THE BEAST WITHINThe Greatest Movie Ever
(if you think you are watching a comedy)
This steaming pile of suck scared the living shit out of me back then when I was a pre-teen kid staying up late at the drive-in when I should have been sleeping and so I feel it's only fair that I exact my revenge by dissecting the living shit out of it for the comedy starved masses.
The movie starts out with the tried and true "Oh Crap! The Car Is Stuck! You wait with the abandoned car alone in the dark while I go get help" plot followed by the "Say! Why don't I just chase after my dog in the spooky woods because nothing EVER happens to attractive blond chicks by themselves" plot. I mean in the pale of the moonlight you could actually SEE the foreshadowing!
To avoid the Obvious Plot Twist Trifecta, the writer doesn't have the woman killed by a chainsaw wielding madman with a hockey mask. Instead, the woman is assaulted by some random horny and conveniently naked man beast (ummm yeah sure let's just go with that...makes total sense)...and he puts his beast within her...annnnnnd then we skip ahead 17 years to find the bi-product of the beast with two backs is sick. Why 17 years? It has something to do with cicadas. Cicadas you say? Yes. Cicadas. Anyway, the offspring of the Beast Master is sick and the doctors can't figure out why.
(Editor's note : It may be that the kid is sick from the stench of this script...)
The father realizes that the only way to save his son is to go back to the scene of the crime 17 years prior, and see if they can find the rapist who was never caught and who is sure to want to help them and um...stuff. So they start asking the locals about the one murder that happened over the last 17 years because more than likely it is connected to a rape in the woods (and perhaps a walk in the park). This is where we meet the sharp-as-a-tack Sheriff who utters perhaps the greatest lines ever uttered in a movie.
I mean this is actual dialogue from the film...and the guy is completely calm when talking to this person about some mouth rape that happened somewhere. This dialogue was necessary somehow?
*ahem* Their sick kid back home has some kind of wet dream nightmare and then hightails it to the same town his parents are at. He visits the haunted root cellar from his dreams, before going and killing some random guy because the sound of the cicadas drives him crazy. (huh?) Then ends up delirious and covered in blood at some random chick's doorstep who then helps him without asking a single question. I don't know if it's the blonde hair or the fact that we're in the South...but the first tell-tale sign that someone is evil and you should stay away from them is that they SHOW UP AT YOUR DOOR STEP WITH BLOOD ALL OVER THEIR SHIRT! We'll call this Nonsensical Moment # 1...
The kid is taken to the hospital and then breaks out of there to go see the chick while the parents are all like "We're stupid and don't question why you are here and covered with blood". So he gets the chick to take a walk and then he "collapses" because he hears the sound of the cicadas (WTF???) and then gets her down on the ground WITH him so they can make out (wait that move works?!??!). However the moment is ruined when the second tell-tale sign that the person you are making out with may have....a beast within....occurs. Yeah that would be when your golden retriever retrieves a human hand from the area nearby.
The parents for both kids show up, as does the Sheriff's department...and everyone leaves...except the boy's father who says he's going to "stick around" for seemingly no good reason whatsoever. Um....why? Your kid is the only reason you have to be here and he just left! Hello! That's when the Sheriff and his two deputies are digging up the body and the Sheriff leads us to Completely Nonsensical Moment # 2...
yeahbutwhaaaaa?? The guy is a complete stranger, has nothing to do with the crime scene in any fashion except his son happened to be there when the body part was found...and oh yeah. HE'S A CIVILIAN! HELLO! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING? Alright fuck it...let's just move on.
So the kid starts talking to the local village idiot and begins to tell him that it's him...his best friend from 17 years ago. Aha! A plot twist! He starts talking about the Cirwins and how he is going to kill them all or something. I dunno...I don't think I was paying much attention at this point. I'm still trying to figure the fucking cicada thing out. Anyway...sooooo he then goes and kills one of these Cirwin family members who is somehow connected to some conspiracy which is mentioned vaguely here...and then the Sheriff shows up with the town doctor and the boy's father (also known as the NOT DEPUTIES) and discover the newest dead body. Ummmm.... shouldn't you be looking for that rapist in the woods so you can save your son? What happened to that plot point? And why would the Sheriff take the civilian to question a suspect about the 37 bodies they found? (37? In a row?) No wait...then it gets better because the wife shows up and tells the father that their son is missing so they think, of course, that he must be at the blond girl's house in the middle of the night! Well ok in all fairness he was there but still! How would you know to even GO there? and how did the wife know her husband was at the funeral home?!?!?!? This is 1982...it's not like you had cell phones back then to call each other on!!!
And that's when we get the third tell-tale sign of the apocalypse boyfriend. He's trying to kill you with a snow-globe. Am I right? Huh? Am I? I mean the girl wakes up to find the kid she doesn't barely even know, in her room, in the dark, standing over her holding a snow-globe in a menacing way...But I'm sure it means nothing....
Meanwhile the parents and the Sheriff are at the door talking to the girl's father and she wakes up and is screaming at the sight of this ugly kid standing over her "admiring" her snow-globe collection. So the Sheriff arrests him for attempted murder, trespassing, and breaking and entering. HAAHAHAHAHA!! Nooooo. Sadly, no....he didn't. The boy explains that he was there to protect her because of all the murders happening. Oh that's completely plausible....I believe him...
So then the boy goes back to the hospital where the doc notices an ominous bandage on the back of the innocent murderer's neck and decides to check it out. The boy flips out and smashes the Doctor's head into the wall and then goes and kills his best friend by dropping him on a transformer. They didn't explain why he is killed but I am sure he had a valid reason....owed him $20 for a football bet or something...17 years...that's a lot of interest....
The Sheriff checks out the power plant because of the mysterious loss of power (because that's the first thing police do when you lose power is to check for a murder) and then they go to see the Doctor, whom is talking to the parents calmly about Billy Conners for reasons I have yet to figure out except that it pushes the locust plot ahead a few steps. The Doc mentions Billy's love of the woods and how it was said that he could talk to bugs (hello! cicadas!) and that they would even talk back. So I guess that is how the locusts figure in... ::shrugs:: The Sheriff says "We want to talk to your son" while COMPLETELY ignoring the BLOOD SOAKED BANDAGE on the Doc's head. Nahhh...We gotta talk to him about that dang power outage!
Where could he be?!??!? (Hint : Check the girl's house) This time though, he is trying to warn her to leave and drive far far away because she is in danger....until she cuts herself and the blood drives him into a hungry blood rage! Which leads us to the fourth tell-tale sign that mmmmaybe you should run the fuck away from this person as fast as possible. Yep. He tries to kill her. Again.
But wait! He recovers his humanity long enough to run through the second floor balcony railing and fall to the ground below in an effort to save her (here's a hint...try STAYING AWAY FROM HER). He awakens in the Doc's office. Is he in handcuffs yet? Nope. Aw hail no! Anyway....the father, Sheriff and Deputy leave to go check out the ominous root cellar because the boy tells them to (sure why not...got nothing better to do besides solve 40 murders 'n stuff....), meanwhile the girl's father talks to his cousin (the judge) saying he has to kill the boy to protect his daughter. The Judge says he could use the other murders as a cover-up (oooh sneaky!). Meantime, the girl FINALLY GETS THE HINT THAT SHE SHOULD LEAVE and takes off in her truck from the Doctor's office. Yes. She was with him at the Doc's office because she STILL HASN'T GOTTEN THE HINT THAT HE IS EVIL DESPITE THE FACT THAT HE HAS TRIED TO KILL HER AT LEAST TWICE. The girl's father then shows up with the Judge (wait what?) to kill the kid. Doesn't that ruin his chances of reelection being as he is present for the murder which is happening to take place in front of TWO WITNESSES (the Doc and the mom)??? This movie is really starting to give me a fucking headache. Anyway, so the kid starts flipping out right as the girl's dad and the judge walk in (and the judge says he tried to stop him.....so much for his alibi I guess). Anyway, the transformation scene is ON!
First...he starts swelling up...and kinda looks like a horrible horrible blow up doll you would by at a ghetto sex shop.
...never mind...
Then his head starts to swell. I mean he starts to look like a combination of a Garbage Pail Kid and Stewie from Family Guy....
Now what fascinates me is that these four people are standing there watching the whole thing and yet no one thinks...gee...maybe I should get the flying fuck out of here. Maybe it's because of the vagina he has growing on his back....
Anyway it's like five minutes later and the guy finally decides that maybe it's time to shoot him twice, which of course does not affect him and the girl's dad is killed. The mom and Doc hightail it out of there and the beast without busts through the wall and into the woods. Fast forward and the Judge gets it too....and then what makes the least sense to do? Right! Let's do that! Let's track the beast into the woods in the dark. So the parents, the doctor, the Sheriff and the Deputy all head out into the woods where they find the girl's dad dead...and the shed skin of the son. Not even a scream from the mother! WTF!
Meantime the chick who finally ran away runs into a well lit construction zone and is knocked unconscious. She wakes up to find what looks to be E.T. fapping one out on her passenger side window.
She makes a run for it and knocks herself out and then it's time for a cockmeat sandwhich....or as I like to call it...Tell-Tale Sign #5 that this boy is not going to marry you, IE: Raping you after he turns into something that looks like The Fly. The search party ends up finding the body of the girl (presumably knocked up so we can have a sequel 17 years from now) and the parents press on and find their son shuddering and convulsing on the ground having just spilled his man gravy. The "beast" then attacks the father and the Mother blows his head off. Where the hell is everyone else? Oh there they are!
Yes! Time for the end scene where they explain the dangling plot lines! Um...Why are they...Why are they rolling the credits? What do you mean this is the end of the movie?!?!?!? What was with the locust references??? Did the girl have a baby with insect wings? And what happened to the oral sodomy victim?!?!?!? GARRRR!!!!!! I would come up with a better ending to this review but since the filmmakers didn't see fit to give me an ending, you get screwed too. :P
The movie starts out with the tried and true "Oh Crap! The Car Is Stuck! You wait with the abandoned car alone in the dark while I go get help" plot followed by the "Say! Why don't I just chase after my dog in the spooky woods because nothing EVER happens to attractive blond chicks by themselves" plot. I mean in the pale of the moonlight you could actually SEE the foreshadowing!
To avoid the Obvious Plot Twist Trifecta, the writer doesn't have the woman killed by a chainsaw wielding madman with a hockey mask. Instead, the woman is assaulted by some random horny and conveniently naked man beast (ummm yeah sure let's just go with that...makes total sense)...and he puts his beast within her...annnnnnd then we skip ahead 17 years to find the bi-product of the beast with two backs is sick. Why 17 years? It has something to do with cicadas. Cicadas you say? Yes. Cicadas. Anyway, the offspring of the Beast Master is sick and the doctors can't figure out why.
(Editor's note : It may be that the kid is sick from the stench of this script...)
The father realizes that the only way to save his son is to go back to the scene of the crime 17 years prior, and see if they can find the rapist who was never caught and who is sure to want to help them and um...stuff. So they start asking the locals about the one murder that happened over the last 17 years because more than likely it is connected to a rape in the woods (and perhaps a walk in the park). This is where we meet the sharp-as-a-tack Sheriff who utters perhaps the greatest lines ever uttered in a movie.
I mean this is actual dialogue from the film...and the guy is completely calm when talking to this person about some mouth rape that happened somewhere. This dialogue was necessary somehow?
*ahem* Their sick kid back home has some kind of wet dream nightmare and then hightails it to the same town his parents are at. He visits the haunted root cellar from his dreams, before going and killing some random guy because the sound of the cicadas drives him crazy. (huh?) Then ends up delirious and covered in blood at some random chick's doorstep who then helps him without asking a single question. I don't know if it's the blonde hair or the fact that we're in the South...but the first tell-tale sign that someone is evil and you should stay away from them is that they SHOW UP AT YOUR DOOR STEP WITH BLOOD ALL OVER THEIR SHIRT! We'll call this Nonsensical Moment # 1...
The kid is taken to the hospital and then breaks out of there to go see the chick while the parents are all like "We're stupid and don't question why you are here and covered with blood". So he gets the chick to take a walk and then he "collapses" because he hears the sound of the cicadas (WTF???) and then gets her down on the ground WITH him so they can make out (wait that move works?!??!). However the moment is ruined when the second tell-tale sign that the person you are making out with may have....a beast within....occurs. Yeah that would be when your golden retriever retrieves a human hand from the area nearby.
The parents for both kids show up, as does the Sheriff's department...and everyone leaves...except the boy's father who says he's going to "stick around" for seemingly no good reason whatsoever. Um....why? Your kid is the only reason you have to be here and he just left! Hello! That's when the Sheriff and his two deputies are digging up the body and the Sheriff leads us to Completely Nonsensical Moment # 2...
yeahbutwhaaaaa?? The guy is a complete stranger, has nothing to do with the crime scene in any fashion except his son happened to be there when the body part was found...and oh yeah. HE'S A CIVILIAN! HELLO! WHAT THE HELL ARE YOU THINKING? Alright fuck it...let's just move on.So the kid starts talking to the local village idiot and begins to tell him that it's him...his best friend from 17 years ago. Aha! A plot twist! He starts talking about the Cirwins and how he is going to kill them all or something. I dunno...I don't think I was paying much attention at this point. I'm still trying to figure the fucking cicada thing out. Anyway...sooooo he then goes and kills one of these Cirwin family members who is somehow connected to some conspiracy which is mentioned vaguely here...and then the Sheriff shows up with the town doctor and the boy's father (also known as the NOT DEPUTIES) and discover the newest dead body. Ummmm.... shouldn't you be looking for that rapist in the woods so you can save your son? What happened to that plot point? And why would the Sheriff take the civilian to question a suspect about the 37 bodies they found? (37? In a row?) No wait...then it gets better because the wife shows up and tells the father that their son is missing so they think, of course, that he must be at the blond girl's house in the middle of the night! Well ok in all fairness he was there but still! How would you know to even GO there? and how did the wife know her husband was at the funeral home?!?!?!? This is 1982...it's not like you had cell phones back then to call each other on!!!
And that's when we get the third tell-tale sign of the apocalypse boyfriend. He's trying to kill you with a snow-globe. Am I right? Huh? Am I? I mean the girl wakes up to find the kid she doesn't barely even know, in her room, in the dark, standing over her holding a snow-globe in a menacing way...But I'm sure it means nothing....
Meanwhile the parents and the Sheriff are at the door talking to the girl's father and she wakes up and is screaming at the sight of this ugly kid standing over her "admiring" her snow-globe collection. So the Sheriff arrests him for attempted murder, trespassing, and breaking and entering. HAAHAHAHAHA!! Nooooo. Sadly, no....he didn't. The boy explains that he was there to protect her because of all the murders happening. Oh that's completely plausible....I believe him...
So then the boy goes back to the hospital where the doc notices an ominous bandage on the back of the innocent murderer's neck and decides to check it out. The boy flips out and smashes the Doctor's head into the wall and then goes and kills his best friend by dropping him on a transformer. They didn't explain why he is killed but I am sure he had a valid reason....owed him $20 for a football bet or something...17 years...that's a lot of interest....
The Sheriff checks out the power plant because of the mysterious loss of power (because that's the first thing police do when you lose power is to check for a murder) and then they go to see the Doctor, whom is talking to the parents calmly about Billy Conners for reasons I have yet to figure out except that it pushes the locust plot ahead a few steps. The Doc mentions Billy's love of the woods and how it was said that he could talk to bugs (hello! cicadas!) and that they would even talk back. So I guess that is how the locusts figure in... ::shrugs:: The Sheriff says "We want to talk to your son" while COMPLETELY ignoring the BLOOD SOAKED BANDAGE on the Doc's head. Nahhh...We gotta talk to him about that dang power outage!
Where could he be?!??!? (Hint : Check the girl's house) This time though, he is trying to warn her to leave and drive far far away because she is in danger....until she cuts herself and the blood drives him into a hungry blood rage! Which leads us to the fourth tell-tale sign that mmmmaybe you should run the fuck away from this person as fast as possible. Yep. He tries to kill her. Again.
But wait! He recovers his humanity long enough to run through the second floor balcony railing and fall to the ground below in an effort to save her (here's a hint...try STAYING AWAY FROM HER). He awakens in the Doc's office. Is he in handcuffs yet? Nope. Aw hail no! Anyway....the father, Sheriff and Deputy leave to go check out the ominous root cellar because the boy tells them to (sure why not...got nothing better to do besides solve 40 murders 'n stuff....), meanwhile the girl's father talks to his cousin (the judge) saying he has to kill the boy to protect his daughter. The Judge says he could use the other murders as a cover-up (oooh sneaky!). Meantime, the girl FINALLY GETS THE HINT THAT SHE SHOULD LEAVE and takes off in her truck from the Doctor's office. Yes. She was with him at the Doc's office because she STILL HASN'T GOTTEN THE HINT THAT HE IS EVIL DESPITE THE FACT THAT HE HAS TRIED TO KILL HER AT LEAST TWICE. The girl's father then shows up with the Judge (wait what?) to kill the kid. Doesn't that ruin his chances of reelection being as he is present for the murder which is happening to take place in front of TWO WITNESSES (the Doc and the mom)??? This movie is really starting to give me a fucking headache. Anyway, so the kid starts flipping out right as the girl's dad and the judge walk in (and the judge says he tried to stop him.....so much for his alibi I guess). Anyway, the transformation scene is ON!
First...he starts swelling up...and kinda looks like a horrible horrible blow up doll you would by at a ghetto sex shop.
I mean the only thing missing is a penis here....
...never mind...Then his face starts pulsating and he looks more like Eric Stoltz from the movie Mask...
Then his head starts to swell. I mean he starts to look like a combination of a Garbage Pail Kid and Stewie from Family Guy....
Now what fascinates me is that these four people are standing there watching the whole thing and yet no one thinks...gee...maybe I should get the flying fuck out of here. Maybe it's because of the vagina he has growing on his back....
Or is it a hemorrhoid?
Anyway it's like five minutes later and the guy finally decides that maybe it's time to shoot him twice, which of course does not affect him and the girl's dad is killed. The mom and Doc hightail it out of there and the beast without busts through the wall and into the woods. Fast forward and the Judge gets it too....and then what makes the least sense to do? Right! Let's do that! Let's track the beast into the woods in the dark. So the parents, the doctor, the Sheriff and the Deputy all head out into the woods where they find the girl's dad dead...and the shed skin of the son. Not even a scream from the mother! WTF!
Meantime the chick who finally ran away runs into a well lit construction zone and is knocked unconscious. She wakes up to find what looks to be E.T. fapping one out on her passenger side window.
She makes a run for it and knocks herself out and then it's time for a cockmeat sandwhich....or as I like to call it...Tell-Tale Sign #5 that this boy is not going to marry you, IE: Raping you after he turns into something that looks like The Fly. The search party ends up finding the body of the girl (presumably knocked up so we can have a sequel 17 years from now) and the parents press on and find their son shuddering and convulsing on the ground having just spilled his man gravy. The "beast" then attacks the father and the Mother blows his head off. Where the hell is everyone else? Oh there they are!
Yes! Time for the end scene where they explain the dangling plot lines! Um...Why are they...Why are they rolling the credits? What do you mean this is the end of the movie?!?!?!? What was with the locust references??? Did the girl have a baby with insect wings? And what happened to the oral sodomy victim?!?!?!? GARRRR!!!!!! I would come up with a better ending to this review but since the filmmakers didn't see fit to give me an ending, you get screwed too. :P
