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Overall Rating : 5.5/10
Directed By : Wolf Wolff, Ohmuthi
Alex Attimonelli
Anna Breuer
Philipp Danne
Marvin Gronen
Supplied By : Lionsgate Films
Film Reviewed By : Rick L. Blalock
Date Reviewed : October. 20, 2009
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| PLOT Robert is driving with two friends to his hometown where his grandfather’s mansion is. At a gas station, he unexpectedly meets his former love Marlene. He invites her and her girlfriend to the mansion for a dinner-party. The small group enjoy the evening with drinks. Suddenly a man comes out of the forest – apparently he is infected with a bird-flu virus. But he is not the only one, more infected people approach the house. The friends barricaded against the dangerous force, but one of them is infected too... |
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| THE REVIEW The German Horror film BEAST WITHIN begins when a renown Professor dies a horrific death after being attacked by ravenous birds. His Grandson Robert, along with a few friends head back to Robert's home town to clean up his grandfather's belongings. When they arrive, a stop at a gas station reunites Robert with an ex-girlfriend Marlene, in which prompts the boys to invite her and a friend to Robert's grandfather's mansion for a late night party. Later that night, the night looks to be a good time, that's until the gang gets an uninvited guest at the party. Soon, Robert's childhood bully is at the door, and something about him just isn't right, as he seems to be infected with some sort of mutation. In a struggle with him, one of the boys is bitten, leaving all around to wonder what the side effects may be, mean while outside the mansion, more people are being infected by the virus that seems to be steaming from the towns bird population, soon our group of friends find themselves in a battle of odds. They barricade themselves inside the old mansion and arm with firearms and other means of protection, but will that be enough. I have had BEAST WITHIN(aka VIRUS UNDEAD) lying on my self for some time now, and honestly at first I thought it was some kind of straight-to-DVD remake of the 19890 Werewolf flick, THE BEAST WITHIN, despite very similar sounding titles, it's not. I then found out that it was some kind of zombie film, and after learning this, all I could think was...."Not another one!" I don't know what it is about zombies and movies about them, but they're everywhere these days, something that used to be special within the Horror genre is now, sadly a dime-a-dozen, especially amongst the indie film making scene. To tell you the truth, I was never a huge fan of anything pertaining to zombies and now with the massive influx, i'm sick of them - so when I popped this one into the player, I expected to, well....not enjoy myself. As it turns out, BEAST WITHIN was not as bad as I expected it to be, in fact, for most of it, I quite enjoyed it. Shot in Germany, this German production, like so many other films, tries to Americanize itself as much as possible. This is a film that starts off with the death of Robert's Grandfather, but then moves to the point when Robert and friends are heading back to the village town in which Robert spent some of his younger years living with his grandfather and then we eventually proceed to the core of the story which is the group returns to the house for a night of partying, in which the film feels as if it would have made good company in the 80s with films such as NIGHT OF THE DEMONS and so on. The look of the film, despite the obvious lower budget, looks pretty good. For obvious reasons, BEAST WITHIN has a very European feel, especially during the darker scenes in which the film essentially takes on an almost Gothic European flavor. As for the zombie action, I was happy to find that BEAST WITHIN doesn't have some overly serious approach to it, it was more over the top and sometimes cheesy, making for a B-Movie that is fun, if not anything else. The acting her is decent as far as I could tell. Although filmed in Germany, the primary language spoken in the film is English, and (although with a few exceptions) it seemed as if everyone spoke the language, it was at times blatantly obvious that their voice had been dubbed. Although this, I still had no problem with any of the performances, it reminded me of something that regularly happens in films by Dario Argento, a Director that I have come to enjoy quite a bit over the years.. Overall, BEAST WITHIN is not a bad film, despite what I may have expected initially. It starts off at a steady pace to get everything established, and then later it does fall into some slow areas, but overall it was fun to watch. While certainly not the best of it'd kind, it's still worth seeing if given the chance. |
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| GORE
METER 5/10 There are bloody animal corpses, bloody wounds, gunshot wounds, as well as a lot of blood splatter. |
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MUSICAL
SCORE 3/10 The score was your typical suspense fare, honestly, I never paid all that much attention to it. | ||||
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| OVERALL
IMPRESSION OF THE FILM There have been few Horror films to come out of Germany that I have really liked. films like THE POOL, ANATOMY and COLD PREY, are films that for what ever reason I enjoyed them, and BEAST WITHIN is no exception, it's not perfect by any means, but definitely not a bad film either. While it may not be worth a purchase, it is however worth a rental. This DVD will be released November 3, 2009 |
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