Image via Well Go USA Entertainment
On July 26, 2024, Well Go USA Entertainment released ‘The Beast Within’, which has received a mixed reception from critics, holding at 50% on Rotten Tomatoes. In the film, a family in the English wilds has their lives upended when the youngest member “becomes ensnared by the dark ancestral secret they've tried so desperately to conceal.” The ensemble cast includes Kit Harington, Ashleigh Cummings, James Cosmo, and Caoilinn Springall. But what did the critics say?
Benjamin Franz of Film Threat notes, “Opening with a proverb concerning two wolves “at war with each other,” The Beast Within is a moody, atmospheric film. This slow-burner is the first genre film from Alexander J. Farrell. The co-writer/director has previously helmed two feature documentaries, a film for television, and several shorts. With this film, Farrell seeks to enter the most accessible genre for a starting fiction director: horror.” Adding, “Every time Harrington is on the screen, hackles raised on the back of my neck, gentle reader. He’s an actor who can convey latent fury and violence just through his facial tics and eyes. Springall is an outstanding young actress and carries the narrative throughline very effectively. However, the acting is only ever a part of the equation.”
Ferdosa Abdi of Screen Rant praises the film, stating, “For his debut film, Alexander J. Farrell, who co-wrote the script with Greer Taylor Ellison, takes an impressive first step in this new foray with a production rich with gothic references. It's perfect for a tale about lycanthropy. He and cinematographer Daniel Katz do wonders to capture the foreboding, beautiful, and sweeping English landscape, with cool tones drawing out the dark and creepy energy from the story told.” Continuing, “Despite narrative flaws, the look and feel of the film are perfect for a spooky night in. The cinematography really adds to the film's sense of eeriness. This story isn't the flashiest werewolf tale, but it is worth seeing thanks to a fresh perspective. As flawed as the story may be, the story from a child's eyes offers a new and unique entry point for the subgenre.”
Robert Taylor of Collider writes, “The Beast Within, a new werewolf movie starring Game of Thrones' Kit Harington and from director Alexander J. Farrell (a photographer and documentarian making his narrative feature debut), is the latest salvo in proving my theory untrue. Because while there is a werewolf in The Beast Within, it's not a film about a werewolf. Instead, this is a film about an abusive marriage, as told through the eyes of a 10-year-old girl who's finally old enough to start noticing the bruises on her mother's body and the lengths the matriarch will go to keep her family together, even when all signs point to keeping father around being a terrible idea. To be blunt: The movie doesn't work. All credit to Farrell and his co-writer Greer Ellison for having an angle they wanted to explore here and sticking with it. But I can't imagine The Beast Within satisfying many werewolf-movie fans, and its genre trappings and more serious thematic concerns are blended so haphazardly that any grand points it's trying to make about domestic abuse are lost in the shuffle. To make matters worse, the film uses its final scene to so explicitly spell out its already not-so-subtle subtext that it renders the whole enterprise somewhat ludicrous.”
Douglas Davidson of Elements of Madness was less impressed, stating, “As constructed by co-writers Farrell and Greer Taylor Ellison (Making A Killing), who also served as second unit director, the film is through the lens of Willow’s experience. This means lots of hushed conversations as Willow creeps toward them, looking through windows down on the estate courtyard, and a great deal of evidence that leads her and us to a specific conclusion that the script wishes to make, from start to finish, conjecture until proven otherwise. By using Willow as our way in, there’s a barrier between what the audience knows and doesn’t know, requiring us, like her, to use only the information that’s available in our limited capacity. The trick here, smartly crafted by Farrell and Ellison, is that Willow is, herself, an unreliable protagonist by virtue of her age. She doesn’t know things and can’t fully process the information around her, therefore, what we see, hear, and experience is funneled through her understanding.”
No comments:
Post a Comment