‘The Beast Within’ Review – Kit Harington’s Werewolf Horror Film Strives And Struggles For More

What would you do if your parent was a monster? More pressingly, what would it mean, to the life you’ve lived thus far and your future?

That is the question The Beast Within asks of Willow (Caoillinn Springall), a sickly 10-year-old girl living in the English countryside with her parents, Noah (Kit Harington) and Imogen (Ashleigh Cummings). Their quiet, sheltered life is brutally upended when Willow follows Noah and Imogen on a late-night trip out into the woods, curious and confused about what happens out there and why Noah seems so out-of-sorts afterward. She discovers that night the deep, dark secret they’ve been hiding her entire life: Noah is a werewolf. Willow’s world is understandably shaken, and she must recontextualize everything she once knew: her parents’ relationship, her grandfather Waylon’s (James Cosmo) volatile presence, and her own physical agency. The greatest and presumably consequential variable is Willow’s relationship with her occasionally feral pup. The preteen is left scrambling to determine if Noah is a genuine threat or not-so-simply misunderstood. 

The Beast Within is solid monster horror, building its most effective tension and unease through what we don’t see rather than what we do. Filmmaker Alexander J. Farrell is particularly fond of disrupting the intimate idyll of his characters’ rustic living with a disquieting jump cut or a blast of sound. It works best when it isn’t tied to Noah’s transformations but rather as a consequence of the family’s deliberate isolationism. It gives the film a palpable sense of paranoia that slots pretty well with Willow’s childlike naivete and subsequent expedited adolescence. A hefty portion of that atmosphere dissipates when we get a decent look at Noah as the werewolf. (It’s ironic, given its US release date, but Noah looks more like a, well, wolverine than a wolf-human hybrid.)

Farrell has more on his mind than the latest cinematic approximation of werewolves, though. The Beast Within primarily concerns itself with the human costs of the supernatural, specifically how the horrors of such impact a child’s development. It is a worthy interrogation. The film’s best moment is a harrowing conversation between Noah and Willow about their family’s lineage, which outlines and foreshadows his failings. What hobbles the effort is the central family’s lack of scope and depth. Farrell and co-screenwriter Greer Taylor Ellison spend little time establishing a baseline for who these characters are and what their relationships are like, which makes it difficult to invest in how the exposure of Noah’s secret disrupts their lives. After the reveal, the film offers numerous flashbacks of the family at happier times as it barrels to its third act, but it feels too little, too late. 

The lack of foundational work leaves The Beast Within’s thematic conclusions feeling hollow. Through its flashbacks and the final showdown between human and monster, the film suggests that Noah’s feral nature was inevitable and that redemption was never an option. It’s an understandable takeaway, although not especially novel or terribly interesting. Farrell’s point is lost in his inability to explore his characters beyond a surface level. Is Noah’s angst about his true nature genuine, or is it a carefully constructed ruse for whatever reason? The film doesn’t think to ask, but that doesn’t mean the question doesn’t linger through the film’s sparse runtime. Worse, the thin characterization leaves its brief touch on domestic, gender-based violence muddled when it could’ve been incisive. It’s a shame because the cast gives good performances, with Kit Harington in particular delivering real warmth, conflict, and menace as Noah.

The Beast Within yearns to be more than a small-scale monster horror flick, desiring to explore challenging, interesting ideas about identity, family, and even free will. However, the film’s budgetary and narrative constraints keep it from achieving its loftier ambitions. The film is a fair entry into the monster film canon, but its prestige yearnings roar louder than Kit Harington ever could.

The Beast Within will open exclusively in theaters on July 26, 2024, courtesy of Well Go USA Entertainment.