A crime movie, if it shows a family in the establishing phase, they will always be either a cop family or a criminal family, inherently tied to the genre, and therefore beholden to the tropes. Many of the horror movies we watch, and I enjoy, just have "a family" or "a couple" and the horror element is put upon them.

This is not that movie. From the get go we see a family in distress tied directly to whatever is happening to them. They live in isolation, somewhere in the wilderness of England, maybe near Scotland? Willow (Caoilinn Springall, The Midnight Sky) has breathing issues and is often seen dragging a bottle of oxygen with her. She sees her mother depart with a pig in a cage. When mom returns, sans pig, she tries to act normal but there is tension everywhere: tension between mother Imogen (Ashleigh Cummings, Miss Fisher's Murder Mysteries) and her father Waylon (James Cosmo, The Hole in the Ground), Imogen trying to act normal through pained expressions, Willow sensing the adults anxieties but not understanding what is going on.

When the dad Noah (Kit Harington, Eternals) finally appears wrapped in a bloody bear-skin rug (coat ???) he wants things to be normal, but they aren't. It is without spoiler warning that the movie presents itself as a werewolf movie. But immediately I am asking, "Wait, are they doing an allegory for familial abuse?" All the trappings of an abuser are there, including the being sweet when chooses to be, being all about protecting (and keeping) his family, and the sudden bursts of anger & violence. Imogen is played like someone at the centre of a true horror movie, and Cummings portrayal is probably the most true to how this movie was pitched -- that she is living each day as if she was in a horror movie.

And yet the movie plays itself as a werewolf movie up until they "oh no, they are going to fucking do it..." final scene. Yeah, the whole movie was an allegory. No werewolf, just an abuser. And it wasn't even a particularly good werewolf movie as it had to rein itself in to not be too monstrous, because the message would be lost if a monster in reality (an abuser) was less horrible than a fantasy monster. But no, the movie was a failing on all ends.