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Alexander J. Farrell’s newest film is a heavy and heady dose of lingering family trauma, CTPSD, and the betrayal of trust.

What begins as a peek into a small English family making due tucked away in isolation in the English countryside slowly unravels into a tale of the tug-o-war between keeping the family together and staying alive.

Willow (Caoilinn Springall) is holed up in her expansive bedroom, well-worn by time and cluttered with an array of trinket toys, her oxygen tank and a diorama of their home and land. Her attention is drawn to a murmured conversation regarding her father Noah (Kit Harrington) between her mother Imogen (Ashleigh Cummings) and her grandfather Waylon (James Cosmo). She watches as her mother helps her seemingly ailing father, swathed in a fur cloak, into their car, along with a pig as they head out on a trek deeper into the countryside. Waylon worries about his daughter, noting that Noah “gets worse” every time.

One would think its a cry for the help he looks to truly need, but this is an ordinary trip made, by the light of the full moon. Every month, like clockwork. The following morning her father returns, worse for the wear, weaker in showing kindness and presence but all the more quick tempered and unnerving.

Having enough of the secretive stroll out to the woods, Willow follows her parents to a far off clearing with a crumbling structure and it’s there that she bears witness to the true terror of her father and her mother’s desperation to keep it a secret.

The Beast Within is such a stark metaphor for the lengths some will go to keep the worst things hidden, in the name of love, in the quest for secrecy and in the shadow of shame. Imogen is hell-bent on protecting her child from the knowledge of her father’s true nature and torn between staying with him and caring for him because, well, vows are vows. Harrington is down-right creepy as the conflicted Noah, his voice climbing dynamics, cutting the silence with a sharp knife. James Cosmo and Ashleigh Cummings play excellently as the doting and frustrated father, watching his daughter Imogen balance the knife’s edge of dangerous domesticity and the danger her daughter’s life can fall in without proper oxygen.

Caoilinn Springall is wonderfully expressive as Willow and is heart-breaking to watch as she tries to decipher the truth from all the adults that surround her and having to navigate the horrific parameters of a violent household.

A deeply personal film for Farrell, he is in hopes that “…this film will not only engage and terrify but also evoke empathy and discussion among a diverse audience, encouraging a deeper understanding of the real horrors that can pervade everyday life.”

About The Beast Within
Written by Greer Taylor Ellison and Alexander J. Farrell
Directed by Alexander J. Farrell
Produced by Future Artists Entertainment, Paradox House, Thriker Films, Pastis Pictures, Filmology Finance and Ill Luxury
Dist: Arclight Films, Universal Pictures and Well Go USA Entertainment
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