‘The Beast Within,’ The Worst Date Ever

I just watched The Beast Within again. I’ve seen it before but not when it was first released in 1982 because I was way too young and not allowed to watch R-rated movies (unlike my wife who had full access to HBO when she was a kid, lucky girl). The Beast Within is a strange, strange horror movie but certainly original for the time period of mostly slasher horror films inspired by Friday the 13th. I think the fact that it was trying to be original made it more of a cult classic than a huge box office success. It was based on a novel so I’m not sure if the book was any better.

When you watch it again, you will get a mixture of horror and some special effects that throw you out of the moment–it’s still a worthwhile horror film though. The way Mississippi is portrayed is scary enough, but the actor who plays Michael MacCleary, the affected teenager who somehow has a beast emerging from inside of him, is pretty creepy even without makeup effects. He is attracted to a small town girl in Mississippi  named Amanda who is dominated by an overbearing father and you think she would run from him, but being that her self-confidence has been twisted by her father she seems to return his advances.

The plot is a little hard to follow, which is why I might actually pick up the book to see if it makes more sense. Basically, Michael’s mother is raped at the beginning of the film by someone who was forced to eat the flesh of dead people and also was in tune with nature. What that all means is left somewhat to the imagination as we have to assume this thing is in tune with the 17-year-old life cycle of certain broods of cicadas (according to Wiki). Highly original idea, the execution just wasn’t great.

SPOILER ALERT

After Michael MacCleary transforms into whatever it is that he is  a cicada-human?), he rapes Amanda, but it’s little hard to take seriously as it is like a Japanese monster raping someone in a bug-eyed costume. I would say the worst date ever only she was technically trying to drive away from him even as she wanted to stay with him.

The Beast Within was one of those movies where I clipped the newspaper ad because I just kept wondering what the R-rating was hiding. What was the beast within? I’m sure as a kid this move would have enthralled me. It’s still not a bad movie looking at it as an adult, but when you’re a kid these kinds of horror films have an effect on you. Especially when you consider that transformation films often are horrific parodies of adolescence.