I really love The Beast Within. It's such an early 80's horror flick with balloon make-up, gratuitous rape scenes, over-the-top backwoods characters, and a big old beastie.
Bibi Besch and Ronny Cox are on their honeymoon when their car goes off the road. Ronny goes out to find some help and Bibi leaves the car to chase the dog. There she meets the beastie, who beats her up and rapes her. Flash forward 17 years and Ronny's and Bibi's son, Michael, is sick. The doctors don't know what's up, so Ronny & Bibi have to go back to the small Louisiana town where the elephant in the room happened to see if they can find out Mike's biological father's medical history. Mike follows them, and that's where the real fun begins, because he starts going a bit nuts, hearing cicadas, and having some serious cravings for meat - the bloodier the better. What's going on with Mike? What is he turning into?
Seriously, it's a bit silly, but what big beastie movie from the 80's isn't? I watched this once before a year or so ago and liked it then, but I think I liked it even better this time around. The make-up is appropriately cheesy, the teeth are bad, and Bibi Besch's wardrobe is almost as good as Faye Dunaway's in The Eyes of Laura Mars. You even have John Dennis Johnston as the dad of Mike's new love interest, playing the part with some serious creepiness. You can't tell if he is just over-protective or just inappropriately involved with his daughter. He does, however, favor a shot gun and wife beaters. Ah, the South. Now I know my dad was a bit overprotective when I started to date, and even joked about bringing a shotgun to the door when the guys would pick me up, but never did he do so drunk and wearing a wife-beater. You can make this out to be a tale of sexual awakening or going through puberty and all that, but why bother? It's fun on its own without looking for any deeper meaning.
Rating: 3 1/2 purrs for the awesomeness that is the big beastie. It's like Kaftka!
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