With 2024’s The Beast Within, we get an “art house” approach to horror. This one brings an update on the werewolf legend.

10-year-old Willow Avery (Caoilinn Springall) lives with her father Noah (Kit Harington), mother Imogen (Ashleigh Cummings) and maternal grandfather Waylon (James Cosmo) in a remote English location. Though largely content, Willow finds herself befuddled by Noah’s periodic and regular absences.

Eventually Willow decides to follow her parents on a late-night journey into the forest. There she learns that her dad harbors a deep and deadly secret.

Spoiler alert: he’s a werewolf! Well, maybe, as Beast leans so strongly on all its characters and contexts for metaphors that it becomes uncertain whether or not Noah literally suffers from lycanthrophy.

Due to my preferred avoidance of spoilers, I won’t indicate on what side of this “debate” I fall. I will say that much of the film acts as an allegory for issues related to domestic violence.

Now whether or not that becomes the entirety of the tale remains in the eye of the beholder. But the filmmakers clearly want viewers to see Noah as abusive and “the beast within” as the curse of learned behavior handed down from generation to generation.

In more competent hands, Beast could riff on these topics in a vivid manner. In this case, however, the end product becomes a dull mess.

I refer to the film as a “mess” mainly because it seems to want to have it both ways. Beast desires to paint a picture of toxic masculinity while it also engages in a monster movie.

These elements feel forced and don’t connect well. Beast relies on too many cheap tropes for it to elevate its genre.

This means we find plenty of ominous and over the top music along with lots of “jump scares”. Also, when we see a character with asthma, it becomes inevitable that this will attempt tension at some point.

The actors offer competent performances, with young Springall best of the bunch. She manages to sell her character’s journey well.

Unfortunately, Beast just ends up as a slow and unsatisfying 97 minutes of horror mixed with domestic drama. It enjoys the bones of a good movie but its follow-through doesn’t satisfy.

The Beast Within appears in an aspect ratio of 2.35:1 on this Blu-ray Disc. This became a positive presentation.

Sharpness looked solid. A few lower-light shots were slightly soft, but not to a substantial degree, so most of the movie seemed accurate and concise.

No jagged edges or shimmering occurred, and I saw no edge haloes. Source flaws were a non-factor, as the movie stayed clean.

Like most modern flicks, Beast favored a decided teal and amber/orange palette. Within these parameters, the colors appeared solid.

Blacks seemed deep and tight, while shadows were smooth and well-delineated. In the end, the transfer proved to be appealing.

I also felt positive about the pretty good DTS-HD MA 5.1 soundtrack of Beast. Given the nature of the story, moody environmental information dominated the mix.

These elements filled out the speakers in a fairly involving manner. The movie didn’t become a constant whiz-bang soundfield, but it created a decent sense of place.

The more active “scare moments” used the spectrum in the most dynamic manner, but they failed to appear on a frequent basis. Instead, music and moody ambience became the most prominent components.

Audio quality was fine. Speech seemed natural and concise. Effects depicted the elements with acceptable accuracy and boasted pleasing low-end when necessary.

Music showed positive clarity and range, and they also packed solid bass response at times. This was a perfectly positive mix for the material.

The disc opens with ads for Before Dawn, Ride and Sting. We also get a trailer for Beast.

Sold as a horror movie, The Beast Within really leans more toward allegory and domestic drama. It fails to meld its sides in a compelling manner and winds up as a sluggish and patience-taxing tale. The Blu-ray comes with positive picture and audio but it lacks bonus materials. I admire the goals of Beast but the execution flops.