The Beast Within tells the story of a woman who is raped in the forest by a mysterious creature. Cut forward 17yrs and her son has developed an ailment that has left doctors baffled.
Based on that alone you've likely just worked out about 50% of the plot, the other 50% is very generic cliched stuff about a conspiracy in small town USA.
With the likes Ronny Cox the movie has some acting heavyweights behind it, they also clearly had a very competent sfx team whose creature effects are above par for this early in the 80's.
Sadly it doesn't flow very well, I found the lead rather obnoxious, the leading lady barely got any screen time and it just feels like they made a lot of real schoolyard errors here.
If you like cheesy 80's creature features you might actually get a kick out of this as it does tick plenty of boxes, it just missed out on a few that are too important to me personally.
The Good:
Ronny Cox and L.Q. Jones
Decent sfx
The Bad:
Lack of flow is noticeable
Paul Clemens