"The Beast Within": They Don't Make Cicada Movies Like They Used To

Without a doubt, the 1982 film, “The Beast Within” is America’s best movie about a teenager who turns into a cicada/human hybrid. Warren Beatty’s “Reds,” released the previous year, may have something to say about it, but I’m sticking with this one. Despite the absence of Jack Nicholson as Eugene O’Neill, “The Beast Within” has plenty to recommend it.


Ronny Cox delivers a fine performance as Eli MacCleary, the father of said teenager who has bug DNA in him. One evening in 1964, Eli and his new wife, Caroline (Bibi Besch) run off the road in a small town in Mississippi. They have their dog with them in the car. Said dog is let out by Caroline and in her search for the dog, Caroline is attacked and impregnated by a monster, that we later learn (or have probably already figured out) is also a cicada/human monster. The son who they raise into his teenage years becomes very sick. Eli and Caroline go back to the small town in which the attack occurred and start asking local officials if they have any information about the attack or the attacker. Not surprisingly, there are townspeople who do, indeed, know more than they are willing to divulge. The son, young Michael MacCleary (Paul Clemens), is summoned back to the same town by his Spidey-sense, or perhaps Cicady-sense to not only find his real father, but also to kill some humans. By now, it’s obvious that this isn’t a Kurosawa movie, but it does not aim to be one. “The Beast Within” is a good example of a low-budget horror movie that aims no higher than what it is. It delivers some good horror scenes and it delivers one heck of a good makeup/effects scene near the end of the film. If you have seen this movie, you know what I am talking about. If you haven’t seen it, remember that the teenager is part cicada. Transformation scenes were pretty popular in the early 1980’s horror world. “The Howling” (1981) and “An American Werewolf in London” (1981) contained very effective man to wolf transformation scenes. The scene in “The Beast Within” is more troubling than anything else, but it’s the good kind of troubling.

The story is well told, the pacing is just right, and the performances are good, not great, but good. Director Philippe Mora, who previously directed Dennis Hopper as best he could in “Mad Dog Morgan” and would go on to direct “Howling 2” and “Howling 3: The Marsupials” (Kangaroos??) leads the proceedings with ease and maintains a steady pace throughout, providing enough backstory to make it all make good horror/cicada-human monster sense.
It is fun to watch films from a wide variety of genres. I can easily watch a double feature of a Woody Allen movie and then a movie about giant animals like "Night of the Lepus," the gold-standard of giant rabbit movies. If you are the one reading this blog, I hope you enjoy these little reviews that cover different genres and do not focus on simply one kind of film. There are plenty of blogs that focus on just horror movies or just sci-fi films. Variety is a good thing, so said Eugene O’Neill, or maybe it was Jack Nicholson who said that, or perhaps one of the kangaroos said it. Whoever said it was correct. “The Beast Within” is now available on blu-ray from Shout Factory. The disc contains two commentary tracks, one with director Mora and star Paul Clemens, the other with writer of the film, Tom Holland (“Fright Night,” “Child’s Play”). The regular-ray version is still available as well. “The Beast Within” is entertaining for a movie about a cicada-human. If you don’t expect anything more than that, you might enjoy it. If you attempt to dissect it like it’s a giant cicada……..anyway, just remember that it does not aim high other than aiming to entertain and it succeeds at that.

Peace Doesn't Get Much of a Chance in "August: Osage County"

Watching an excellent ensemble cast working together in a film can be as satisfying as listening to a band or an orchestra working together to create a wonderful piece of music or watching an outstanding football team work together to win a game. In “August: Osage County,” director John Wells (“The Company Men,” Showtime’s “Shameless”) has assembled a brilliant ensemble cast to tell, admittedly, a story with a familiar set of circumstances involving a rural Oklahoma family and their secrets involving love, hate, pain, misery, all that fun stuff. The film is written by Tracy Letts, based on his Pulitzer Prize and Tony Award winning play.

At first, seeing this film did not appeal to me. I was not interested in watching a movie about a “dysfunctional” family full of quirky, but lovable, people who all get along and love each other despite each other’s quirks. Fortunately, this is not the type of scenario created in this film. The playing of Eric Clapton's, "Lay Down Sally" during the opening credits made me feel even more tretipatious about my decision to see this movie. This song, when used in films, is usually used to direct the audience's attention to the fact that we are in the South. It's a song stereotype. It sounds country and twangy, so it is used oftentimes in films that take place in the South. I lost a little lifeforce. It turns out, however, that this song plays a role not only in the final scene, a powerhouse moment in the film, but throughout not just as soundtrack filler.
In “August: Osage County,” most of the characters are hateful, angry, mean, bitter, profane, deceitful, just all around unpleasant people. Normally, this might be something I would have no interest in seeing, however, the fantastic cast pulls this material together to make a thoroughly watchable and compelling tale of a family full of secrets and hate, created, as we find out early in the film by matriarch Violet Weston (Meryl Streep in a brilliant performance), in large part due to her reliance on prescription medication. It is no secret that an overuse of prescription medication, especially when not closely monitored by one’s physician, can lead to serious mental health issues. Violet appears to be, especially when “in rare form,” under the influence of many medications which influence her body chemistry.
I say all of this about prescription medication and its effect on one’s mind to emphasize that I do not think that the character of Violet is, at her core, a horrible person, but, rather, is under the influence most of the time of the cocktail of drugs she is taking and her addiction to said drugs. I don’t think the film addresses this issue as much as I just have in these last few sentences, however, it must be addressed so as not to dismiss the character of Violet as just a mean, old bitch who hates everyone. Whatever Letts wants the viewer to think of Violet, Meryl Streep gives an outstanding performance in the role and owns every scene she is in.

Not to be overlooked is the performance of Julia Roberts as Violet’s daughter, Barbara Weston. Barbara, her husband from whom she is separated (Ewan McGregor), and some other members of the family gather at the beginning of the film to attend the funeral of the patriarch of the family, Beverly Weston (I know. Beverly is usually a female name, but just go with it). Beverly passes away so the family gathers at his and Violet’s home in Osage County, Oklahoma to pay their respects. Beverly is played very nicely by Sam Shepard. The remainder of the film consists of learning about the other characters, the burdens they keep inside, the anger they feel, and the way they deal with their burdens and anger.
For some, this may be an uncomfortable movie to watch, however, I was compelled throughout by the wonderful performances, not only by Streep and Roberts, but also by Julianne Nicholson, Benedict Cumberbatch, Chris Cooper, and Juliette Lewis. Not one false note is hit by any of the performers in the film as they create characters that are not necessarily pleasant, but do remain interesting.
The uncomfortableness one may feel in watching “August: Osage County” is similar to the way one may feel watching a David Mamet play, or a film based on one of his works, films like “Oleanna” (1994) and “Glengarry Glen Ross” (1992). Check out these two films if you have not already. In “Oleanna,” you watch a college professor and his student in an ever-intensifying discussion about a grade the student received. One may not instantly seek out this film, and it would be difficult to talk most into seeing this film from my description of it, however, the passion of the performances in that film, as with the passion of the performances in “Glengarry” and Terry Letts’ film herein discussed in this review, make these films completely worth your time. Something else that helps this film is the fact that the anger inside some of the characters is legitimate feelings of mental anguish, not petty arguments, but tangible issues with which one may be able to relate. The characters in the film do not just throw insults at each other for the sake of cheap laughs. The emotions in the film are not at all contrived or cheaply written.
One word of warning should you decide to see this film: “August: Osage County” is not a quirky, folksy “Steel Magnolias”/”Fried Green Tomatoes”-esque slice of life, feel-good movie. The only way one may feel good is the way I described having felt good having watched great actors give brilliant performances. I remained interested in the story the film presents throughout. The performances in “August: Osage County” and the fact that, despite the resentment and bitterness most of the characters feel, and the conveyance of these emotions onscreen, are so well done, making this one of my favorite films of 2013. I am a sucker for films with strongly written characters and a reliance on script and character development over effects and other tricks that filmmakers sometimes use to disguise the fact that they have nothing interesting prepared. "August: Osage County is entertaining and soulful in its anger and bitterness, an anger and bitterness that will leave a positive film-going impression on me.

The Story is Familiar, The Performances are Above Average, Ain't That American Hustle?

People being conned by people who are being conned. This is not the most original concept for a film and by the end of “American Hustle,” my opinion of this fact was unmoved. David O. Russell, who has made some very good, edgy films in the past (“Spanking the Monkey,” “Three Kings”) has assembled a fantastic cast, however the events portrayed in this Russell directed film are moderately interesting, at best. What stands out in “American Hustle” are some of the performances, especially those of Amy Adams and Bradley Cooper. Amy Adams, who can also be seen in and delivers the best performance in Spike Jonze’s, “Her,” is beautiful and sexy as hell as the partner in con-artistry to Irving Rosenfeld, played well by Christian Bale. Adams plays Sydney Prosser. Sydney meets Rosenfeld at a party sometime in the mid-1970’s. They bond after discovering mutual interests, namely Duke Ellington, and as they soon find out, conning people out of money. The notion of a film about con artists already had me losing interest in the story the film was presenting by the 20 minute mark. What held my interest in the film for the duration of the 138 minute running time were the performances and some late points of interest and a surprise (or at least a surprise to me) guest star who shows up about ¾ of the way into the film. I sat up in my seat at this point as the appearance of this person and the story gets kicked up a notch and maintains an amount of interest through the end of the film.

My main problem with “American Hustle” is that, and for comparison’s sake, I am going to compare it to last year’s “Argo,” “Hustle” is too long. Length does not usually bother me (I hear you chuckling) if the story in a given film holds my interest. I already knew that it was not the story presented in “American Hustle” that was holding my interest, but, rather it was the performances. “Argo” ran 105 minutes, 30 minutes shorter than “American Hustle,” and “Argo” felt much more compact, every scene in “Argo” felt important, unlike in “Hustle,” in which there are some scenes, especially in the first 30 minutes, that feel superfluous, and no, I don’t feel sick. It is not until the second half of the film that I felt any amount of adrenaline rush, and it wasn’t really even that much of a rush. I did appreciate the fact that, like “Argo” used the 1970’s era Warner Brothers logo at the beginning of that film, “American Hustle”uses the 1970’s era Columbia Pictures logo at the beginning of this film. “American Hustle” does get more interesting the more the story is fleshed out, the more the details are explained, however, because I am not given to seeking out movies involving con-artists, the mob, FBI guys, etc, this film did not resonate with me. It is a good, well-made film, however, I do not see myself wanting to see it again, other than to, perhaps get another look at Amy Adams with her sexy 70’s hair.

It is stated at the beginning of the film that, “Some of this actually happened,” specifically ABSCAM, the massive FBI anti-corruption operation conducted by the FBI in the late 1970’s. Here is a video from ABC News from February of 1980 that explains all about ABSCAM:

 Feb. 2, 1980: FBI Abscam Probe | Video - ABC News

While “American Hustle” does not tackle the inner-workings of this operation, it does incorporate it’s characters into and does, at one point, acknowledge that Bradley Cooper’s FBI agent character, Richie DiMaso is part of this operation. The film is not about ABSCAM, but is about how a couple of small-time con-artists get hustled into helping DiMaso’s investigation and the interaction of these characters with each other. I did learn more than I knew going into the film about ABSCAM and the fallout of it all.

“American Hustle” does use music well and places some fun 1970’s songs well throughout the film. The songs used are a pretty nice mixture of familiar and unfamiliar tunes from that decade. The music in the film adds spark to the film. I must say, though, that the best usage of a song from the 70’s in a film released in 2013 was the usage of the 1978 Hot Chocolate tune, “Every 1’s a Winner” in “Frances Ha.” That film is set in modern times, however, the use of that song in that film is a winner for sure.
"American Hustle" is not nearly as good as "Argo," the Best Picture winner for 2013, the film to which I have compared it. I would not place "American Hustle" on my list of Top 10 films of this past year, however, it is fairly entertaining and is worth a blu-ray or regular-ray rental from your nearby Redbox.