Customer Reviews

The Beast Within

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(4)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
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Edward Levy, The Beast Within (Berkley, 1981)

The Beast Within is the book that should have made Edward Levy a household name on a par with Stephen King and... well, okay, in 1981 Stephen King was really the only household name in horror. But the King was in one of his slumps, major presses were champing at the bit to sign AAA-league writers to produce the Next Big Thing. Well, Berkley already had Edward Levy, and here was the manuscript that was going to dethrone the horror master.

All well and good, and to Berkley's credit, they didn't handle the publicity all that badly. But then it was optioned for film...

If you've had the misfortune of seeing the atrocity that was Philippe Mora's 1982 film of the same name, be assured that what you saw was not, in any way, what Edward Levy actually wrote. (One wag, in a review of the film version of The Beast Within, called it The Script Without. Indeed.) The following description of the novel, if you're unlucky enough to actually remember the movie, will sound completely unfamiliar.

The scene opens in some past time. Say, sixty years ago, but in the rural area where the beginning of the story takes place, it might as well be six hundred years ago. A woman has been trapped in a loveless, arranged marriage with a Christian fundamentalist who makes Pat Robertson look like a godless heathen. A traveling Bible salesman (yes! Really!) shows up at the door, and you've all heard this joke a thousand times. Well, at least until the farmer catches them and chains the Bible salesman in his basement for years, treating him like an animal, until he actually becomes one. Levy sets the two men up against one another, one devolving, the other already devolved. These fifty pages (the fifty, of course, the filmmakers decided to cut out first) are some of the best writing in any eighties horror novel I've read (and I've read hundreds of them).

In any case, after the fundamentalist's death (by natural causes), the beast finally has a chance to escape. Now, we all know he's oversexed, and you know how sailors are after they've been on a ship for a year? Well, this guy's been in the basement a lot longer, and when you've had to eat off the floor (with a rather unsavory menu) for a long time, you tend to lose some of the social graces. Let's just say his escape and subsequent actions are not pretty, but they do produce a son, Michael MacCleary. All well and good. At least, until Michael reaches adolescence and becomes daddy's boy...

The Beast Within was the first novel I read where the setup took longer than the actual action, and I couldn't care less. After that first fifty-page whack to the head, Levy uses Carolyn (Michael's mother)'s pregnancy and Michael's early years solely to build suspense, taking up well over half the book's full length, and he does so wonderfully. By the time you get to Michael's teen years, the book would have to fall off a cliff to be bad. And it never does (certainly not to the "we had a few thousand extra in the special effects budget" way the film does). Levy takes the setup and delivers a climax that, well, let's say if the rest of the book were plausible, the climax would be the most plausible way to resolve things. But you suspended disbelief when you realized the first part of the book was going to be based on a bad joke, right? You should have. If you did, The Beast Within is one of the most rip-roaring horror novel rides you are ever likely to take. Sits on the short shelf, with Russo's Living Things, Trachtman's Disturb Not the Dream, King's Pet Sematary, and a very few other novels as one of the best horror novels of the eighties. It's an old, and very overused, cliché. But really, you don't want to finish this one late on a dark and stormy night. **** ½

I loved THE BEAST WITHIN when I first read it in the early 80's. When I saw that it had been republished, I simply HAD to buy it and EXPERIENCE it all over again. It's WONDERFUL!!! If you enjoy nonstop horror that grabs you and holds you right from the first page, I certainly recommend THE BEAST WITHIN. My further advice is, if you like THE BEAST WITHIN as much as I did, be sure to get CAME A SPIDER (by the same author, Edward Levy). You won't be sorry!

Edward Levy's "The Beast Within" plays out like one of those great old Rod Serling "Twilight Zone" scripts. Levy, once declared to be the "2nd coming of Stephen King", writes in a gripping and visually effective style that brings the reader right down into the action.

The plot revolves around the loveless marriage of a socially backward couple. The ultra-religious husband is totally over-the-top in his beliefs about love, marriage, sex, and the woman's place in the home. His dowdy wife is left without any love or children from her fundamentalist husband. Their lives are turned completely upside down when a travelling salesman seeks their help with his car troubles and ends up bedding the wife. Caught in the act by the husband, the salesman soons finds himself locked in the basement for the rest of his life unless he can find someway to escape. After years of entrapment, the pitiful salesman becomes more beast than human and the book takes off from there.

If you are a fan of intense and violent horror, then you will enjoy "The Beast Within" and Levy's other great work, "Came A Spider". Both are terrific and extremely quick reads.

"The Beast Within" is a truly remarkable book. I recommend reading it because it has a profound meaning behind it, and will get you in touch with the beast within you.

I thought I would read a chapter a night as I had "Came a Spider", but I ended up reading larger segments whenever I could. Still the ending came a little too quickly and without as much explanation as I wish for this book with such great plot and character development. Looking forward to the next.

I read this book over the summer. I found it to be very exciting and I couldnt put it down until I was finished. I dont reccomend it for small children due to content. Sex and violence.
Very good story line -easy to follow,
Great-spooky.

GREAT WORK FROM EDWARD LEVY.......TOO BAD HE DIDNT WRITE MORE[TO MY KNOWLEDGE ONLY THIS AND ''CAME A SPIDER'',WHICH IS NOT AS GOOD].THE ONE FLAW I FIND IN THE BOOK IS THAT THE BEGINNING IS THE MOST POWERFUL PART OF THE BOOK,AND SO THE REST SEEMS BLUNTED BY COMPARISON.......BUT ITS WAY AHEAD OF THE SILLY EARLY EIGHTIES MOVIE OF THE SAME NAME.......YOU SHOULD TRACK DOWN A COPY OF THIS INSTEAD.

I just started reading it several days ago....and already I find it absolutely riveting!! In the late 1920s, Henry Skruggs, a backwoods farmer who was raised his entire life as a religious zealot, believing all men carry evil in their hearts, marries a young unhappy woman. Their marriage is a loveless, joyless one, until one day a young traveling Bible salesmen stops at their home for the night. The wife and the salesmen get caught by the husband in the throes of heated passion....and as a result the farmer chains the young man in his cellar for over 15 years, treating and abusing him like a wild animal until he becomes one!! When Skruggs dies eventually of natural causes, the "animal" finally escapes....and soon attacks and rapes a young married woman. She gives birth to a son...and the terror begins!!! Great visual imagery and amazing character development combine to create a tight, powerfully scary tale. Edward Levy's book has me gripped!! I cant put it down!! Highly recommended.

read this book for the first time in high school. Would dearly love to re-read it. Please deliver a kindle version.

I love both the book and the movie version, even though the movie takes a lot of liberties from the source material, most of the characters are still there.

The book is closer to a werewolf story than the movie is, and I felt great pity for the Connors character due to his horrible mistreatment. I recommend the book to those who have watched the movie or werewolf fans in general.