THE BEAST WITHIN (1982)

Director: Philippe Mora

Writers: Tom Holland, Danilo Bach (uncredited), adapted from the novel by Edward Levy

Producers: Harvey Bernhard, Gabriel Katzka

Cast: Ronny Cox, Bibi Besch, Paul Clemens, Katherine Moffat, L.Q. Jones, R.G. Armstrong, Don Gordon, John Dennis Johnston, Ron Soble, Logan Ramsey, Luke Askew, Meshach Taylor, Boyce Holleman, Malcolm McMillin, Natalie Nolan Howard, Fred D. Meyer 

One night in 1964, newlyweds Caroline and Eli MacCleary (Bibi Besch and Ronny Cox) get their car stuck in a ditch on a lonely country road in Nioba, Mississippi. While Eli walks back to the nearby gas station for help, Caroline is raped by a bestial assailant and left unconscious in the woods. Seventeen years later, the MacCleary couple’s son Michael (Paul Clemens) is afflicted with an unknown medical condition affecting his pituitary gland that seems to be slowly killing him. Knowing that their son was conceived by Caroline’s rape, the MacCleary couple head back to Nioba to find out the identity of the boy’s biological father to help in their son’s diagnosis. Meanwhile, Michael is haunted by strange dreams that also draw him to Nioba. Once he arrives there, Michael seems driven to stalk members of the Curwin family. 

The Flashback Fanatic movie review

The early '80s was an era of unfettered possibilities for genre films. Star Wars (1977) proved that effects-heavy sci-fi and fantasy could be the basis for mainstream blockbuster success, and Halloween (1978) proved that low-budget horror could generate a big profit on a modest investment. With the audience primed to want more extremes of sensational situations in the movies and the permissiveness of the R rating, a film like The Beast Within may have been inevitable.

This movie establishes its nasty tone early with the rape situation that is a focal point for the plot. There seemed to be a sub-genre of rape-centric horror films around this time. A lot of people want to attribute this to a trend of misogyny. I think that judgment is much too pointed and assumes a deliberately negative message being made by the filmmakers. 

One can decry the depiction of rape in a film as an unnecessary element in entertainment, but, usually, it is just a matter of reaching for a more graphic extreme. It is a long tradition in horror that was being allowed a more explicit presentation due to less censorship. A lot of the primal appeal in horror is the contrasts of sex and death or beauty and the beast. The lovely heroine being carried off by the monster was a staple of horror that resonated because of the implicit threat of violation. That theme rouses a deep and immediate reaction in an audience. Such an extreme is meant to have an impact and horror is a genre always striving to have impact. Rape was the culmination of the terror tease dangled for generations before the film audience, just as graphic gore was the culmination of the sanguinary suggestion of earlier films. One can argue whether depictions this explicit are appropriate, but they are merely elaborations upon what had gone before.

This film’s other claim to infamy is a grueling transformation sequence that was another graphic extreme made popular by the recent 1981 hits The Howling and An American Werewolf in London. In addition to this, make-up effects master Tom Burman also supplied the gory kills to satisfy the horror hounds. Again, this was a sign of the times in the more permissive film market of the early '80s. This was also an attention-getting ingredient in a film that was competing with a ton of product in theaters catering to sensation-seeking viewers. 

Ronnie Cox and Bibi Besch as the MacCleary couple are the very decent and long suffering parents of their strangely afflicted son Michael. They interest us, as they have to dig back into a painful past they would rather forget to help their child. 

Paul Clemens as Michael gets the most attention in this film when he is overcome by the monstrous influence of his rapist father. However, I think his performance is at its best when he is just being a normal teenager trying to talk the pretty girl (Katherine Moffat) he has recently met into taking a walk with him. This is a very important scene that makes us relate to him as something more than just a horror plot device. 

The Beast Within has a lot going for it. Its atmospheric small town and rural settings, eccentric characters, and sympathetic leads maintain interest. It also has a plot that keeps you guessing just where the hell it is going. 

This film’s one problem is that the cicada connection to the monstrous phenomenon is not very clearly worked out. It seems that some material that would have made this much more understandable and satisfying was edited out. The supernatural needs some rules or reason given when it is something as unprecedented as this movie’s menace. As was often the case, distributors didn’t give a damn about their movie making sense; cuts would speed up the pace and shorten it to possibly squeeze in one extra showing per day.

The film we are left with is a moody and intense story with intrigue and nasty payoffs. Both director Philippe Mora and composer Les Baxter create a lot of dread that helps the film immensely. One can only hope that a more complete edition of the film will be made available with the edited footage restored to help justify the unique menace of The Beast Within.