With its world premiere at this year’s FANTASIA INTERNATIONAL FILM FESTIVAL, The Beast Within, directed by Alexander J. Farrell, is a darkly gothic take on the theory that beneath every human is a repressed monster that is revealed once the very thin exterior skin is broken.
The Beast Within centres on 10 year old Willow (Caoilinn Springall) who inhabits a dilapidated and isolated country manor, surrounded by strong-hold gates. Living with her parents (Kit Harington and Ashleigh Cummings) as well as her grandad (James Cosmo), Willow senses an aggressive monstrosity that haunts her family. After following her mother and father into the woods, Willow witnesses her father’s terrible transformation into a beast which she learns is an ancestral curse passed down through his grandfather’s bloodline. As her father’s condition becomes increasingly aggressive, Willow must discover whether she can rely on her parents to protect her or fall victim to her father’s surmounting lack of control.
Setting itself up as a werewolf film from early on, The Beast Within is very obvious in its use of the classic movie monster as a metaphor for perpetrators of domestic and spousal violence. Kit Harington’s performance as the volatile and unforgiving Noah, plays the family’s patriarch with an uneasy arrogance that barely covers an overwhelming and continuous sense of impending explosion. The POV is strictly through Willow’s eyes, and she is pulled between her child-like longing for a safe and bonded family and an overly mature sense of self-preservation. Caoilinn Springall plays Willow with an intense air of being torn between her natural desperation to be with her parents that leaves her weary of constantly being in a fight or flight mode – a feeling which many children live with in domestic abuse situations.
The Beast Within is a stark portrayal of the reality of living under the roof of an abuser and the terrifying and deadly effect that has on spouses, children and members of the wider family. With images of grandeur like painted family portraits, velvet furnished wooden thrones, and declarations of royalty, the parents poorly attempt to paste over their dark secret. With a fairytale like depiction, The Beast Within is a deeply distressing portrayal of generational trauma through the eyes of Little Red Riding Hood.
5 Screams out of 5
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