Kit Harington’s 2024 horror film, The Beast Within, that seems to have been inspired by Edward Levy’s novel of the same name, yet again asks the age-old question, “To be or not to be?” The opening text of the film tells us that there are two wolves inside all of us. And these two beasts are always at war with each other. Now, in simpler terms, it just wants to say that we all harbor a monster, and whether we give that creature the power to control our actions or not is our conscious decision to make. The Beast Within thematically explores the proverb through Kit Harington’s character Noah William Avery, who turns into a werewolf every month on the night of a full moon. I don’t think you need me to give an introduction to werewolves. It is because of his family curse that Noah and his family live in a secluded house near a dense forest, which is, I guess, his ancestral property. He has a teenage daughter named Willow, suffering from some kind of respiratory disease, most likely asthma, who doesn’t know about her father’s secret.
Spoiler Alert
Willow had always known that her mother, Imogen, and her grandad, Waylon, had been hiding something from her. Once in a while, they would take a pig from their farm and go into the woods, where her father would spend the rest of the night. Her mother and maternal grandfather would return before it was dark. And the very next day, when her father came back home, she would find him covered in blood. So, what was happening? A curious Willow questioned her mother, but when Imogen refused to share any further information, Willow hid herself in the truck and followed her mother deep into the forest, where inside an old castle (of sorts), Imogen strapped Noah and locked the door before leaving. Willow herself witnessed her father turning into a werewolf, and she couldn’t shake off such a grim image from her mind for days. Waylon wanted to take the girl and leave, but Imogen and Noah wouldn’t let him take their daughter away. So, the question here is, will Willow ever be able to escape her cursed family?
Why Did Noah Attack His Wife?
You see, Noah wasn’t exactly an ideal father. I mean, he might have been a better person in the past, but he was slowly losing his grip. As mentioned in the film, out of the two wolves inside Noah, the bad guy was winning, and he would often take charge of his personality, leading to violent outbursts. And yes, Willow and Imogen were the victims of such abuse. Waylon could very well see that Noah’s illness was mentally and emotionally affecting his daughter and granddaughter, and he wanted to protect them at all costs, which was the reason why he stuck around.
According to Noah, his family curse was passed on to him from his grandfather, who hid the secret from his grandmother his entire life. But in the end, she followed him into the woods on the night of a full moon when the creature spotted her and killed her. When Noah’s grandfather came to his senses, he couldn’t forgive himself for killing his own family and therefore shot himself. This scene was featured at the beginning of the film. Now here, one has to understand what kind of things Noah’s father had to go through during his childhood, and how it definitely shaped his personality. Noah called him a cruel man, which I guess was due to his childhood trauma. Noah’s father, too, might have submitted to the demon inside him and became a cold and distant father. And slowly, Noah started behaving like his father. Even he didn’t have a healthy childhood, or at least that’s what it seemed like.
After a certain point, it became quite evident that Noah was an insecure man who was afraid to lose the people in his life. He was paranoid and possessive. He knew that he was a monster but didn’t want anyone else to remind him of that. And above all, Noah was dominating. He would lose his cool if someone refused to listen to him or ignore him. And Willow witnessed that from time to time. That was the reason why she was so afraid of her father. And if I am not wrong, I think Willow liked her granddad more than her own father and didn’t want to be left alone with him.
While Noah and Willow were collecting wood in the forest, Noah found his wife’s dress under the truck’s driver seat. This was the same dress that Imogen wore when she had taken Willow to the city to buy her a new dress for her birthday. And there, she had come across the shop owner named Will. This seems like a good place to mention that even when Noah wasn’t in his werewolf form, he had certain abilities like heightened hearing and smell. And when he found that dress in the truck, he quickly took a whiff, only to find a man’s scent on it. I am not sure if Imogen was cheating on him or not, but Noah did believe that Imogen was having an affair and might leave him one day. The very thought of it awakened the monster inside it, and Willow had to witness her father’s anger with her own eyes. When they reached home, Noah started shouting at Imogen; maybe he raised his hand too. And it was Willow who had to listen to her parents shouting at each other while the innocent kid tried and failed to block out those noises. Now, all these events took place before the next full moon, and somewhere at the back of his head, Noah had been thinking all about it. The monster inside him knew the things troubling his mind, and therefore, when he transformed into the werewolf the next time, he didn’t stay calm. Instead, he broke the chain and strap on his neck and came running to his house to take revenge on Waylon and Imogen. An insecure Noah had made himself believe that Waylon and Imogen were trying to take away his daughter from him, which was why on the night of the full moon, he barged into his own house in order to protect his family and the “everything” in it.
Would Noah Have Killed Imogen?
In this one month’s time, Noah did his best to become a good dad, though he failed miserably in the end. But I have already discussed why. At one point, Imogen accidently said, “I love you when you are like this.” And by “like this,” she meant when Noah wasn’t acting like a monster or being one. An unstable man like Noah took offense in that. And Imogen’s statement had just solidified Noah’s suspicion that she was indeed going to leave him sooner or later. And that fear made him attack her in the forest even when she had embraced his monstrous version and expressed her love for him. But for Noah, the werewolf, nothing mattered more than his own insecurities.
In The Beast Within’s ending, Noah tried to kill Imogen in front of their daughter, but Willow intervened. Willow used her oxygen cylinder to light up her werewolf father so as to end the monstrous shadow he was casting over her and her mother. Yes, Noah was dead, but the family curse still remained.
Will Willow Turn Into A Werewolf?
It seemed like Willow, too, had heightened senses like her father, which most likely comes from the family curse that she has inherited, the ending of The Beast Within makes it more clear when Noah, in Willow’s vision, calls her “little monster.” But why didn’t Willow turn into a werewolf on the night of the full moon? I guess she won’t turn into one until she hits puberty or maybe becomes an adult. And if that’s true, then it might be one of the reasons why Willow was hesitant to leave the ancestral house with her mother. What if she ends up killing a bunch of innocent folks in the city on a full moon night? And even though Willow might not end up becoming a werewolf, she was quite skeptical about it. Her father’s words, the family curse, and the voices in her head were the things that made her believe that she might become a monster someday or another. However, Willow’s vision can also be interpreted from a different perspective. What if none of it actually happened and Willow had imagined it all? Yes, she did kill her father for abusing her mother, but the entire werewolf story could be a figment of her imagination.
During The Beast Within’s ending, Willow was seen reading Jack London’s White Fang novel, where she used her father’s photo as the bookmark. The scene is quite suggestive of the fact that Willow doesn’t hate her father. Or maybe she made peace with the notion that her father just fell prey to the family curse and became the monster that he was. And even though I read White Fang a very, very long time ago, I guess it was about accepting one’s wild ancestry, so maybe Willow will be doing the same in the future? Who knows? Alternatively, it could be the same book that fueled Willow’s imagination and helped her fictionalize the reality of the domestic violence happening around her, thereby helping her escape reality. It is possible that Noah was suffering from clinical lycanthropy and her daughter weaved a fictional tale around it.
