On The Beast Within: Violence's Place in an Inescapable Heredity

   Across werewolf media, there tends to be a heavy trend towards the idea of lycanthropy as a generational curse, something passed down by tragedy along a bloodline. It is violence borne of violence, only truly able to be staggered or brought to an end by death. This view of the monsters posits an interesting take on the idea of family, abuse, and cycles; as a monster often operating on phases of the moon, both the metaphor and literal reading of being beholden to a cycle is glaringly obvious. The Beast Within, a 1982 movie following the visceral transformation of a 17-year-old Michael from seemingly human into something fated to become violent, explores this thoroughly, utilizing the 'werewolf' as a metaphor for the cycle of abuse and the miserable tendency to become one's father.

   Michael, throughout the course of the film, is plagued by his heredity; it's something othering him in a very literal sense, the horror of transformation and growing pains taken to asick new level, as well as his father's status as a monster on account of his violence. There is an inherent, deeply shameful, monstrosity to being a child by rape; the knowledge you'll never be your 'father' (the one who raised and adore you)'s son, that no matter how much your mother dotes on you and you are hers you are, ultimately, born from her torture. Michael's conception remains a point of resentment for his otherwise-doting father, who initially refuses to acknowledge what had happened; he claims Michael is his own, and loves him as such. It is here that another poignant point is made; that those within the world do not initially see the rapist as a literal monster, but rather refer to him over the course of the film as 'the man' who assaulted Michael's mother. This creates an interesting dichotomy and sows seeds of doubt in the film's world; there is a tendency to warp and misremember the features of someone who assaulted you when recalling it, and from this spawns a wide variety of stories of monsters sexually assaulting or otherwise harming humans. There is an internal refusal to believe in the capacity of someone who's truly human to commit an act deemed so heinous and dehumanizing. The idea of dehumanization plays in here twofold. There's the dehumanization of the victim in wounding them in such a deeply personal and violating way that separates them, even if for a moment, from agency and personhood. Then there is the dehumanization of the perpetrator in enacting such violence; the acting of a taboo, the disgrace of your own humanity in a brazen lack of empathy and full actualization of such a sickening capacity for harm. The victim is made inhuman by being subject to abuse and the perpetrator loses their humanity by becoming the abuser. This makes for an interesting potential narrative; what if the victim were to become a werewolf instead? But that's an entirely different story.

   We have now ascertained, first, that Michael's biological father is a monster- whether that be literal or figurative entirely depends on how you'd like to read the film. This could be just another creature feature, but the depth added from this angle makes it all the more compelling. Lycanthropy in The Beast Within is the cycle of violence realized, operating on the principle that violence breeds violence. It's a secret deemed dirty, as abuses often are; shame is the name of the game in both concealing (as is done by casting the 'beast' into the cellar) and perpetuating it. Michael isn't only a representation of this cycle; he embodies it, falls prey to his own 'beasthood' as much as any of his victims. He is consciously aware, at a certain point, of the nature of his conception; his father's violence lives in him, and he is made painfully, uncomfortably, aware of that by those around him. He's at first slighted as the child of a beast, and as it is so often the case, those slights become a self-fulfilling prophecy. The principle of stereotype threat rears its ugly head. Michael begins to fully recognize his capacity for violence, and begs to be killed for it; he fears what he's capable of, what he's potentially doomed to re-enact. He wishes to fight the beast within him once he's realized its potency. It is at the beginning of the end, his ultimate descent and grotesque physical deformation into something mirroring his father's depravity, does he fight the hardest against it. The cyclical nature of Michael's story is consummated in a gutwrenching sequence perfectly matching the ominous leadup to Michael's mother's rape- the son truly, finally, horrifically becoming the father. We, as the audience, watch with mounting disgust as his quarry, a young woman named Amanda with whom he wished to undo his 'curse' and return to normalcy with, trips and falls prone- exactly as his mother did 17 years prior. Michael strips her as his father did his mother, but what happens next is cut to black; Amanda is recovered, albeit naked and bloody. The cycle is 'complete' and Michael, sweet 17 year old Michael, has crossed the threshold to become irredeemable.

   Ultimately, it's his adopted father, his mother's husband, the one who loved and raised him as his own that, that kills him. He wanted nothing more than for Michael to be his child, and in a way, it is a father stepping in to end the cycle his darling son has been entrenched in. The Beast Within is above all else, a tragedy; the tragedy of 'you have become your father, so you cannot be my son'. Michael is a victim tangled up in this as well. He fights with everything he can against the shame and cruelty he's inherited, but like so many of us, he fails. There is a tragic inevitability to his death, an evil deemed necessary to, if nothing else, stop the cycle, the cycle bound between generations as much as the phases of the moon. The message is clear; there is no escaping your history with The Beast Within.