Sometimes people make the most foolish of decisions such as leaving their new bride alone on the side of the road in a broken-down car, with nothing in any direction for miles while heading out to get some gas in the middle of the night. Either said bride will sit there and nothing will happen or, as with most horror movies, something terrible will occur. Given the title of the movie and this exact scenario, something exceedingly bad does indeed happen.

The Beast Within, directed by Philippe Mora, was a monster movie released in 1982 and it would feature more than one villain leaving audiences to think about just who was the real monster. Would it be the actual creature as revealed in the final act or would it be those townspeople who knew the cruel and unusual truth of the entire affair and who would hide it for years and years. A case can obviously be made for both, though the monster was just that, at no fault to the man he overtook to be reborn. That particular point makes this film a little more interesting than it might have been otherwise, as the creature can resurrect itself and of course, it too is a thing of horror. The thing that was once a man named Connors, does so through the most violent of acts, that being the raping of a woman and taking over the child’s body when it comes of age. The movie not only begins that way but ends the same and leaves it all with an air of mystery, leaving viewers to wonder if the creature did indeed impregnate the young woman named Amanda or if he was truly defeated.

Mora manages to fill the movie with an atmosphere that leaves one feeling tense as if something is always about to happen even if nothing ever does. Whether it is out on the road late at night, or having the protagonists talk to the local newspaper man or whatever the situation might be, there is always that slight apprehension that something could take place that will lead to horror. As for that horror, the film is filled with it and rarely stops once it gets going. Some of it is elicited through the yokels who are quite slimy and disarmingly creepy in the best of ways for a movie such as this, yet for the most part, there is quite a bit of blood to be had when the murdering gets started and when it comes to a monster movie, the more the better. When practical effects are done well, they are hard to hold a candle to even in this modern age and this movie features some of the best, case in point the creature transformation. When taken as a whole, the blood, the atmosphere, and everything that would spin out of it, this movie had more than enough horror for everybody.

Starring Ronny Cox, Bibi Besch, Paul Clemens and Don Gordon to name a few, The Beast Within would stand out from the other monster films of the 80s due to its intriguing storyline despite any of the familiarities that were to be found within. Watching this may not frighten anyone today as much as it might have when first released but it is still highly entertaining and worth the time to seek it out.

3 out of 5