Review of The Beast Within (1982) by Chris P — 22 Oct 2008

Caught this weird little horror gem on IFC, and it just goes to show how wacky some of the shit made in the 80s was. A man-beast rapes a woman who has a son that eventually turns into a man-beast. Simple, right? Most of the time the film feels more like The Exorcist than a genuine creature feature. I couldn't tell if the kid was possessed by his illegitimate dad, turning into a werewolf, both, or neither. It doesn't matter, because it's all pretty interesting and acted well enough before the shit really hits the fan and the movie becomes a worthy watch.

Turns out it wasn't a werewolf, but possibly a were-cicada. At least the creature makes cicada sounds, but kind of looks like the retarded son of the creature from the black lagoon. There's a really long, gooey, and admittedly quite groovy transformation sequence which leads into the pulse-pounding (okay, not so much, but it's a solid 10 minutes) finale. The were-cicada rips off a head (the effects here are top-notch), then (thankfully) quickly rapes a girl before going out with a bang.

It's quite obvious that a sequel was being set up here, but it never came to be, and that's almost a shame.