JP Nunez
I went into Beast with somewhat modest expectations. Sure, the premise sounded fun enough, and I really enjoyed the trailer, but I wasn’t expecting greatness. I just figured it would be a tense, entertaining animal attack film, and I’m happy to report that I got exactly what I wanted.
Beast was directed by Baltasar Kormákur, and it stars Idris Elba, Iyana Halley, Leah Sava Jeffries, and Sharlto Copley. It’s about a recently widowed man named Nate who takes his two daughters to South Africa to visit a family friend, and while there, they go out into the jungle for a safari. At first, they seem to be having a great time, but that all changes when they encounter a rogue lion that’s out for human blood.
Beast opens with a really tense horror scene that initially appears somewhat disconnected from the main storyline (although it ties back in soon enough), but after that, it’s all about the characters for the next half hour or so. It takes its time introducing you to these people and letting you forge an emotional connection with them, and even though I don’t think anybody is going to watch this movie for the characters, this first act is actually quite good.
All four leads play their parts really well, and I especially enjoyed Idris Elba as Nate. As usual, he brings a ton of charm and charisma to the role, so he’s always an absolute pleasure to watch in this film, no matter what his character is doing.
In fact, I’d even say that the performances are the sole reason why this first half hour works. The dialogue is actually pretty generic, and there’s some really predictable family drama going on here, so if these people had been played by lesser actors, I probably would’ve been bored out of my mind. It’s just not a particularly well crafted story, so the fact that this part of the film still managed to hold my attention and keep me invested in the characters is a real testament to how good these performances are.
Then, when the horror finally begins, Beast immediately ratchets the tension up to 11, and it doesn’t let up for a pretty long while. At first, you don’t see the lion, but it’s still quite terrifying. The film does a great job of conveying just how dangerous this creature is, so the mere possibility of it attacking was enough to keep me on the edge of my seat.
Then, when the animal makes its grand entrance, it’s awesome. They obviously didn’t get a real lion to attack these actors, but the special effects team did a great job of making the titular beast look pretty real. Sure, there are a few shots where you can tell it’s CGI, but even then, it never bothered me. In that respect, it reminded me a lot of the alligators in Crawl. It looked and moved just like a real lion, so I had no trouble at all buying into this story.
Because of that sense of realism, I found the attack scenes in this film much more effective than what we normally get in more typical monster movies. Sure, I love supernatural (or at least preternatural) creature action as much as anyone, but there’s something different about seeing a real animal go berserk. You know it could really happen, so it almost feels like the thing is actually attacking you and not the characters on screen. And as you can probably guess, that’s absolutely terrifying.
On top of that, the second and third acts of Beast also do a great job of building on everything the first act set up. Since you really care about these characters, you’re genuinely scared for them when the lion attacks, and that, in turn, makes you even more scared of the creature as well (as if it needed any help in that regard!).
What’s more, that connection you forge with the characters adds some unexpected pathos to the last two-thirds of the film as well. There are a handful of genuinely sad scenes here, so the story actually has more emotional substance than I was expecting. Sure, this is still more of a scares-over-substance B-movie than anything else, but it’s a tiny step above what those kinds of films usually give us.
All that being said, I don’t want to give you the wrong idea. Beast is by no means a deep or sophisticated narrative. In fact, the plot is downright pedestrian. It’s exactly what you’d expect from this kind of movie, and I highly doubt that anything that happens is going to surprise you in the slightest. In particular, the finale is super telegraphed, so you’ll probably be able to guess how Nate and his crew finally get rid of the lion well before it happens.
But in a somewhat counterintuitive way, that actually tells you just how good the other elements of this film are. The acting and the horror are so good that I quite enjoyed the movie despite its bland story, so if Beast sounds like your kind of film, I think you’re really going to like it. It’s an effective animal attack movie that zips along at a really quick pace, so if you’re looking for some good new horror to watch, I definitely recommend that you check this one out.
Beast is playing in theaters right now.
