By Sarah Musnicky
After a series of strange events in THE BEAST WITHIN leads her to question her family’s isolated life on a fortified compound deep in the English wilds, 10-year-old Willow follows her parents on one of their secret late-night treks to the heart of the ancient forest. But upon witnessing her father undergo a terrible transformation, she too becomes ensnared by the dark ancestral secret they’ve tried so desperately to conceal.
Out of Fantasia International Film Festival, Creepy Kingdom's Sarah Musnicky interviewed director/co-writer Alexander J. Farrell, co-writer/executive producer Greer Ellison, and actor Caoilinn Springall for THE BEAST WITHIN. Throughout the course of the conversation, they discussed the delicate balance of the script's subject matter, the fairytale-like quality of THE BEAST WITHIN, and the practical approach to the werewolf design.
Even though it focuses on Willow, mostly in THE BEAST WITHIN, there are various perspectives. Alex and Greer, in writing this script, what was part of the decision process in focusing most of the perspective on Willow versus Imogen or Noah?
Alexander J. Farrell: Setting it through Willow's eyes gave us that new take that we're looking for. When we entered this process, we wanted to make a monster movie in a way that we didn't think had been done. Yeah, yeah, right. And doing that through the eyes of a 10-year-old really gave us the chance to do so. It's mythical, and it's a fairytale.
Greer Ellison: The real-life horror in the movie was just as important to us as the fantastical horror. When you have a child right at the center of that, as so often is the case, that's when it's really the most frightening for us, and we thought that taking her perspective and having her come from a place where she doesn't totally know who her father is, what the secret is being kept from her by her mother, by her father, gives really interesting dramatic ground to pick this apart and utilize the monster as the metaphor that it is.
Alexander J. Farrell: And allows us to experience it in the moment when Willow does. We are going on that journey with her, step by step, and we only know as much as she does. That is really why we decided to set this through her eyes.
Caoilinn, Willow has a disability that affects the physical performance quite a bit. What was your process like in terms of figuring out how to move with the oxygen tank and trying to figure out all the different ways to make it as natural as possible?
Caoilinn Springall: How I got my breathing very fast, I used to run on the spot. I would jump, and I would try and get out of breath to make myself [appear to have] asthma. That's what I did with the running and the jumping with Al. We used to do like 30 seconds on the spot, and then I would go into character, and then I would do the scene, panting, of course, like that, and I had to keep it up, which was sometimes tiring because if you keep on doing it for a while, it could be tiring, but it was fine.
It also lends itself to the performance because if you do it repeatedly, it mimics the same scenario, especially with the more emotionally intense scenes.
Greer Ellison: There are many scenes where Willow doesn't have the oxygen canister, like when she's in the woods with Dad. It's really a representation of a coping mechanism [and the] suffocation when she's inside that house. When she feels like she needs it, it's there. And when there are more moments of levity with her father, she doesn't have it.
I noticed that but also the fact that, in some ways, the illness might have just been a manifestation of living in that environment because of the stress.
This is a question for everyone, but when it came to fleshing out the relationships between Willow, Imogen, and Noah, from writing to the actual performance, what was it like coming together to build out that relationship? It’s done beautifully onscreen. From page to screen, how was that process for you all?
Alexander J. Farrell: This comes from a place of knowing, right? I experienced some things as a child that inspired the events of this film. And when you set out to make that film, you gotta be ready to make that. It's a really difficult topic to tackle. We shared many conversations, especially with Ashleigh [Cummings] and Kit [Harington], about that dynamic and relationship; what does that look like? And Ashleigh was, as she should have been, deeply concerned with how she, as a human being and as a character, would act and resolve within that particular dynamic.
Greer Ellison: It's just that really delicate balance, especially for Ashleigh's character, because she's as trapped as everyone else. You could say she's complicit in the whole thing, but she is a trapped as Willow. She is is manipulated by this family, by this father. She feels like she can't leave. So, it's that balance and then keeping the love for her daughter real throughout the story.
Caoilinn, what was it like building out the relationship with Ashleigh and Kit on screen?
Caoilinn Springall: Well, I knew Ashleigh a bit before that. I have known her since I did a thing called Citadel with her, and she was my mum, and she was my mum on THE BEAST WITHIN. So, she's been my mom for two things. We already had that connection. She's my best friend. I would talk to her about anything or a scene if I needed to talk to her. For Kit, we just grew really close. In the first few weeks, we would just chat. Before we started, we talked about how, like for one scene when he steals my yellow dress, how we would [tackle] that scene. I think we had a really good bond with each other
I can't not bring up the setting. This is a nicer question, but what was it like frolicking in a castle?
Alexander J. Farrell: We had this conversation with another interviewer; finding where the beast lives and exists outside the house was really tricky, and we went through so many different [areas]. We had quarries. We had holes. We had caves. We had sheds, and then we were walking through the woods, and all of a sudden, that place [Harewoods Woods and Castle] opened up to us. And that was it. It had to be there. And so many people think it's a set build. They think we built that because there's no way that it could exist. It's too fairytale, and it wasn't. It was there, and we managed to get it.
Greer Ellison: Yeah, it was awesome. It was the perfect spot.
Were there any difficulties that you guys ran into, or you, Caoilinn, in trying to roam around the home, especially in the more high-intensity scenes? It's an old house. Did you guys have any issues?
Alexander J. Farrell: I wouldn't say so. It was obviously dilapidated when we found it, but you have a structural engineer come in and ensure that no one will fall through the floorboards. The only difficult part about it was it was a big space to light, especially shooting in the summer. We're doing all day for night. You have to black out the entire property. So we scaffolded the entire house and blacked it all out so we could put lights on the scaffolding, but apart from that, no
Regarding the werewolf, I wasn't entirely sure what was practical and what might be CGI. Can you talk about the design process for the werewolf and then reassure me that I wasn't crazy, but there might be a little bit of CGI in there?
Alexander J. Farrell: Well, we wanted it to be mythical and exist in the realm of fairytale because that's how Willow would interpret that monster, right? So, what would that beast look like to a 10-year-old? And so we wanted to go classic with it. It was inspired slightly by some of the early werewolf films, like Landis' werewolf film, and Caoilinn especially had to see this thing.
We had a great designer, Kristyan Mallett, who worked on Venom and Aquaman and The Lost Kingdom. He'd done lots of wonderful things. The head was animatronic. It was all controlled by a remote controller, and then the blinking was digitalized. So, the blinking was mostly VFX.
Greer Ellison: Yeah, it was mostly practical. We kind of wanted to steer away from that super CGI look and keep as much as real as possible
Caoilinn, what was it like when you finally came face to face with the werewolf?
Caoilinn Springhall: I remember meeting the werewolf. Alex and I shot a scene. And Alex was like, "Do you want to see the werewolf?" And I was like, "Yes, I do." It was just sitting down in this chair. The bodysuit he was in, I don't know how to describe it. It was soft and cushiony, and his head was animatronic, like he said. So I was allowed to control the head with the animatronic. I made it, like, snarl and open its mouth. It was really fun. I wasn't really scared of the werewolf.
I feel I would just go up and, like, gently, boop it on the nose. What else are you supposed to do when you see something like that? Well, I'm just gonna boop it.
Ultimately, what is it that you guys want people to take away from THE BEAST WITHIN?
Greer Ellison: I think, on the one hand, we want people to come away scared, scared of what can exist within a family, scared of the film and the atmosphere that's created. We want people to be on the edge of their seats. But also, we want people to walk away with a conversation. We want it to be a conversation starter. We want this to be a new, original take on a horror film and really be able to go away and look a little bit deeper than the literal monster on screen. And what that really means to have a monster living inside your family.
THE BEAST WITHIN had its world premiere at the 2024 Fantasia International Film Festival. It is now in theaters via Well Go USA Entertainment.
This interview was edited for length and clarity.
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