THE BEAST WITHIN (2024)

3 stars

Signature Entertainment. Digital Platforms. 19th August

Young ten year old Willow (Caoilinn Springall) has an unspecified lung issue which means that she periodically needs to use an oxygen tank. She lives with her parents in a remote, run down farmhouse in the middle of a forest. The film was shot in and around the historic Harewood Woods and Castle in West Yorkshire. Because of her illness she spends much of her time indoors.

Mum Imogen (Ashleigh Cummings) is struggling to keep the peace and the family unit together. Tensions are often close to the surface as Willow’s grandfather Waylon (James Cosmo) tries to help Imogen keep the family secret hidden. Willow overhears conversations about her father Noah (Kit Harrington) and eventually curiosity gets the better of her and one night she discovers the truth about her Dad and his transformation into the beast of the title…

Is this really a werewolf movie though or a psychological horror masquerading as a monster movie?Told from Willow’s point of view, there is talk of a supernatural familial curse but is this actually masking the true nature of Noah’s issues? Slow moving, the film attempts to be folkloric in nature, and is well shot Daniel Katz – often with an almost fairytale ambience. Performances are good, especially by the young Springall. However the filmmakers – director Alexander J. Farrell, who co-wrote the ambiguous script with Greer Ellison – are more interested in building a mood than out and out horror and the metaphor at the centre of the drama is poorly implemented and vaguely presented, being more about inference than clarity. Willow is seen playing with figures and models made from matchsticks which represent where she lives – is she influencing events somehow or is the central idea actually just her way of coping with what she has witnessed about her father?

Steve Kirkham