The Beast within (1982)

Let me start by saying, this movie is pretty good but barely made it in my reviews.  The plot of the movie is really neat: Husband's wife gets attacked and raped by some type of weird creature.  Wife gets pregnant.  17 years later, wife's son is experiencing some inner changes he has little control over.  I love the plot, I do.  The movie starts out very cool but settles into the all-to-familiar rhythm of nothing really happening.  Still though, I will say this, there is enough plot twists and unexpected happenings to make the audience WANT to finish the movie.  Personally, I really like this film.  Never really got great ratings, but it is a great period movie of the very early 80's.  The movie almost has a made-for-TV feel with an excellent, over-the-top soundtrack that adds to the overall atmosphere.

There are not any really notable actors in this movie except for the lead played by the great, Ronny Cox.  He is known, of course, for his roles in Robocop, Total Recall, Deliverance, and Beverly Hills Cop.  With that being said, the acting is good but there are a lot of cliched moments of ignorance and oblivion from the characters.  This leads to a lot of gaps in the plot that you just have to roll with.

While this movie, by no means, is a classic (it fell under my radar for years) it has moments of coolness but no real terror.  As with other transformation-centered films of this era, this movie relies on some really good special effects as well as a fantastic climatic showcase of these effects.  If you ever watch this movie more than once, you will find yourself wanting to skip to the awesome transformation sequence near the end.  Reminiscent of The Howling, the special effects are really cool, but ultimately fail in the area of any true terror.

This movie wants to be terrifying and it tries hard but misses the mark.  However, you have to see it at least once because it is pretty cool.  This movie lies somewhere between an old school mystery, slasher, and werewolf movie. Overall, the final special effect scenes involving transformation and pretty cool kill scenes allow it to slide into a review spot.