The movie starts with a blend of subpar music that features piano instruments that overly emphasize the song’s melodramatic theme. The scenes of deserted camping spots are accompanied by pictures of the site the disclaimer covers unexplained reports of mass disappearance in the area.
Cut to five bros chugging along in an SUV and cracking jokes together. They seem excited about their trip, but one of the boys doesn’t seem too thrilled. Eli sits hooded in the back with his arms crossed on his chest. During the ride, he chooses to brood in silence. This attitude is bound to perplex Mike, who we immediately interpret as kind of a hole. To ensure he is annoying Eli, Mike starts shouting Eli’s name, inquiring what the heck is up with this dude.
As expected, Mike’s obnoxious behavior is followed by Eli’s bizarre behavior. At one point Eli decides to pull the car over in order to get a knife not just any knife. A Crocodile Dundee freaking knife. For unknown reasons, Eli decides that when he is roasting his weenies on sticks, Eli roasts his on his motherf*cking Crocodile Dundee knife. To say Mike was anointed with a cherry on top of his sundae would be wrong because he reaches his boiling point and says he is done with Eli’s behavior. Instead, Mike starts yelling that he wants Eli to behave like the rest of us within the group.
As expected, Eli gets up and storms into the forest, presumably to skewer some squirrels with his enormous knife. Bill chastises Mike for his rudeness and sets off looking for Eli. While gone, observing Chris asks Mike what happened between the two, to which Mike just scoffs and tells Chris to mind his own bloody business.
In any case, the other three do the same in search of Bill and Eli. On their search, they find Bill’s corpse and begin to suspect Eli. This is when they begin hearing a frightening woman’s scream coming from the forest. After some debate about how to respond to the disturbing scream, they finally decide to check it out. At this point of the film, it begins to seem a little like The Blair Witch Project.
Mike’s sleazy fantasies evolve into reality as he inadvertently comes across a campsite. In the middle of the woods, he sees a couple having a make-out session in a tent. “does he feel sad about his friend’s death?” He is left wondering as he observes uncomfortably long. After fulfilling his disturbing fantasy Mike renews his strive to act like his obnoxious self. He roughly orders the couple to step outside the tent. Before anyone could make sense of what was going on, he began shouting and disturbing the peace in the camp. There was an upset in the camp. Actually, Mike seemed to have caused a scene. Doing his best to calm Mike down, Sean and Chris tell him that everything is alright and try to explain to the new people. There is some more confusing acting and terrible fake fighting, while the ‘creature’ (who we don’t really see) starts to take out campers surreptitiously, slowly plucking them from the camp one after the other. Besides this relatively gruesome, yet well-paced slaughter, another sinister truth unfolds.
The audio, especially the soundtracks that accompany foster an additional degree of despair to the pain-free natural beauty. Along with showing the mundane level of chaos, those catchy pieces of music gets me excited. They surely put me in the right tune for the movie and is perfect for the suprise elements.
After a series of missteps and fatalities, Chris demands Mike to explain Eli’s incessant hunting. Through muffled sobs, Sean breaks down recounting how he and gentleman Mike roofied Eli’s sister and later went on to violently touch her. In the aftermath, she takes her life. Sean speaks through an overwhelming shroud of guilt, remorse, and regret, but Mike shows none. It’s apparent he’s rather dismissive towards his past, and in this moment, we not only hear captivating lines from the film but begin to appreciate Chris (whose death will only disappoint people) as well. He finally snaps at Mike and says, “If I stay here, I’ll kill you myself.” Mike attempts to instruct Chris, saying, You will die if you go alone, to which the morally upright and wit-filled Chris replies, “Yes. Probably. But I want you to know that I don’t blame him. I blame you guys.” Sean, knowing that Mike and he are scum and Chris is right, chooses to abandon Mike and follow Chris.
All the while, we’re shown extreme close-ups of the menacing moon that is surrounded by mist, and we constantly ask ourselves when the beast will show itself. It serves as a reminder of the ever present fear in the air.
There are many flaws in this movie, and I am sure everyone could list a handful, but it did capture some interesting points. So, who is the beast? The man who stalks his terrified victims cast out into the world, one by one? Or the man who subdues a drugged young girl and uses her like a plug? A man devoid of empathy for the suicide he caused, or a man out for vengeance? Beast: A Monster Among Men raises these questions and much more, shocking the viewer into understanding that this film is not about a simple violent beast that kills people.
This segment comes to a complete stop which is out of pace with the rest of the film. Mike is somehow the last survivor which is subverting everyone’s expectations. He goes on an excruciatingly long and terribly paced (and pointless) drive through the mountains before finally stopping at a creek where he meets Eli and the audience bursts with joy, “At last, justice!” Eli is being played from a distance, and we are not taking the music too seriously because it truly fails to blend with the clash we have been witnessing. After reaching the peak of the build-up, it is extremely disappointing to see the throwaway music that accompanies happenings here. We, including Mike, witness, and yet do not, the gradual change of Eli from a human to everything other than. The designers made an interesting choice by depicting the merge of Eli and Mike as something casual and conveying the ambiguity of bestial form. So, to go back to what can be said about the beast, it does not need to be understood further than a figure of what a man can evolve into if he is forcefully pressed hard enough.
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