Beast Beast

One beast is hard enough to deal with, but two beasts?

For the movie Beast Beast, you will be happy to know that it doesn’t actually have anything to do with a literal beast creature, let alone two of them. It is taken from a brief chant in the movie, that has some context, but has nothing to do with scary, gnawing, creatures on all fours.

Well, the story does involve some scary mammals overall, but they are the ones that stand on two legs and can speak Human languages.

Maybe the beast beast was the friends we made along the way?

No, the beast beast are the people who put their feet on chairs. >:o 

Beast Beast is a story of three individuals, in high school, and recently graduated. Krista (Shirley Chen) is a drama student, who has a flair for the…well, dramatics. She puts her whole heart into their improv activities and cares about acting. She is fine with the rest of the school, but she knows she wants to act in her life.

There is Nito (Jose Angeles), a new senior to the school, who isn’t great at the school thing. He is good at skateboarding, and making videos of himself skateboarding to put on YouTube. His first set of friends also encourage him to skip school and hang out and party, so that is what his life is now like.

And we also have Adam (Will Madden), who has graduated last year, but is going to just live at home with his parents. He is not looking for a job, or college, but he is also getting into YouTube, namely, a channel that is about proper gun use and safety over a large variety of weapons (that his dad has owned and encouraged him to learn about). No zany effects, just the facts.

Beast Beast is all about them navigating a year, trying to live their best life, until these lives all start to intersect, and somehow, bad things happen as a result.

Also starring Courtney Dietz, Daniel Rashid, Anissa Matlock, and Stephen Ruffin.

How does one act? What does one do with one’s hands?

Beast Beast is certainly one of those lower budget, indie movies that you hear about rarely, and then forget about if you never saw it. But these are the ones that can end up being pretty powerful.

I don’t think this will end up being a spoiler, but yes, this movie will deal with some gun violence. It will deal with the castle doctrine/stand your ground. It will deal with some racism and a current culture obsessed with fame on YouTube.

I think it goes over some of these really well. The ending is strong, the whole last act. There are two bigger moment scenes that make sense based on the events before it, and by the end, feels like a justified ending for those who are in that situation.

It does take a long time to get going. I will give it that. And from the three characters, it is unfortunate to say, but Nito’s was the least appealing for me to see what it was going. It was hardest for me to connect with him personally, and his scenes that lead up to the confrontations were the ones I had to wait to get through.

Overall, the movie is still quite powerful in its own way, and a great effort from Danny Madden, who has mostly done short films before and sound editing.